A Little Unreal

"Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe exists; particular events must take place in it, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. At the present time we have no legitimate grounds for either asserting or denying that life got off to but a single start on earth, and that, as a consequence, before it appeared its chances of occurring were next to nil. ... Destiny is written concurrently with the event, not prior to it... The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game. Is it surprising that, like the person who has just made a million at the casino, we should feel strange and a little unreal?"

- Jacques Monod (1910 - 1976)

No Mind

“All true artists,

whether they know it or not,

create from a place of no-mind,

from inner stillness.”

- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 - 1938)

Being-within-Itself

"We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image - as opposed to a symbol - is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it."

- Andrei Tarkovsky (1932 - 1986)

The 'I' is Not Apparent

"Just as a man shudders with horror

when he thinks he has trodden on a serpent,

but laughs when he stoops and sees

that it is only a rope,

so I discovered one day that

what I was calling 'I' is not apparent,

and all fear and anxiety

vanished with my mistake"

- Gautama Buddha

Upcoming Online Photography Workshop - An Update

"Be still with yourself until the object

of your attention affirms your presence."

- Minor White (1908 - 1976)

This is an update on (along with a few more details about) my upcoming Shanti Arts sponsored "Cultivating the Art of Simplicity in Photography" online workshop (scheduled for Sep 11 - Oct 23). I just learned that the 8th and last available slot has been taken. For for those of you who have signed up - thank you! - and I look forward to meeting you all (virtually), and engaging in what I hope will be a fun and stimulating couple weeks' worth of discussions and picture making :-)  For those of you who wanted to participate, but were unable to sign up on time, I am sure there will be future possibilities. In the meantime, my email inbox and comment box are always open; and if there is one thing I'm always ready and eager to engage in a dialectic about, it is art, photography, and the creative process in general (well, that, and a bit of physics thrown in once in a while ;-)

There will be six sessions in all (one per week), where by "session" I mean a main topic-of-discussion that will be further elaborated upon, mused-about, and generally used as a basis for follow-up interactive engagement with other workshop participants on the ("secret") Facebook I've set up. Here's how the sessions have broken out:

Session 1 (Sep 11 - 17): Introduction and Preliminary Musings. An overview of what “cultivating simplicity in photography” really means, a discussion of various aspects of photography on which “simplicity” depends, and a few easy exercises to get us started. Introduces key themes of this workshop, before taking a deeper dive in later sessions.

Session 2 (Sep 18 - 24): The “Eye” – Seeking Simplicity in the Environment. This session will explore the idea that cultivating simplicity is synonymous with achieving an expanded awareness of place and time. We will explore how our state of mind determines what is visible to us and profoundly influences what we most strongly resonate with in our surroundings, and provide examples and exercises to heighten our powers of observation and perception. 

Session 3 (Sep 25 - Oct 1): The “I” – Seeking Simplicity Within Oneself. Session 3 expands on a theme introduced during the last session, namely that all of our outwardly directed efforts to find simplicity and beauty “out there” in the world will come to naught if we cannot find the calm center in our own deepest selves, and from which all creative works naturally spring forth. 

Session 4 (Oct 2 - 8): The Medium, Part I – Toward a Visual Grammar. Sessions 4 and 5 focus on the practical side of image making by introducing some of the key tools that a photographer can use to direct and sculpt a viewer’s interpretation of an image; i.e., the essential elements of a visual grammar. We will discuss the basic elements of composition (e.g., the frame, light, contrast, tone, form, texture, etc.) and how they can be combined for a specific purpose, inclusing “seeing” the world in color vs. black-and-white.

Session 5 (Oct 9 - 15): The Medium, Part II – Abstraction as simplification. Session 5 will expand will expand on the practical lessons introduced in Session 4, and focus on the art of abstraction as, somewhat paradoxically, a concrete method of "simplifying" photographs. 

Session 6 (Oct 16 - 22): Photography as a Path Toward Self-discovery. The workshop concludes by exploring how (in the purest spiritual sense) the “cultivation of simplicity” while doing our photography - indeed, how art and the creative process, in general - may all be be viewed as paths toward self-discovery. 

While the workshop is ostensibly a photography workshop (after all, photography is the core theme, and both the stand-alone essays and embedded exercises all stress image "seeing" and image "creating"), my hope is that the interactive part includes an equal part philosophical dialectic about the meaning of photography. If there is anything my 45+ years of "seeing" the world with a camera has taught me it is that the most meaningful images appear only when the "I" behind the "eye" ceases making distinctions between what is felt and what is seen; when inner and outer landscapes become one. It is a theme I eagerly look forward to exploring - through images and discussion - with workshop participants. Hope to see you online soon :-)

Announcement: Upcoming Online Photography Workshop

"We do not see things as they are,
we see things as we are."

- Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)

For those of you not immediately put off by the (seeming absurdity) of a "complexicologist" (one who studies "complex systems" for a living, which is what my physics Ph.D. has opened the door for me to do during the times I'm not wandering around with my camera) leading an on-line workshop on "simplicity" in photography, I'd like to announce that that is precisely what I will be doing from September 11 to October 23 under the kind auspices of Shanti Arts. The title of the workshop is "Your Inner Gift: Cultivating the Art of Simplicity in Photography," and you can read a summary of it here.

Though details are still to be determined, the logistics will work roughly as follows. There will be a dedicated site (which I'll host on my personal website, and provide usernames and passwords to whomever signs up) on which, at the start of each week, I will post a new page of links for an extended essay (between 12-20 pages in length), exercises (some to ponder on, some to actually do), and an audio intro by me offering a "bird's eye" view of what a given week's topic is about. There will also be a private Facebook page that everyone can post images, make comments, ask questions, get feedback, etc. Depending on the number of people who sign up, arrangements can also be made for a private chat at mutually convenient times. It is designed to be informal but informative and, I hope, fun. Except for a weekly time of posting (which will see a new page up on the same day each week), and whatever mutual agreements are made for 1-on-1 voice sessions, the interactivity will be dictated entirely by the predilections and schedules of individual participants.

Perhaps some of you who have expressed an interest in my particular "style" of images and posts throughout the years (and have sent in many kind thoughts and wishes in that time) may be interested, or know someone who might be interested, in signing up for the workshop. I'll be posting additional thoughts and details as they self-organize in the coming weeks.  

Transmuted Symbols

"The physical object, to me, 

is merely a stepping stone

to an inner world where the object,

with the help of the subconscious drives 

and focuses perceptions,

becomes transmuted into 

a symbol whose life is beyond the

life of the objects we know."

- Clarence J. Laughlin (1905 - 1985)

Quiet Mind

"When the mind is

very quiet, 

completely still,

when there is not a movement 

of thought and therefore no experience,

no observer, then that very stillness 

has its own creative understanding.

In that stillness the mind is 

transformed into something else."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

Simple Beauty

"The power of bonsai is in its ability to portray the utmost beauty of nature. This is the goal for all who grow bonsai... Bonsai is a living thing in the roots and even in the leaves. Every day that you are attending your bonsai, although the plant cannot speak to you, you'll sense that the plant is trying to tell you something. You'll one day know a plant is asking for water or fertilizer. When you come to that stage, you'll have developed a close bond. Bonsai responds to your love and becomes like honest friends with no human falsehood or betrayals... Bonsai are loyal if you water and fertilize regularly with loving care. Life is more meaningful when we attend these little plants. We learn the essence and dignity of life!"

- Saburo Kato (1915 - 2008)

"Bonsai No Kokoro"
(Spirit and Philosophy of Bonsai)

Amidst the Mystery

"To know objects only through dissecting and
cataloguing them is to miss their full reality.

It is to fall asleep amidst the mystery
and to become numb to the wonder
of this great Earth"

- John Daido Loori

(1931 - 2009)

Skye: Suffused with Wonder II

"...reason has tended to collar intellect in our time... For reason knows that we all want to have reason on our side. But once we have seen reason plain, we can use it as the wonderful tool that it is, and then get on with the real business of being alive along the way whose milestones are momentary or timeless experiences of being whole - mind, body, and hand - in the delight that is memorable and breathe an immemorial air...

...And then you become aware of your self there, aware of rare self, the rare self that interpenetrates all, sees and knows with a final certainty. I know some such self has been splelt with a capital S, just as the word certainly has been called Truth or Reality. But I Don't want in this practical exercise to use capitals, or words like Mysticism, Transcendence, and so on. There is no need; only a little application, persistence, failure and more persistence. The way is open. But one must go along it far enough for thought to get blocked and the void of no-thought to open out, for only then can enlightenment come."

- Neil M Gunn (1891-1973)

Atom of Delight

Postscript: astute readers of my blog will have noticed that I have recently (since my return from Skye, Scotland in July) quoted heavily from Neil Gunn. For those of you who have not heard the name (I had not heard of him prior to my first trip to Scotland in 2009, where I "discovered" his writings while browsing through one of Scotland's many fine second-hand bookstores), Neil Miller Gunn was born in 1891 in Dunbeath, a small fishing and crofting community in Caithness, in North East Scotland. Arguably among the most important Scottish novelists of the first half of the 20th century (he wrote 20 novels between 1926 and 1954), Gunn's unique gift was the seemingly effortless manner in which he captured in prose the - physical and spiritual - essence of Highland life. His final book, published in 1956 was The Atom of Delight (from which the passage above is quoted, along with a few others in earlier blog entries). It is a profoundly moving, deeply spiritual autobiography that traces his interest in Zen Buddhism (his interest in which was ignited when he read Herrigel's Zen and the Art of Archery, the same book that, coincidentally, also jump-started Henri Cartier-Bresson's pursuit of the "decisive moment'). I find his writings a perfect complement to (and/or, prose-based analogue of) the feeling that Scotland, in general, and Skye in particular, instills in me.

Outside Space and Time

"But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: 'For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist.'"

- Paul Watzlawick (1921 - 2007)

Direct Experience

"Seeing is perception 

with the original, 

unconditioned eye. 

It is a state of consciousness 

in which separation of 

photographer/subject, 

audience/image dissolves; 

in which a reality beyond words 

and concepts opens up, 

whose "point" or "meaning" is 

the direct experience itself."

- John Daido Loori

(1931 - 2009)

Entangled with Karma

“Can there be a completely different set of laws of physics in a different universe, or do the laws of physics as we understand them hold true in all possible universes? If the answer is that a different set of laws can operate in a different universe system, this would suggest (from a Buddhist perspective) that even the laws of physics are entangled with the karma of the sentient beings that will arise in that universe.”

- Dalai Lama XIV, (1935 - )

The Universe in a Single Atom

Your Own Self

"Whether you are going or staying

or sitting or lying down, 

the whole world is your own self. 

You must find out

whether the mountains, rivers,

grass, and forests 

exist in your own mind

or exist outside it. 

Analyze the ten thousand things, 

dissect them minutely, 

and when you take this to the limit 

you will come to the limitless, 

when you search into it you come

to the end of search, 

where thinking goes no further

and distinctions vanish. 

When you smash the citadel of doubt, 

then the Buddha is simply yourself." 

- Lanxi Daolong 

(c. 1213-1278)

Nothing is as it Appears

"Know all things to be like this:

A mirage, a cloud castle,

A dream, an apparition,

Without essence, but with

qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:

As the moon in a bright sky

In some clear lake reflected,

Though to that lake

the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:

As an echo that derives

From music, sounds, and weeping,

Yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:

As a magician makes illusions

Of horses, oxen,

carts and other things,

Nothing is as it appears." 

- Samadhiraja Sutra

(2nd century CE)

Interbeing

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. 'Interbeing' is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix 'inter-' with the verb 'to be,' we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. 'To be' is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.” 

- Hanh Nhat Thich (1926 - )

Quoted from Sourcebook of the World's Religions

Creating Distinctions

“In the sky, there is

no distinction of east and west;

people create distinctions

out of their own minds

and then believe them to be true.” 

- Gautama Siddharta

(563-483 B.C.)

That It Is

"The mystical is not

how the world is,

but that it is."

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

(1889 - 1951)

Quietly Seeking Images

"The not-so-silent conversations between things are always present. What is not so often present is my sensitivity to these voices. As it is said, for every push there is a pull, with every affirmation denial, but with only these there would be nothing but a frozen, rigid wasteland. There could be continuing movement with each new balance point experienced. There is great beauty in this ever-shifting dance. This is very alive and transcends all notions of a static experience. This is what brings life, for without it I would be locked in without possibilities; there would be no sense of creation. All would be frozen before the existence of time, without realization; there would not be a universe. Fortunately, all is conversation and movement - or transformation - that awaits my awareness. There are many entities all about us. I refer to those entities as images (photographs that aspire to say something); they are symbolic cameos, or icons. They have an unambiguous influence upon my life - they move and their movements are instruments of transformation."

- Nicholas C. Hlobeczy (1927 - 2007)

A Presence Behind the Lens