Poetry Analysis of Third Eye by Bei Dao Essay

Introduction

He Opens Wide the Third Eye by Bei Dao in his written work Old Snow, is a narrative of one man's life and his epiphany on society as life and death would influence it. Bei Dao shows a man looking through a third eye or inner eye view, a very mystical and spiritual way to look at life that only the most enlightened peoples have been able to observe.

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Plot Analysis of Third Eye by Bei Dao

The poem by Bei Dao starts off with a man opening wide his third eye, showing that finally this man has achieved enlightenment by spiritual guidance or by another catalyst of sorts and shows that he is now disconnected from the world and is in his own mind to see what the world has to tell him and really offer. In the first lines of the poem, Dao states a star above his head (Dao 325) has appeared and a man opens wide a third eye (Dao 325). The star above the man's head is his third eye, an untypical way to see the world in which he lives, and he sees this light or third eye due to the process in which he opened it.

This star can be a warming feeling or it is due to a bright light that he sees in which his spiritual journey has begun. Dao goes on to paint a vivid picture of warm currents from both east and west (Dao 325) that have formed an archway (Dao 325) these currents show that the man experiencing this spiritual enlightenment has a view of all premonitions of life and his ideas have formed this archway that has emerged. The archway is very symbolic it can be the man's morals to life and the currents from east to west, are morals of the outside world that don't influence him but now have.

Due to this vision the man is now debating on how to view the world there is a fire brewing inside the man, good or evil he cannot choose, he sits there in remorse and now sees a future that he cannot escape. While he contemplates these new morals in which to live he can now see an alternate route an expressway that passes through the setting sun (Dao 325) this will lead him to, something, which may be his final destination and resting place. Yet, all these new visions are scary for he doesn't know where it leads him but at the same time is very intriguing.

The road through the setting sun is beautiful, hot, blinding, and spacy for he doesn't know if this route will lead him to death, new land, or new life, but he starts to connect more with the earth and begins to feel oneness with his life. This new world will make you die, and the man knows this. There is so much pressure on him to do what is right and to move mountains just as the camel does before it collapses into the setting sun and becomes a skeleton. The camel is a lot like the man, taking a journey through strange passages of mountain peaks by himself to get to a new land.

But to follow this path, in the end, will lead to intimate death, not the camel nor the man have any idea of this happening but for a strange reason are happy to travel this path. The camel and the man see this path and gladly take the responsibility to march over it, even when they think they are still moving along they have been dead for so long. So much so that the camel has turned into a skeleton, all flesh has been ripped off its body and turned into energy or other sorts for scavengers or even the very soil they walked on before knowing.

This feeling of oneness is still a part of the man and camel, for all the energy they have taken from the earth for their lives that has sustained them is now being returned back. Before you die you are a part of the earth and now the earth starts to become a part of them. Turned into a layer of coal (Dao 325) the camel is now a usable source of transportation as he was for many a man while he was living his duties to humankind pass on with him from life to death. All the energy used as a living animal is now being returned as coal. Which shows that the connection to earth is strong and real.

This is the end of the first stanza of the poem He Opens Wide the Third Eye by Bei Dao. Dao doesn't just simply end the poem here there are still many unanswered questions to the man's life and in which direction it is headed. At the start of stanza two, the man is now thinking heavily about his life and does not know where his spiritual journey will take him, yet he sits calm and contemplates the theory of his life. Now underwater, once again in a new surrounding the man sees a new outlook on life but still has no idea in which direction or mindset in which he will take it.

Analysis of Main Character's Feelings

Calm, stable, and fully submerged in the water he sits and waits to see a new light. He controls his feelings and is now open to all aspects of life, not knowing where to turn he looks forward as a dark cloud approaches him a school of fish. The fish are looking at him and confused by an outside influence. We can view the school of fish as people on earth and the man sitting in the water as their surroundings and how he will now influence them. The fish seem to be so flustered by something new and alien life that they don't know how to activate its an obstacle in the way of their path yet none of them know where to turn.

Looking around the man see a flashing light above him, a golden coffin of freedom an easy way out. Even though he is stuck under the water, or stuck on earth he sees this as a prison, his life is locked up forever in his own flesh, skin, and bones. Taking in more of his surroundings the man sees people standing idly behind a giant rock as if they are of great importance and have been watching him the whole time. This giant rock and the people he sees can be viewed as living in the world, the city he lives and the people that are important to his life.

Should he stay with them and live as he was or now take these new influences of life and live as he should or die and go to the golden coffin, die, earlier than expected. As he takes in his surroundings the people are still staring, judging his every move and every move he made in his life. They are judging to see if he will make the right choice, to see if he has made the right choices before and to see if he is truly able to be a part of the Emperor's memory (heaven). In the last line of the poem, Dao states a very powerful line the exile of words has begun (Dao 326).

There is no more talking, no more waiting it's done or die from here on out. The man starts to awaken from his spiritual journey as he got full intentions of where his life was heading if he kept living the way he was. Yet he can't explain what has happened to him, lost in words he now sees life in a new light. And now the greatest conflict has occurred, will he change his life and do good by being his own being and follow the new path through the setting sun or will he be affected by outside influence and sit idly by as the people behind the rock and do as society tells him.

What is He Opens Wide the Third Eye About?

This poem is about great strife in one man's life and shows how one single outlook or journey can change one man's perspective to start to live differently. But who is the man? What is the journey he just took? What theories or morals did he take from this great extensive spiritual journey? Is it really for a better cause or not? How will the outcome, if he changes his life, be any different from the old path the man took? For one to observe life through their third eye they must spend years meditating and opening their chakras this could take a lifetime and still is not unanimously possible to achieve.

For this man, maybe it is Bei Dao himself that has achieved this enlightenment, showing he is a very spiritual man and already sees life as something so abstract for the rest of the words people even without using his third eye. To see through this third eye and to comprehend what you or one is seeing, we must first open our minds to a broader aspect of the world and see beyond materialism, societies pressure on its people, and block out all worldly possession and distractions to fully understand and view what one is saying. Yet another, abstract, way to view through this third eye is one of high risk, low reward, and very out there.

One can say you can open your third eye by a spiritual psychedelic experience by taking a predetermined amount of doses of Magic Mushrooms, Lysergic Acid diethylamide (LSD), Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), or Ayahuasca (a leaf from the amazon used in tea that is a very highly potent psychedelic experience) all of which are highly more potent than the next and can give a human being major visions, sights and sounds to show you the real world, or the world of the third eye and what it is truly about, to show you how your life is being lived and how it impacts others or others can impact you.

Conclusion

All these methods of enlightenment are still used today in cultures with a high priest or shaman in one's hierarchy. For them to reach such enlightenment and to open their third eye using one of these catalysts to boost the enlightenment path is greatly smiled upon and used in day-to-day life. For one to reach such enlightenment and have these outlooks on life is to be a man of great respect, honor, courage, discipline and considered a special person for a simple man could not handle the truths that he sees.

Was the journey that Bei Dao or an anonymous man had really that significant? Was this man a high-ranking priest in his village and his visions show a new world order to which his people have to conform to? Or is it one man's spiritual psychedelic experience that has no meaning towards life and is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to screw with his mind? Does the third eye really exist and if it does, is it an intelligent path to follow or just another way to live? No one can really explain until we take the right of passage ourselves and live out the life we are intended for.