Intention, Meditation & Art

I have been thinking about art a lot lately (in a prelude to diving in). I am still in holiday/ visiting mode (my daughter is here until Tuesday) and boxes are finally unpacking themselves in a realization that this is home. I am still in the getting settled mode and the artists making up excuses mode. But there you have it. I have this terrible linear bend to me (can you be linear and bent at the same time? I smell a koan). I like to create order. Renos done, now boxes need unpacking and another layer of uncluttering is taking place. I find myself asking "I packed this because?" The heart breathes a little sigh at this sense of "doing the next thing that needs to be done."

But all the while I have been thinking about authentic voice and how to explore it in the studio. In my post of Dec 28th I talked about hearing the call to authentic voice and seeing this as the new year's most important work. My past methods of approaching authentic self in my art usually involved struggle and frustration and a lot of self judgement. It is my intention to try another tack (even though I am not a sailor) I will lean into the winds of more open exploration and play this year and see where that takes me. Intention, I hear tell is an important word.

A while back I picked up a second hand copy of "True perception, The Path of Dharma Art" by Chogyam Trungpa. I started wandering through its pages and wanted to share a quote that seemed helpful as I begin the new year and new mind habits of approaching my art. Here's what he has to say:

"When we talk about art, we are talking about a form of some kind that we could work on. So it is like the practice of meditation. But what is that form, and how does meditation go along with it?.... Absolutely nobody can become a good craftsman or a good artist without relating with the practice of meditation.... I'm talking about the sitting practice of meditation.... But what do we mean by the sitting practice of meditation? For instance, Beethoven, El Greco, or my most favorite person in music, Mozart -- I think they all sat. They actually sat in the sense that their minds became blank before they did what they were doing. Otherwise they couldn't possibly do it. Just coming out of the market and plopping down at the dining-room table and writing a play -- that's impossible. Some kind of mind-less-ness in the Buddhist sense has to take place. From that basic ground, the sense of being, openness, or isness begins to develop."

Chogyam Trungpa

So there it is kids, Beethoven didn't come running in from the market and plop himself down and write the moonlight sonata. So we won't be wandering in straight from Costco or Patterson's Grocery or the laundry room and expecting to make contact with that energy that taps into both our own deepest selves and the collective voice that's out there for us to draw on. It takes a sacred, contemplative, nurturing approach, an approach that listens to our own crazy stirrings. So I invite you to join me. Find your space, the ratty old sweater you love and just sink into that Mozart space.

Strong Back, Soft Heart

Here's a second study of the "rainbow buddha". I did an earlier one that sold and then because I am always exploring the face of the Buddha and I love these colours I did another one, using more shading and detailing, especially around the eyes. George Littlechild is a painter I love and in a strange way I feel a connection through my colourful Buddhas . This Buddha has a very "female" look as do a number of my Buddha's. Maybe it's time do do a Tara as one friend keeps urging me or a Quan Yin as another suggests.

Yesterday as I sat in meditation I heard some words that I remember hearing 20 years ago at the Shambhala Centre I attended then. I believe they are attributed to Chogyam Trungpa: "Have a strong back and a soft heart" I may be off in the exact words and the trusty, know-it-all "google" couldn't find them for me. But they seem important to me in my practice lately.

If all we have is a soft heart (which is kind of my inclination) we tend to be weighted down by the troubles of the world, our own and that of others. The sadness and the suffering pile up and we feel overwhelmed. I remember when I first went to the Dharma talks of my teacher it seemed all I could see was the suffering around me. I felt like an open wound, oozing and raw. But a soft heart is an important part of the practice, to be open to the suffering and pain of others (and ourselves) to be willing to walk into it, to be with it, not pushing it away and saying everything is copacetic.

And yet this is not the whole picture (as I sensed in my overwhelmed state) As a senior teacher at the Shambhala Centre suggested, yes we need to have a soft heart, to let the world in, to let it touch us but we need to have a strong back to bear it all. We need to find a way to hold that suffering and not collapse or push it away. It is about this balance, this blend of soft and strong, and I like that it is described with the body. I see this picture of me with my soft heart being pulled forward and rolling up into a tiny ball. That's too much soft heart. And if you only have a strong back, perhaps your body is pulled so straight up, so tightly, that things simply bounce off your heart and can't enter there?

And for those of us with soft hearts, how do we develop the strong back? I am not sure about that? I am working on it. Our training helps us develop wisdom and clarity that allows us to see the truth of situations. To me that means that it is not always the "soft, kind, fuzzy" action that is helpful in a particular instance. As in the story I told of my friend repeating her problem over and over I have come to realize it is not helpful for either of us to let this go on. I need to have a strong back and in as kind and skillful way as possible not indulge delusion.

I need to have the strength to do the hard thing. I need to trust that the universe is unfolding as it should. If something seems horrific to me I can remember as my friend the monk says, "that something greater is working itself out" that is beyond my understanding. It doesn't mean I give up action and caring, it means using my strong back allows me to lift and hold a weight that would otherwise oppress my soft heart and render me "unhelpful" to myself and others.

And my wish for you is, may you go out into the world with your strong back and your soft heart and embrace what the world has to offer you.

Refining Our Lives

I have reinvented "Bubblegum Buddha". In her first incarnation she had no face or detailing. She was simply an ethereal emanation of a Buddha. I liked her then and I like her now. She has been a resident in my studio for a while and lately I have been reinventing, retouching, adding to some older paintings.

Isn't this a lot like what we do to ourselves? Isn't that the refining our practice, taking the base metal of ourselves and turning it to something precious that shines? As time goes on things call out for attention and/or change and we attend to them as seems appropriate. Not that we are always wiser, but if we pay attention and do the best we can, that's all life really asks for I think. The older faceless Buddha seemed clumsier, this one more delicate and detailed.

So it feels like some stage of life, some point on the path where I am pausing to look back and adjust the work I had previously done. I feel a little more skillful in adding the detail to my paintings. And this seems to be the result that "confidence comes with doing, with practice." The more I paint, the clearer it becomes what needs some tweeking in previous work. So in life. Perhaps the eye becomes clearer, the hand more skillful?

I think I can carry over this lesson into other parts of my life. It reminds me that in Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book, "Outliers" he talks about the 10,000 hour rule. Basically that's how long it takes to develop competency at any craft or activity.

The Dharma lesson that has been arriving at my doorstep recently has to do with my relation to others, mainly friends and neighbours. I have noticed myself becoming irritated in several instances lately and wondering "why can't I be more understanding, more compassionate". As we get ready to put our house on the market I feel irritated at the new tenant next door who has filled the front yard with large plastic toys and hangs towels and mats up and down the stair railing close to our windows. A friend tells me a story that's troubling her over and over again, in great detail. In my mind I know it is my self centred view that makes me feel irritated in these situations. I am thinking about me and mine. I am not thinking about them. I see myself as the centre of the universe and it causes me to suffer.

I am clear that it is not helpful for me or my friend to hear the same story of her problem over and over. I recognize her agitated telling of her story as a fine example of what our minds do. I listen and empathize for a bit and offer the suggestions that most of where we go is speculation and not so helpful. We move on to other subjects. I also realize that I need to hold the neighbours in some space in my heart other than "annoyance" and so I work with this. Only then will I be open to a possible solution to the problem.

So while these things may seem small and petty they are the heart of the Dharma practice for me. ....Working with what comes to you. Working with these small things I chip away at my habitual tendencies and work to free myself from another layer of greed, hate and delusion. The following quote by Chogyam Trungpa seems particularly apt for me this week: "Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy."

nger regard people as a drain on your energy.”