Page 19 - Art First: Simon Morley: Lost Horizon
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other point of view. A ‘horizon of meaning’ structures and delimits sensations.
is ‘horizon’ surrounds each situation and is the limitation placed on change.
It is what allows us to adopt a perspective, but also what prohibits us from being
open to change. So what does it mean to say that a horizon has been ‘lost’?
It might suggest that we no longer have any ability to believe in the reality of
a per spective—that we are blinded by nihilism or what Nietzsche called ‘perspec -
tivalism’, and so cannot even envisage the possibility of meaning. Or, in contrast,
it might imply that we are no longer restricted by a single horizon, and that we are
free to change—free to embrace the impossible.
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e contemporary Korean Buddhist monk Song Chol writes:
Happiness in this world can be nothing more than fleeting; and
in fact we spend more time being unhappy and dissatisfied than
we do being happy. So the world of the absolute and infinite prom-
ises us eternal happiness and relief from earthly suffering . . . .
is eternal happiness can be achieved only by crossing over to the
world of liberation, the absolute, the infinite.
Buddhism teaches that everyone is in possession of a native Mount Penglai,
Peach Blossom Paradise, Shangri-La, or Mount Analogue because everyone
can cross over to this world of liberation through cleansing the mind or ridding
themselves of delusions. A popular Buddhist metaphor is that of the mirror:
