The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity

by Norman Doidge

First, Namgyal Rinpoche told him to “meditate on the color blue-black for a few hours a day. It is the color of the midnight sky, the only color that will totally and completely relax the muscles of the eyes, that is the most important thing. In the past, this method had healed even shattered eyes. Try lying on your back with your feet flat on the floor, knees pointed to the ceiling, with your hands resting quietly on your belly.” This posture would reduce tension in the lower back and in the neck and would also allow for less restricted breathing. While doing this meditation, Webber could put his palms on his eyes to further relax them. But the emphasis of this visualization meditation was to achieve “a quiet, spacious-feeling state of mind,” said Webber. Second, Namgyal Rinpoche told him to “move the eyes up, down, left, and right, and around in circles, as well as on diagonals.” Third, he said he must “blink frequently.” And fourth, he said, “Sun your eyes. Sit at a forty-five-degree angle to the sun, in morning or later afternoon when the sun is lower in the sky, eyes closed, to let the warmth and light penetrate through all the eye tissues, like taking a warm bath for the eyes, ten to twenty minutes a day.”