In Miksang workshops, I often discuss how Miksang can be something you are rather than something you do. Also, I often say that images I show are just my day-to day life. This is actually how it works.

One Sunday was a day like that. Rich, visual, poetic. When I woke up, I noticed the two meditators on a window sill, light flooding the kitchen. Then Julie and I went to the Public Gardens in Halifax as it was a pleasant Spring day. So many people enjoying the Sun, the day, the ducks...so many moments to notice, to observe. I realized once again that it only happens if I can be available.

As we have discussed many times, thinking mind and projecting mind makes us blind to all the possibilities of the present moment. Available in this sense means that we are there, not full of ourselves, not being weighed down by liking and disliking, preferring the classically pleasing, discriminating according to our particular set of preferences, but just being open to what is. It reminds me a little of being like a movie projector – sending out our personal film into the world. Minor White once said that if we could be ‘sensitized’, in the way that film is sensitized and ready to be exposed without bias, we could walk around a single block for years and just see, just take it all in without bias.

Sometimes I think it is helpful to simply delete our preference file for a while and see what happens. Sunday, I was tired, had a bit of a headache and not enough energy to keep the preference file afloat. So, I found myself intuitively following fluid threads of experience, of occurrence...a swan preening...a duck bathing...a young girl with pure white stockings...a fountain shooting streams into the sky...a jet stream over the city, different types of hair. At home, I noticed details of my living room, kitchen and so on.

Of course, this day came on the heels of some intense looking and seeing at some workshops in Europe. But it reminded me that unless we actually go out, with our camera, engage the intention to look, be available and sensitized – we won’t notice much in our day to day life. At the conclusion of the Cologne Workshop, I asked people to try and find a three hour block of time to practice Miksang, once a week, once a month, whatever - to simply keep in touch with the ‘flash’ of perception. It is good to do exercises in the beginning, and then simply wander aimlessly and let it be, let it come to you.

Michael

I have posted a series of the shots I took that Sunday as a short Quick Time movie. If you would like to see it:


Click Here