CD#05 Shining light on our full experience

Oct 30, 2020

November 2020

Welcome to this issue of Creative Dharma, a newsletter. In it, Doug Hechter writes beautifully on beauty in hard times, Christian Solorzano looks at meditation and creativity, and we start off with a dharma prompt by Linda Modaro. And that’s not all. ⁂

SUBJECTIVELY EXPERIENCING BEINGS

Meditating creatively

by Linda Modaro, Los Angeles CA, USA • satisangha.org

It is cardinal to early Buddhism that the Buddha was a man like any other man [LM: woman, human]. The crucial point of this is that his teaching is not seen in terms of revelation from some higher, superhuman source, but as a guideline so that others may achieve the same liberation that he, as an example to them, had achieved before them. His Enlightenment insight [LM: liberating insight] was one which he clearly stated was attainable by all other people (in principle each person would have their own karmic limitations governing each particular life).
And the exemplary nature of the Buddha is emphasized by the fact that the focus of his teachings is experience. As human beings, not only is experience the most fundamental thing that we have in common with each other but it is also the case that we do not have access to anything other than our own experience: we are characterized by being subjectively experiencing beings.
– Sue Hamilton, Early Buddhism: a new approach – the I of the beholder

When I read this I feel hopeful. I have not felt that feeling in a while and it just sinks into my whole being; the going back to a dharma book, reading someone whose scholarship and understandings I have admired, and finding words that validate what I have come to know.

I am aware that I no longer think of liberating insight as one final thing. From where I stand now it seems to be a visible process that comes from practice. Yours and mine. Countless times. We remember and reflect upon our experience within a meditation sitting (what we consider to be an important step in developing a capacity to be self-honest) and we relate the details as we encountered them. First to ourselves, then to an other. Whatever happened – and plenty of things happen during a meditation sitting – becoming more aware of those details keeps us closer to our experience. Never exactly what transpired, but close enough to better know our humanity.

We don’t have to wait until we become more patient, or until the world behaves more decently, or until we wake up in a better mood. We don’t need to be superhuman and transcend the parts of ourselves that we want to disown. We don’t have to wait for a better opportunity. We can experiment with this here and now, daily in our online practice sessions of reflective meditation in the USA, and in Australia. Or you can do this on your own, take some time to reflect back upon your meditation sittings and familiarize yourself with your experience.

I am aware of the conditions for this talk. My subjective conditions are pretty dominant. Moving to a safe place, a quiet place. Removed from the economic insecurity and the chaos I was living with in Santa Monica, California. Being able to practice and teach more regularly, and connecting with meditators on a regular basis. Listening to each one of us become more aware of our experience, and how it affects our intentions and actions. I am heartened, and am able to take that in.

That is not always the case, but I want to speak about it now, when it is here. After all it is my experience, and while it might be different from yours today, it is what we have in common.

This takes me back where I started with the extract from Sue’s book, and where she ended:

As human beings, not only is experience the most fundamental thing that we have in common with each other but it is also the case that we do not have access to anything other than our own experience: we are characterized by being subjectively experiencing beings. [LM: my emphasis] ⁂

This dharma prompt was given during an online retreat on 28 September 2020

Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

– LR Knost • goodreads.com/author/quotes/5116439.L_R_Knost

THE WORLD STILL AND SMALL

Beauty in hard times

by Doug Hechter, Santa Barbara CA, USA

I find it challenging to be creative in the terrible year of 2020. I am emotionally depleted, missing live music, dancing and community. The bland isolation of the long Covid siege has made me depressed and angry. The natural world is changing in disturbing ways. The unraveling of ‘normal’ life leaves me at odds with my larger purpose. The resistance that occurs naturally in the creative life becomes a paralysis brought on by the anxieties of troubled times. In this new age of isolation, as the encouragement of my peers faded away, I feel alone and adrift.

The dharma instructs that the wise person is not swayed by the eight winds of influence, either in favorable circumstances (prosperity, honor, praise, and pleasure) or in seasons of setback (decline, disgrace, censure, and suffering). In a renewed quest for equilibrium, I shook off my torpor and began to stir my own pot again. The practice of art is good medicine for troubled times when the world needs to be reminded of beauty more than ever.

I recall how I once went to Burning Man three weeks early to work on a temple structure that would eventually be filled with offerings and burned. We worked all-day under the desert sun, tinged orange by distant wildfires. The wind brought us frequent intervals of choking dust. We set up generators and miles of extension cords, laboring into the night under Mercury lights strobing in the wind. Why would otherwise rational people choose to work so hard under such remote and adverse conditions?

⬆︎ Photo by Obie Fernandez on Unsplash

Maybe it’s the way crisis, induced or otherwise, uncorks a hidden reserve of energy held in trust in our deep hunter-gatherer cellular memories, against that ever-looming ‘rainy day’. The terms of this performance event imposed an entirely optional dramatic reality that somehow unlocked a permission to work with all of one’s heart, fully committed and joyfully abandoned, as if one’s life depended on it. It was the ticket to wonderland for this cult of workaholics who chose to spend their vacations ‘plowing the sea’. Mortification of the flesh does not come to mind when we think of Burning Man but the embrace of hardship was linked to this creative outburst on some fundamental level.

I wondered if I could jump start an experience of this energy conversion within the confines of my studio. I have always suspected that the main reason I was an artist is because it provides an effective way to repurpose the neurotic energy of my monkey brain into fuel for the engines in the basement, a means to harness something for good that would otherwise feed on itself. Psychic realities are confronted head-on and a temporary truce is negotiated. Through gaps in the hedges, the muses began to appear.

The Age of Covid has subverted sanghas and yoga assemblies, dance classes and membership gyms, painting groups and performance venues – public hives of activity that supported us and kept us accountable to some version of the pursuit of excellence. Although momentum in any discipline has always depended on some measure of personal responsibility and initiative from within, in our new normal this is now an overwhelming truth. I waited for an easy time to resume my now-solitary journey.

Easy never came. Resistance, I’ve had with me always. It is the curse of the creative class. Everyone struggles with motivation and confidence. ‘Begin anywhere’ the composer John Cage once said. Lacking fresh vision, I returned to beginner’s mind to warm up.

Just holding the tool or instrument, writing stream-of-consciousness with pen and paper, dancing, cleaning up a mess or making a new one represented ‘beginning anywhere’. Physical movement seemed to invoke a somatic back-flush, sending new nerve messages up old pathways. My brain yawned, stretched and woke up. My body became intelligent again and remembered how much it loved to play. Then while momentum is patiently nurtured, it is not so much about what gets done but rather entering the state of practice with moderate but steady regularity and managed expectations.

Those of us with our own shops and studios know the pleasure of retreating to our working sanctuaries with a good problem to solve. The world becomes still and small, reduced to the present task at hand as we settle into the quiet mantra of repetitive motion. In every artistic endeavor, there is repetitive movement – muscle-memorized skills from experience that yield confident dexterity and standards of quality.

Still, beyond the routine realm of craftsmanship, creativity reaches past the norm and is defined by fresh growth. Something must ignite the spark, spin an imbalance, provide an invigorating jolt that caroms technique into new territory where it solves the puzzle and becomes prized as art. There is a discomfort, an agitation, an inflammation that gets soothed and resolved in the arc of the artist’s process. Alchemical change occurs under heat and pressure of which there is no shortage in my world. I still have plenty of fuel to use up.

‘On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree’
– WS Merwin

There is a lot that is not broken and offers refuge and delight to the attentive student. As the shadows of ecological and political uncertainty drift across the landscape, the artist finds solace and amusement in the calm present, making stories, images, and song. So I proceed, contemplating with care, seeing, as Picasso advised, a familiar thing as if for the first time. Art can extend a voice beyond its own lifetime, traveling through the ages to encourage descendants and remind them how sublime our world has always been. Expressing the suffering common to all generations, art becomes a light on a dark, lonely hill. As a tool for compassion and comfort, there are broad possibilities going forward. For the present, however, the medicine of seeing and mirroring beauty is just what the doctor ordered. ⁂

LOST IN THOUGHT

By Brad Parks, Santa Barbara CA, USA

Lost in thought:
        even Google Maps can’t find me.
What direction am I heading
        looking for my future in my past?
Unforgettable conversations with friends,
        now fading echoes.
The path stretches out behind me
        but dissolves in the dazzle of day.
My feet know the way.

– More of Brad’s poetry can be found here.

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MEDITATION AND CREATIVITY

Allowing the mind to slip away

by Christian Solorzano, Chicago IL, USA • christiansolorzano.com

My life depends upon creativity. As a designer at one of the largest consulting firms in the world, my job is to use creativity to solve complex business problems. I graduated from DePaul University, in Chicago, with a degree in Graphic Design, and what I do now is develop digital experiences – designing websites, applications, social media campaigns, and more.

⬆︎ Image: Christian Solorzano

I work closely with strategists, technologists, and clients to ensure that what we provide is far better than they had expected. Working in a large corporate environment means that having a practice that nurtures creativity is mandatory, and this is where meditation comes in.

I’ve been meditating since 2016. My practice today is rooted in Zen Buddhism, and the form is zazen, a practice deeply intertwined with my creative process. In fact, it’s a catalyst for creativity that I rely on to solve problems, in both my work and my personal life.

Every morning I light incense, make a pot of tea, and sit for 45 minutes. I observe the breath and simply sit on the cushion. This practice encourages me to appreciate the nature of things, find solace in the mundane and ordinary, and approach problems wholeheartedly with a vocation of open awareness.

My working life requires me to answer questions and translate the creative language into corporate vernacular. Here, meditation provides the space that enables me to meet these demands with a joyful response that’s not falsely compliant, but deeply committed.

⬆︎ Photo: Christian Solorzano

In my personal creative work – writing, photography, and design – meditation is the foundation on which I jump start my pursuits. I’m influenced by imperfection and the minute details that show evidence of the human hand.

My photography plays tribute to those silent moments that are alive with something I can’t describe. My writing focuses on putting words to experiences and narratives, and my experimental work involves a collaborative process with the medium in which I’m working at any given time.

A creative practice and meditation instil a more calm perspective and an ability to be independent from my emotions in a way that is both productive and fulfilling.

Dogen refers to zazen as the dharma gate of joyful ease. All it asks of us is to simply shine light on our full experience and let go of the tendency to control the narrative. Surrendering to the full spectrum of life with skilful awareness allows us to be more creative and to trust others wholeheartedly.

Strangely enough, the work I tend to find the most meaningful feels automatic, as if it was done by itself, and I simply acted as the vehicle through which it manifests.

I leave you with this: Sit still. Expect nothing. Embrace emptiness. Allow the mind to slip away and see what happens. ⁂

– Christian Solorzano writes and edits the Substack newsletter Beginner’s Mind https://beginnersmind.substack.com

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