Being an Artist in Today's World

Peter Clothier recently wrote a little book called Persist, which consists of a collection of his reflections on being an artist "in a world gone mad with commerce". His reflections are sprinkled with his experience with meditation and how it has influenced his approach to art and writing.

What I like most here is that Peter sees his meditation practice not as way to heal, nor as a way to live life better or more efficiently, but as a way to appreciate life more deeply.

One example: One Hour/One Painting.

First, choose your picture. It should be preferably an original work of art, but it need not be a masterpiece. This is simply about learning to be available to what's there, not about the finer points of aesthetic discrimination. That can come later, if you wish. This is about allowing the eyes to function, in so far as possible, without interference from the thinking process. You can do this in a gallery, too; all you need it to request the favor of a chair or bring your own folding stool.


Begin, as always, with the breath. Close your eyes, place the feet firmly on the ground with the hands laid gently in your lap. Don't be in a rush to open your eyes: if you take a few minutes to get bodily present, adjust to the breath and empty out the mind of its prejudice and expectations, you'll be astounded by the effect when you open them up to see the painting. It can be as breathtaking as I imagine it would be to step out onto the surface of a newly discovered planet.


From now on, the process will be to simply walk around the surface of the painting. Find a focal point, if that is helpful, and work out from there. Or work from the edges, one at a time, toward the center, simply allowing the eyes to take in what's there. No questions. No commentary. From time to time, allow the eyes to close gently and to rest and refresh for as long as feels comfortable — perhaps until they get hungry again. then feed them. Better if they are greedy!


Keep reminding yourself, when the mind begins to wander, to return the attention to the breath. It's the mind that will keep wanting to ask the questions, or answer them: What in God's name am I doing here, wasting an hour when I could be really working? How is this artist using color, or form, or pattern — and what is he trying to say? And so on. Ignore it. Get back to the breath. Allow the eyes to do the work. Notice how their small muscles change direction and focus.


It's simple but not easy to do if you are not accustomed to sitting for an hour in silence. 

Simple, but not easy.

As you read these pages, it's easy to feel that Peter is in the room talking with you — with you, not to you — in a warm gentle cadence in which the conversation unfolds not as a set of polemics, but his experience and thoughts about art, poetry, and writing, about meeting the creative challenge as captured in Duane Michals' line "While I am not afraid...", working from the hurt or difficult places as in Rumi's "Keep your eye on the bandaged place", or about not being a critic but one who translates, taking a painting or a poem, and expressing it in another medium. His skill with this last is something with which I have personal experience: his review of An Arrow to the Heart shows that he understood exactly what I hoped the book would do for people.

By the end, whether you are a writer, a painter, or one who enjoys art, you feel you have been invited into a different way of appreciating and approaching art, and, possibly, life.

Second Life take 2

For those of you interested in viewing my talk in Second Life, you can watch it here on YouTube.

One of the key questions that arises for me is "How does the visual interface in Second Life affect interaction?" My initial feeling was that it adds a layer and increases the probability of confusion and that Skype, or even phone, despite the limitations, is more direct. The experience of others seems to be different. One person describes how he or she finds the visual interface better than the floating video head that one has in Skype or the disembodied voice over the phone.

This observation set me to thinking. Even though one has set up an avatar and one is meeting with another avatar, the visual interface and the action of two people meeting for a conversation has a potential for ritual that would be more difficult to create in Skype. For formal interviews, as in the Zen tradition, the Second Life setting may actually be richer.

Two other observations may be relevant.

In one session of the teacher development program I have just completed, I had the participants create masks and explore the difference between teaching (and interacting as a student) while wearing a mask and teaching and interacting while not wearing a mask. People's experience varied widely. Some simply couldn't teach if the student was wearing a mask. Others could. Some taught more naturally while wearing a mask. Others taught more naturally when they were not wearing a mask. In our discussion afterwards, I noted that in formal teaching situations in some traditions everyone is "wearing a mask". And, in some sense, we are always wearing a mask. From this perspective, the avatars are a form of mask and may enhance interaction for some just as the inhibit it for others.

Second, given how the human organism depends on visual and physical cues, many of them subliminal, the quality of communication deteriorates when those cues are not present. I certainly find this with phone conversations, and though I can tune into subtleties in voice and the general energy, I still feel that I'm missing a lot. This was confirmed by my interaction with one student. When I met with her in person, I was usually pretty accurate in my responses to her questions. But when we conversed over the phone, which was usually the case, I often found myself guessing as I was missing all the usual cues. She also noticed that my responses weren't as accurate over the phone.

Now, the physical cues supplied by an avatar bear only the most rudimentary correlation (if that) with the person's emotional state, but I'm wondering if the visual image itself facilitates a fuller interaction on levels that are hard to recognize or identify.

A final point. When two people converse, communication takes place not only at the verbal level, but also at the emotional level, as each is continually sensing and responding (or reacting) to the emotional energy in the other and in themselves. How does the Second Life interface affect the ability to sense emotional energy? Does the visual interface mislead or enhance the interaction?

Idle thoughts on Christmas Eve. Have a lovely holiday!

Second Life

What was it like, to teach the Dharma in Second Life?

That question has been posed to me quite a few times, since Adam Tebbe, founder of Kannonji Zen Retreat in Second Life invited me to teach there on Dec. 16, 2009.

A week before the date, Adam introduced me to Second Life, created an avatar for me, and taught me how to sit down, strike the gong, and other basic movements. I was struck by the tasteful design of the temple. Clearly, care and attention had gone into creating this alternative reality.

At the appointed hour, I came into the temple, more or less materializing à la Star Trek, into a throng of about 30 people (there are 1300 in this particular community). Everyone, except me, had their audio muted to avoid what would otherwise have been a cacophony of feedback. For the first few minutes, I had the same feeling I had when I did a tele-teaching with Tricycle, about three years ago: the disorientation that arises in the absolute absence of any sense of being with other people. I moved to interaction as quickly as possible, to have some sense of who was present (hmmm, interesting context in which to use that word). Responses to my questions came back through instant messages, but the messages scrolled by a little too quickly. This was a small problem, but it did inhibit my ability to respond to all the questions and comments.

During the actual teaching, it quickly became clear that, to judge from the questions and responses, some of the people "present" had a good level of experience. I did my best in my comments and approach to meet them, yet one can't read much in terms of body language or emotional energy from (or through) an avatar, and I could only guess at how to respond.

In comparing Second Life to other online teaching I've done, Second Life, for me, is a bit thin for two reasons: the setting seems to add an additional layer of separation, the appearance of speaking to a group of people sitting, and the interaction is limited to speaking and responding to comments and questions.

I've used a couple of online classrooms (wimb and dimdim). While they don't provide a visual scene as Second Life does, they do allow people to see a video of me, and, in addition to the voice and IM communication in Second Life, I have the use of a whiteboard, slideshow, screen-sharing, and web links to enrich the interaction.

Of course, Second Life provides a completely different experience and was not designed as an interface for teaching, so the comparison may seem unfair. But I was there to teach and that was what I was trying to do.

Having said all this, I was impressed and intrigued by the size of the group, the level of interest, the level of experience, and, not least, the ability to make it sustainable financially, all of which says that something is happening here (but I'm not sure what it is).

Goldilocks and the Middle Way

Not too hot, not too cold. Not too hard, not too soft. Goldilocks finds that the baby bear’s porridge and bed are “just right” for her.

A few months ago, a friend or a student (and I really can’t remember who) pointed out that most people practice the middle way in the same way. They try to find the path that is the most comfortable, or, failing that, the least uncomfortable. This is how children approach life.

The middle way is not a comfort seeking approach to life. It is a way to open to everything we experience, a way to address imbalances as they arise moment by moment. The key is found in its definition: not to fall into an extreme.

Life is full of polarities: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, fame and obscurity, respect and disdain. Whenever we pursue the “positive” pole, we set in motion forces, internally and externally, that inevitably bring about the opposite pole.

If we look to find comfort in each moment, we end up going to sleep when we find it and then being woken up and chased by changing circumstances, just as Goldilocks was chased away by the three bears.

This illustration came from Steedman, Amy. Nursery Tales. Paul Woodroffe, illustrator. London: TC & EC Jack, n.d.

For a history of the story of Goldilocks, see this article in Wikipedia.

where the rubber meets the road

Over the last two years, I’ve been meeting three times a year with a group of twelve people, focusing on some of the deeper aspects of practice and teaching. This group, like most of the groups I’ve worked with, has presented me with a consistent challenge: passivity. (For more on passivity, click here.)

Role-playing is a good tool to develop people’s capacity and to put them in touch with their internal material. It’s challenging. It’s revealing. And, yes, it can be frightening, but to be present in fear is a good way to build capacity.

With this group, when I asked for volunteers for a role-play, there was always an awkward silence. Sometimes one or two people would reluctantly step forward, but usually, I ended up picking a couple of people. The air was thick with resistance and discomfort. Once into the exercise, people usually appreciated how helpful it was, but the passivity continued.

At our meeting in June this year, however, something happened that made all the difference.

After lunch one day, when we met for our afternoon session, I again asked for a couple of volunteers. Instead of the awkward silence, every hand shot up! It took me a moment to adjust. This was a completely different situation — or was it?

In one sense, nothing had changed: I still had to pick a couple of people for the exercise. In another sense, everything had changed: I could now focus on picking people who would benefit most from the exercise or who could demonstrate the points I was trying to convey. I no longer had to be concerned about pushing people against their will.

What had happened? Apparently, over lunch, the group had decided that they were fed up with my constant pushing and organized a conspiracy. Everyone had agreed to step forward whenever I asked for volunteers.

The shift in energy was dramatic. The air almost sparkled with the energy of engagement. Most important, we were all able to work at a much deeper level.

The same dynamic applies in other settings. Two or three times a month, I lead Sutra Sessions, at Against the Stream and Insight LA here in Los Angeles. More than the meditation period, the Q&A that follows is where the real learning takes place. The few people who pose questions are not being passive. They are presenting their questions, challenges, or insights, and inviting a response. We go back and forth until they are clear in their experience. The interaction is two-way, not one-way, and this two-way interaction is crucial if one is to deepen practice and make it a way of life.

Most teaching situations are one-way interactions. A person listens to a talk, reads a book, or plays a podcast or other recording. However beneficial a person may feel the talk or the book is, the flow is one-way and it is difficult to say what, if anything, has actually been learnt.

In the two-way interaction, both teacher and student find out very quickly what they know. Does the student stand in his or her own experience and give expression to their understanding? Does the teacher respond to the student without concern for position, identity, status, role or other forms of protection? Is there a meeting of minds? And what happens then?

This two-way interaction is challenging for both parties. Neither one knows where things are going to go. It can be uncomfortable, even frightening, but when minds meet, understanding arises, and with it, a subtle joy. This is where the rubber meets the road — where our practice comes alive and active in our lives.

rules for the road

I know I can be deceived by patterns. I can feel that what I'm seeing is true and what I'm doing is fair and just, and still be completely wrong. Perception is always limited, by conditioning, by patterns, by circumstances. I cannot know what is beyond and yet, often, I have to act.

Consequently, I've evolved a few principles to help me in such situations. I won't claim that they are exhaustive or comprehensive, but they seem to work pretty well most of the time.

It's never about fairness or justice.
As I said in a previous post, I've consistently found that any clinging to notions of fairness or justice is a way of avoiding some aspect of the situation I don't want to acknowledge. I now take such clinging as an indication that I haven't penetrated my own confusion and projection. Eventually, I come across a pain or a hurt that tells me why a person acted as he or she did, or why a person can't go to a place that I think he or she should.

Equanimity does not mean fairness.

To practice equanimity is to understand that everything everybody ever does — I repeat, everything everybody ever does — is because at that moment, he or she feels that their action will improve their world. In other words he or she is just trying to be happy. The actions may be, and often are, tragically, catastrophically self-defeating, but that is the motivation at the moment of action. Equanimity, then, is a profound acceptance of each person's humanity. Fairness may be the result of equanimity, but it's not the practice of equanimity.

Whatever is there is there, calmly licking its chops.
When I encounter a powerful, overwhelming, painful or massively unpleasant (or pleasant) feeling, it's there and there is nothing I can do about it except experience it. I sit in it using bare attention, do taking and sending with it to form a relation with it, or mix the feeling with awareness — whatever I'm capable of. In all these, the aim is not sitting with the feeling, but sitting in the feeling. There's a difference.

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
— H. L. Mencken

Go to the body.
When there are feelings of injustice or lack of fairness, stories abound. When there are feelings of being misunderstood or unappreciated, stories abound. The stories are almost always projections, and are, by and large, unreliable. Engagement is fruitless: one inevitably gets lost in them. I go to the body, and sit in whatever physical sensations are there, including the sensation of no sensation.

Not feeling anything is a sensation.
This may seem like a paradox, but not being able to feel your body is a sensation, and often quite a vivid one at that. It usually indicates that one is in some kind of shock. I sit in that experience, too.

Let the sun shine.
A simile I've found helpful is that the feeling at the core of a pattern is like a flower bud and one's attention is like the sun. Let the sun warm the bud, and the flower will open in time. You can't hurry the process. To force the bud to open damages things beyond repair. When an issue is up, I work with it regularly and consistently, but I don't try to work through it in one session or in a limited period of time. In fact, I don't even try to work through it at all. If it's there, that's where I sit. If it's not, then I don't go looking for it.

(If decisions have to be made, I make them, cognizant that they may not be the right ones, and cognizant, too, that I will have to receive the results, whatever they are.)

When you feel resolved, look to the stars.
In astronomy, any observation or theory that places the earth in a privileged position indicates a mistake in the data, the method of observation, or the interpretation of the data. Any resolution of the issue that leaves you in a privileged position (the usual ones are hero or victim) is suspect. These are identities, and are pretty reliable indications that the "resolution" is serving some unacknowledged agenda.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings.
The origin of this phrase isn't clear. I remember it from one Salinger's novels, but Wikipedia suggests it came from a sports writer in the '70s. The singer here is an internal admission or allowing of a weakness, a hurt, a prejudice, or an ignoring, that you haven't acknowledged before. It comes with its own set of body sensations, emotions, and stories. In other words, you are back in the mess, or another mess, and all the previous principles apply. How many arias or choruses will she sing? No one knows. That's part of the mystery.

Fairness and Justice

In societies in which there is one overarching world view, fairness and justice are complex issues. Interpretations of the law, in Judaism, always include the minority opinion, a way of saying that fairness and justice are contingent, not absolute, principles.

In a society in which there is multiplicity of perspectives and world views, different views compete and fairness and justice can become functions of power.

Spiritual practice goes nowhere if it follows this path. Everything gets lost in interpretation, conceptual thinking, unacknowledged prejudice and bias, etc.

In spiritual practice, we have to dispense completely with appeals to justice and fairness, precisely because they are open to interpretation and dependent on position. And if we claim access to a higher truth, we are, in effect, claiming the power and the right to decide for others.

Aside: I dislike and avoid the notion that spiritual truth is a higher truth, in terms of society and the world, etc. Spiritual practice is based on a principles that run counter to many principles of society. To claim that spiritual practice is a "higher truth" is another form of prejudice. Instead, I have to acknowledge that the principles on which I base my decisions are different from the principles that a person in a social context may base his or her decisions.

I now rarely try to persuade people to adopt a specific perspective, Buddhist or otherwise. Rather, I seek to help them find what is true for them in the world they experience. As we explore this together, appeals to justice or fairness are almost always stories that hide or protect unacknowledged hurts or pains. As they open to those pains, people frequently find clarity on their own and know what to do, not because it is "fair" or "just" or "right" (these are, in the end, somewhat childish motivations), but because, when everything, inside and out, is included in awareness, often only one course of action is indicated — the direction of the present, to use Uchiyama's phrase.

In other words, the illusion of choice is an indication of a lack of freedom.