The Celestial Way

"So it is said, the life of the sage follows the celestial way, and in death he dissolves and merges with all things. In stillness he is at one with the virtue of yin; in movement he flows with yang. He does not bring fortune and does not cause misfortune. He only responds when external circumstances call for it. He only acts when pushed. He only rises up when there is no other alternative. He throws away the whys and wherefores, and follows the celestial way. Therefore, he does not meet with disaster. Nor is he burdened by material things. He is not slandered by people nor punished by the spirits. He floats with life and rests with death. He does not worry and does not scheme. He is like light that does not dazzle. Completely trustworthy, he does not need to make promises. His sleep is dreamless and his waking hours are free from worry. His spirit is pure and his soul is not tired. In emptiness, nothingness, and simplicity, he is in harmony with the celestial way."

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 B.C. - c.286 B.C.)
Translation in Teachings of the Tao by Eva Wong

The Sage's Heart-Mind Mirror

"It is its own source, its own root. Before Heaven and earth existed it was there, firm from ancient times. It gave spirituality to the spirits of God; it gave birth to Heaven and to earth. It exists beyond the highest point, and yet you cannot call it lofty; it exists beneath the limit of the six directions, and yet you cannot call it deep. It was born before Heaven and earth, and yet you cannot say it has been there for long; it is earlier than the earliest of time, and yet you cannot call it old.

...

The sage is still not because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind - that is the reason he is still. Water that is still gives back a clear image of beard and eyebrows; reposing in the water level, it offers a measure to the great carpenter. And if water in stillness possesses such clarity, how much more must pure spirit. The sage's heart-mind in stillness is the mirror of Heaven and earth, the glass of the ten thousand things."

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 B.C. - c.286 B.C.)

Forget About Words

"A fish-trap is for catching fish;
once you've caught the fish,
you can forget about the trap.
A rabbit-snare is for catching rabbits;
once you've caught the rabbit,
you can forget about the snare.
Words are for catching ideas;
once you've caught the idea,
you can forget about the words.
Where can I find a person who
knows how to forget about words
so that I can have a few
words with them?"

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 B.C. - c.286 B.C.)
The Essential Writings

The Heavenly Gate

"It comes out from no source, it goes back in through no aperture. It has reality yet no place where it resides; it has duration yet no beginning or end. Something emerges, though through no aperture - this refers to the fact that it has reality. It has reality yet there is no place where it resides - this refers to the dimension of space. It has duration but no beginning or end - this refers to the dimension of time. There is life, there is death, there is a coming out, there is a going back in - yet in the coming out and going back its form is never seen. This is called the Heavenly Gate. The Heavenly Gate is nonbeing. The ten thousand things come forth from nonbeing. Being cannot create being out of being; inevitably it must come forth from nonbeing. Nonbeing is absolute nonbeing, and it is here that the sage hides himself."

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 B.C. - c.286 B.C.)

Order/Disorder

"A beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall, but it is no good for stopping up a little hole - this refers to a difference in function. Thoroughbreds like Qiji and Hualiu could gallop a thousand li in one day, but when it came to catching rats they were no match for the wildcat or the weasel - this refers to a difference in skill. The horned owl catches fleas at night and can spot the tip of a hair, but when daylight comes, no matter how wide it opens its eyes, it cannot see a mound or a hill - this refers to a difference in nature. Now do you say, that you are going to make Right your master and do away with Wrong, or make Order your master and do away with Disorder? If you do, then you have not understood the principle of heaven and earth or the nature of the ten thousand things. This is like saying that you are going to make Heaven your master and do away with Earth, or make Yin your master and do away with Yang. Obviously it is impossible."

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 BC - c.286 BC)

Cannot be Put Into Words

"Words have value;

what is of value in

words is meaning.

Meaning has something

it is pursuing,

but the thing that

it is pursuing cannot

be put into words

and handed down."

- Chuang Tzu (c.4th Century B.C.)

Deep and Boundless

"You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless."

- Chuang Tzu

(4th Century B.C.)

Between Something and Nothing

“Now, I am going to tell you something.

I don’t know what heading it comes under, 

and whether or not it is relevant here,

but it must be relevant at some point. 

It is not anything new, but I would like to say it. 

There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning. 

There is no beginning of that no beginning of beginning.

 There is something. There is nothing. 

There is something before the beginning of something and nothing, 

and something before that. Suddenly there is something and nothing. 

But between something and nothing, 

I still don’t really know which is something and which is nothing.  

Now, I’ve just said something, 

but I don’t really know whether I’ve said anything or not.” 

- Chuang-Tzu (4th century BC)

Chuang Tzu: Inner Chapters

Where the Sage Hides Himself

"It comes out from no source, it goes back in through no aperture. It has reality yet no place where it resides; it has duration yet no beginning or end. Something emerges, though through no aperture - this refers to the fact that it has reality. It has reality yet there is no place where it resides - this refers to the dimension of space. It has duration but no beginning or end - this refers to the dimension of time. There is life, there is death, there is a coming out, there is a going back in - yet in the coming out and going back its form is never seen. This is called the Heavenly Gate. The Heavenly Gate is nonbeing. The ten thousand things come forth from nonbeing. Being cannot create being out of being; inevitably it must come forth from nonbeing. Nonbeing is absolute nonbeing, and it is here that the sage hides himself."

- Chuang-Tzu

(4th Century BC)

Duality and Forgetting

"Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another; there one speaks to another. . . But where everything has become just one's own self, then whereby and whom would one see? Then whereby and whom would one smell? then whereby and whom would one speak? then whereby and whom would one hear? then whereby and whom would one think? then whereby and whom would one touch? then whereby and whom would one understand?"

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (2.4.14)

"My connection with the body and its parts is dissolved. My perceptive organs are discarded. Thus leaving my material form and bidding farewell to my knowledge, I become one with the Great Pervader. This I call sitting and forgetting all things."

- Chuang Tzu

(~ 4th century BC)

Wakeful Dreaming

"Those who dream of the banquet, wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then they find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams - I am but a dream myself." - Chuang-Tzu

Stillness

"The practice of true reality

is simply to sit serenely

in silent introspection.

When you have fathomed this,

you cannot be turned around

by external causes

and conditions.

This empty,

wide open mind is subtly

and correctly illuminating."

- Hongzhi Zhengjue

Buddhist monk

(1091–1157)

"Men cannot see their reflection in running water, but only in still water. Only that which is itself still can still the seekers of stillness...if water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe."

- Chuang Tzu

(4th century BCE)

Stones and Percepions

"It may seem ironic or contradictory

that detailed pictures of so-called

reality become vehicles for moving

us beyond ordinary perceptions."

- Duane Pebbles

"Bells and stones have voices,

but unless they are struck,

they will not sound."

- Chuang Tzu

Meta-Musings on my B&W Photography Workshop

The graphic illustration you see above is a wonderful visual depiction of some of the key differences between how the left (analytical, logical) and right (creative, artistic) sides of our brain process information (it is part of a Mercedes-Benz advertising campaign). The point of my posting this image is not to engage in a dialectic on what is known, unknown, or merely believed about how the brain functions (though the popular distinctions are largely correct, the functional division is not nearly as "clear cut" as they purport, and much is still shrouded in mystery); rather it is to simply show it (because I think it is a really beautiful visualization) and to use it as a conceptual backdrop to asking myself a "meta" question about my experience of giving the B&W photography lecture this past saturday: "Just what did I actually convey about doing black and white fine-art photography?"

Let me go back a step, and begin again by recalling a chat I had with an artist friend at work (who was unable to attend my talk). When we met on the monday after my lecture, and as we sipped coffee together while viewing the slides I had used, my friend made the kind comment, "Andy, you've done an incredible job at elucidating exactly what's on your mind when you're out taking photos...what you look for, what the best compositions are, how to put feeling into your shots. Just beautifully done!" While his praise means a lot (my friend is a prodigiously gifted artist, and his "eye" is second to none), and I thanked him for his kind words, my immediate reaction - and the origin of this blog entry - was a giggle, followed by outright laughter.

It struck me that, far from elucidating exactly what is on my mind when I take pictures, there is nothing on my slides that speaks about what is really on my mind - on a conscious level (of which there is, in truth, very little) - as I take pictures (which is not to take anything away from the information about photography that the slides provide). Nor, I believe, can anyone expect there to be. This point is both a simple (almost trivial) one, and very subtle (possibly deeply subtle): when I am out with my camera, I am emphatically not thinking about shapes, or tones, or patterns, or textures, or any of the other things I talked about during my talk. Of course, I am mindful of light, of lines, of shadows, of planes of focus, and of a myriad other things that go into the "gestalt" of the process, but am so entirely on an unconscious, preattentive level. I've written about this timeless-state experience before, and of the mystery that surrounds it, psychologically, cognitively, and spiritually. But my talk has made me appreciate another aspect of this experience, and how it may contain certain universal truths about engaging ourselves on any boundary between cognition and artful creation.

In my case, the boundary was cognizing about photography; or, more precisely, attempting to communicate something about what "doing photography" is about by describing what one end result is (namely mine) of having done it. As a speaker, I was allowed (rather, constrained) to use only words, images, and short animations to convey something - i.e., cognize about such concepts as tone, shapes, texture, principles of design, and so on - that describes what "doing photography" is about. Only that's impossible!

The speaker's constraint is rendered inert at best, and self-negating at worst; and - if you think about - assumes this Pythonesque-level absurd form: "You are allowed to use any and all means of expression except those that are equivalent to what you are trying to describe." More succinctly, you can only use left-brain cognitions to convey right-brain creations. Even more simply: "Explain photography by not doing photography." Absurd. DOA.

I cannot "explain" photography using words (or images, or even giving an impromptu "demo" of what it's like for me to go out and take pictures) any more than a chef can "explain" what making a gourmet meal is really like (or what is on her "mind" as she prepares one); or any more than Baryshnikov can explain what is on his mind when he dances, or what "dancing is like" in general. One cannot convey anything meaningful about any process of "doing" via lifeless "symbols of doing," however elegant their form and manner of presentation.

Of course, the Zen masters have known this all along. For that is why they have long "taught" by not teaching. The master can point the student toward the path; he can supply the shoes, the books, the camera and lenses, as it were, even offer hints on where to look, why and how to look, give advise on what do afterwrads when the images are viewed in a darkroom or computer; but no words, no teaching, no "follow these easy steps" tutorials, will ever - ever - convey the essence of what it is like to experience what stirs in your soul as your finger clicks your camera's shutter.

"The purpose of a fishtrap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to." - Chuang Tzu

You will know that you are "doing photography" precisely when you are out and about with your camera (or just with your I's eye), with nary a thought in your head, or memory of someone pestering you with a bunch of slides about tone, light, gestalt, .... pontificating on how photography is done ;-)

Postscript: My wife reminded me of an incredible (and incredibly apropos) presentation by Jill Bolte Taylor at TED. Taylor is a neuroanatomist, and author of Stroke of Insight, which describes her experience of living through a massive stroke (!)

In Mist Lies Truth

Joy, to a photographer (well, to at least some photographers;-) is waking up in the early morning on a weekend to find a freshly brewed pot of coffee in the kitchen (thanks to a wonderful spouse), and seeing a dense fog blanket the ground as far as the eye can see! "My wife knows me so well!" I think, as she places a coffee mug into my hand, helps put on a warm jacket, and pushes me out the door with my camera gear with the words, "Go enjoy the fog hun!" And enjoy I did.

Though the fog lasted maybe an hour ... while I was dancing with my camera and tripod in a nearby park, searching for compositions and just reveling in the magic of how mist - like broken windows! - both hides and reveals beauty, I lost all track of time.

I have always found fog as something of a paradox. Objectively speaking, it obscures reality; hides details and cloaks the identity of things. Yet, subjectively - or, spiritually speaking - it points to the essence of the world by briefly revealing the whole fabric of which the world is woven. I am always distinctly aware of when the "magic moment" is over (and it is time to pack up my gear), for it is precisely when the fog lifts and the world is again "revealed" as ordinary and real.

As (my favorite philosopher) Chuang-Tzu reminds us, while our momentary glimpse of wholeness vanishes along with the fog, we can always find our way back (by our soul's eye) by discarding ...

"...the distinctions and [taking] refuge in the common and ordinary things. The common and ordinary things serve certain functions and therefore retain the wholeness of nature. From this wholeness, one comprehends, and from comprehension, one to the Tao. There it stops. To stop without knowing how it stops -- this is Tao."