Both Eastern and Western traditions consider sight the basis and origin of all knowledge: the eye is the centre of man. From here Mormorio reflects on the relationship between the practice of meditation and the exercise of photographing. If, as the Zen masters say, "to meditate is to see things as they are", then the camera, an extension of sight, can penetrate further into appearances and become a truly meditative eye. He retraces the history of looking in art, shows traces of a possible Zen conception of photographic language in great authors of our time, and suggests practices and techniques for living photography as a mental and spiritual exercise. "The aim of those who practise photography as meditation is to learn to look and to find in observation the greatest school of life."