Preparing The Inner Canvas

8"x8" mixed media on panel (at ArtCraft)

I have been struggling a lot with my art process lately.  It's my koan. I feel like a living example of Ira Glass' quote.

But truly I've been doing this for a long time in one form or another.  Just somehow with some of the reflection on  my mental habits and the energy of my sitting practice, it's become more clear.  Sometimes that makes it more painful.  (Koan # 109 Is shit shittier if you see it more clearly??) But in some ways it feels like something that is becoming larger until it explodes and turns to dust (and or debris) and disappears. Am I just trying to put a good spin on it, all dressed up like Pollyanna with nowhere to go?  Or am I responding to the inherent emptiness in all our thrashings?

Some days the experience of frustration is so intense that I'm thinking, "why am I doing this? I am terrible at it. Why don't I just give up?"  And then I see Mara's shadow and I catch on.  Yes I could throw out all the paint brushes (I had a friend who threw his golf clubs into a lake) but where would I be then. I am chasing something and some days it feels like it's just around the corner.  And some days it's on another planet.

11"x14" mixed media on panel

The judgmental mind causes a lot of grief when we don't see it for what it is.  It's true that critical reasoning can offer helpful information but when thoughts kickstart the destructive emotions into gear and pedal out a long line of unhelpful thoughts and feelings, critical thought is a bitch.

I looked at some lovely photos from a family friend this morning that oozed beauty and serenity.  And as I sat I was reminded of a comment a monk made to me when I asked him about my frustration with my painting process. He said something to the effect that "if you want to paint peace, you need to be peace." And while that makes a lot of sense to me I often end up on the short end of the peace stick.

Visitor at our back door (outside!)

As I sat with all this I was infused with a lovely feeling of tenderness and I thought that's what I want to come out on to the canvas.  I could see in my minds eye how that tenderness would look on the easel.

And so it is the unwinding of this habitual way of being in the world that is our real work, not the painting, not the writing, not whatever it is that we do.  When we can in fact "be" what it is we wish to share with the world, then it will come through us.  Until then we're just preparing the canvas.  And that's good honest work too.

We Are Artists Of Our Own Lives

I woke up this morning with a line in my head that goes, "Sometimes I have breakfast with Mara and I use a long spoon."  I love this line.  It conjures this fabulous picture in my mind of a large bowl and the diner with an extremely long handled spoon gingerly dipping it, while suspiciously eyeing  Mara (the emanation of darkness and temptress of the passions who tested Buddha on the night of his enlightenment) from across the bowl.  The quote belongs to RM Jiyu Kennett, founder of the Soto Zen Order of Buddhist Contemplatives.

What I understand of this quote is that sometimes old karma arises and we have senses or feelings that come to us that leave us scratching our head.  What's that all about, where did that come from. .... especially  if you wake up with some unexplainable feelings that linger, as in the breakfast with Mara scenario.  The practice is of course not to indulge these feelings, nor suppress them. ... easier said than done, but that is the razor's edge we aim for.

One of the interesting things I have heard about karma is that once you stop creating new karma, (by our unskillful actions) old karma can then come up to be cleansed.  As The Humble Yogini mentioned yesterday in a comment on my post,  "Cracked Pots, Mustard Seeds And Suffering", that is one of our functions here on this earthly realm, to cleanse karma.  If you find that a bit far fetched you can always do what my teacher suggests, and put it on the back burner for now.

This morning Mara visited me more as a physical sensation, a slightly churning stomach.  And as I resisted the urge to go with the old "I'm sick" story I could feel the turning.  I could feel strangely cheerful and yet not completely physically well.  I could see the fruits of my training, as it is sometimes called.  I have been a glass half empty kinda gal for most of my life.  My understanding is that's partly karmic package and partly the inclination for all human beings according to brain researcher, Rick Hanson of Wisebrain.org.  But this morning I could see the turning, a feeling that I don't have to do things this way any more.  I can choose to look up instead of down.  It was a blood and bones sensing, not just an understanding it in my head kind of thing.  

And then in this optimistic (egads, Batman!) kind of way I could see some of the other fruits of my training laid out before me like a little tropical feast: my improved relationship with my mother, my partner and daughter, from a willingness to do the necessary work.  A lot of contemplation and courage to say the hard thing  (always in the most helpful way possible and not coming from anger) went into this.  I could see how working with anger (I talk about this in my post "the doorway in") has changed how I relate to the world in general.  And the practice of letting go has helped me see how much of what we cling to is, in the grand scheme, not particularly important.  And the work is on going; as someone once pointed out that's why they call it practice.  We are continually working away on it, refining our lives, like cooks, like alchemists, like artists of our own lives.