Zendots To Zen Squares

If I'm Zen Dot Studio then what happens when I paint squares? Is that a koan? Are these Zen Squares? And what is Zen Squared? Is that a math-ematical equation? Would Einstein know the answer?

We've all said "shit happens" or am I leaping into the realm of giant assumptions? But sometimes fun things happen too! This little painting happened the other day in the studio. I say this because in truth that's how it is sometimes. Things emerge from somewhere and you recognize them as something to work with rather than something to line the bin with. When work goes well I never really feel like " I did it". I am often as surprised as anyone at the end result! Look what fell off the easel. Where'd that come from?

I don't know if you can see but I cut little squares of words out to add in. Come on in for a closer look. Little words like meditation and happiness, and self and faith and see and kindness and few more. Something about it made me think "encaustic" and because I don't work in that medium I decided to do a little kamikaze encaustic. I melted some beeswax and applied it to the surface. I used an embossing heat gun to smooth out the wax and called it done! For me there's a retro feel about it all but also a feel of film stock and pixels. These little squares are just jumping around. Also there is a sense of the ethereal, of mystery and foreigness too, maybe French. Someone on one of the art blogs was talking about getting sound or taste relating to colour, for me it's just feeling.

And where is the Dharma for me in all of this? I am really relishing taking back my studio from the clean state of ever preparedness for the real estate market. And two observations come to mind. After a long period of not much studio time I seem to have more creative energy. It's like it was a dormant, underground period that was helpful. It wasn't like, oh I haven't been working, now I'm stiff and arthritic and I need time to limber up. Quite the opposite.

And that is the mystery I think. We never know what will happen. It is about relinquishing expectations and control and just being with what is. And well tomorrow who knows what? Maybe everything will come up black smears and brown lumps. Where I do have choice is in how I view it. Barry over at the Ox Herding Blog once said something that really struck me, "we're always saying things like "expect the best but be prepared for the worst." Why don't we prepare for the best?" he suggested. Something about that reminded me of a saying my Zen teacher has:"look up".

From a lot of the reading I've done on the human mind, it seems we're a hard wired to "look down" or at least behind us to see what's chasing us. It takes a conscious effort, a turning of the mind (at least for me) to expect the best and look up. It's subtle and it's something I find I need to be constantly vigilant about. That old monkey mind is a busy little customer, that often likes to fling you-know-what at anyone who might decide to enter the temple. And if we know that's what monkeys do, well then we don't have to get too excited about it. We just use whatever skillful means we know to send them on their way. Or maybe we just enter by a different door? Happy monkey hunting. And be careful, I hear they have been known to bite.

Is Life Puzzling?

Life Can Be Puzzling

Original Mixed Media on Matte Board

8"x 8" black matte

window opening 3.75" x 4.4"

$25 includes free shipping in North America

This little mixed media piece is asking a question.  It's asking what puzzles you?  Today, yesterday, on an ongoing basis.  Where are the puzzling bits in your life?  We all have them.  Sometimes they are like those giant 1000 piece puzzles with blue sky and ocean and reflections that drive us mad.   Solutions elude us, questions follow us around. 

There is so much we can't understand with our rational minds, so much that we find puzzling.  We spend a lot of time trying to label and categorize and get things under our control.  We think if only I could understand this, everything would be okay.  We mostly have a hard time just being, letting go of the need to understand with our minds.  I am reminded of the simple state that requires no more of me than just knowing how to be, by the poet and Zen master Ryokan, when he says, "Sometimes the moon and I sit together all night."   In that state I can give up the puzzle and the questions.

And if we want to talk puzzles there is the Zen puzzle, the koan.  They are always there if we're willing to see. My favourite kind of koans are the ones that appear in everyday life; situations or problems that comes to greet us again and again. They are the things we can't quite negotiate; what angers us, defeats us, what makes us crazy. Here's a little koan I have worked with over the years.  It involves a relative (let's give her a yellow no-name label). No matter how much I try, she has the uncanny knack of dragging me into some petty squabble or irritated retort.  Each time I swear I am not going to bite but every time she manages to get me to have a little nibble on the hook.  I avoid the hook I swallowed at the previous fishing event but she always has a new one, barbed and waiting for the foolish, prideful, annoyed part of me.  This is a cross word puzzle (I couldn't resist!).

Our personal life puzzles mostly resist our logic and will.  They balk at all the muscle we apply to "make things happen".  At some point we usually realize we we may even give up.  But eventually in time if we keep the puzzle in mind, the answer makes itself clear; maybe in a dream or in the shower or when we're sitting in meditation or driving to the hardware store.  The solution comes from that deep, mysterious inner place, a place so vast and deep and unfathomable it makes our logical mind look like a children's plastic swimming pool.  Now that's puzzling, don't you think?