“John McQuade is one of the founders of Miksang Contemplative Photography, which he has presented for thirty years. He is the most senior teacher of the Nalanda Miksang school. John is a long time meditator, meditation instructor, and Shambhala Training director in the Shambhala tradition. He practices Daoist Qi-gong and writes on the contemplative arts. He holds an M.A in Phenomenology and a PhD in Social and Political Thought.
Miriam Hall is a contemplative arts teacher who lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and travels internationally to teach Nalanda Miksang, Shambhala Art, and contemplative writing. She is the second most senior teacher under John McQuade in the Nalanda Miksang School. She has been teaching these practices for over ten years...."
For a text explicating an alternative means of image making, the pedestrian cover image is unlikely to to inspire many to inquire further.
Preface & Section One: Overview of the Way
The preface makes no bones about the authors' focus: "we are really talking about Enlightenment." The purpose of Miksang is not just to make beautiful pictures, but to reorient vision in order to wake up to the world beyond things. "The most direct way to spontaneous creativity [is] not in “breaking the rules,” [but] in making contact with the world before there are rules at all.” This can be accomplished, they believe, with just a short shift of orientation, or Enlightenment by a few degrees. They compare the mind to a ship, whose destination can radically altered by a course change of just a few degrees.
The authors are students of Sakyong Trungpa Rinpoche, one of the first Tibetan refugees of the early exodus to settle and build a Buddhist community of westerners within the United States, and of his disciple, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.
This text promises to be the first of three outlining the practice of Miksang, a Tibetan word meaning "good eye." While the author's feel Miksang is best taught, or transmitted, in face to face encounters, they realize as well the value of texts in being able to provide far more detail than available in workshops, seminars, or lectures.
Contemplative photographic practice uses the camera to produce an equivalent of the moment of perception before the intrusion of words, names, thoughts, and ideas. It is equivalent because no piece of technology can capture an exact copy.
“The contemplative view is simply that you cannot be more creative than creation.” That is, there is no need to dress up reality. It is already wonderful enough, if we take the time to see it and experience it as it presents itself.
If this amazing reality is always there with us, why do we need a practice or form in order to be able to access it? “The drag of our patterns and the speed of conventional life obscure and block our appreciation of and our access to this naturally relaxed vision. We find ourselves caught in an overwhelming vortex of demand and distraction.” And there lies the paradox: “...even though true perception is an ongoing given, most of us need to engage a way, a path, to overcome the momentum of pattern and connect with things as they are.”
“The practical view of Nalanda Miksang is that we do not have to become creative. We just need to relax and work with the natural creativity of things as they are. We don’t create the world, but we can tune in to its power of creativity when we realize we are already artists. This is the way of contemplative art.”
The authors distinguish contemplative from fine arts in that the former typically use simple tools and do not require years of training. They offer the example of tea ceremony, which in my experience may be simply equipped but may takes years of practice to perform with a degree of grace and finesse. The same can be said of their other examples - archery and calligraphy.
Section Two: Entering the Way
This section begins with definitions of three main concepts: motivation, view, and intent.
Motivation "indicates where you are, who you are, and where you are going." This can change from assignment to assignment and can be developed over a lifetime.
View "is an orientation. It sees the possible journey and points you in the right direction...; it is both the overview of the journey and the understanding of the journey."
Nalanda Miksang distinguishes two kinds of view, General and Instructional. General is the recognition that clear seeing is something with which we are all born and to which we have access. Instructional views are "teachings on the Three Levels of Perception or the teachings of Looking and Seeing from Chögyam Trungpa."
Intent is not the marshaling of will, but a turning of the mind, a new orientation. It is based on the discipline of relaxation and patience.
Not much more is said about these concepts here. Perhaps they will be developed and referenced later in the text.
Discussion then proceeds to definitions of Synchronization, Flash of Perception, and Looking and Seeing. But before they do, the authors suggest developing a measure of respect for the tools of your craft, of learning to maintain your equipment and prepare it for each instance of practice, as an archer with his bow, or a calligrapher with his brush.
Synchronization "is the state where eye, mind, and world are in the same place at the same time." This state is what the photographer attempts to capture or recreate when exposing film or sensor to light.
Practical advice on practice: When you set out to shoot, you are not going on a stroll or walk, you are going out to practice the art of seeing. With adequately prepared gear, you walk to your destination and leave the camera in its bag or in your pocket. With the intent to see color, begin walking with attentive relaxation. First give some attention to other aspects of your experience, such as the rhythm of your walk, or the sounds in your environment. This will help synchronize mind and body and have the added effect of relaxing vision by taking focus off the eyes. Then begin the practice of noticing color. Maintaining intention to see color, the mind is less likely to be distracted and becomes synchronized with body.
"Looking is the moment of contact with what you perceive....Looking is connection. You only see what you look at, and this looking identifies the perception.... In looking, the eye is stopped or held. It is held in a direct simplicity and attentiveness. And when the eye is stopped, the mind is stopped; it is held in direct simplicity and attentiveness. Wonder and/or appreciation arise. Mind thinks not just That but also That’s interesting."
Looking proceeds to Seeing, the communing with the initial perception. "Seeing explores the qualities of the perception. (This is not just red but a certain shade, vibrancy, hue of red.) Seeing may note other visual elements, such as contrast with other colors or elements like light or space, coolness or hotness. To the mind, these may suggest feeling tones: it’s soothing, or it’s electrifying. This mind impact can produce thoughts such as fire-engine red. These features, and many more, comprise the layered dimensions that articulate seeing."
Where Synchronization is somewhat conditioned, beginning with the intention to notice particular visual elements such as color or texture, a Flash of Realization, sometimes referred to as a Gap or Realization, is sudden and groundless. Something comes to you, rather than you looking for it. Flashes have the same effect as Synchronization, but with a different felt quality.
"Although you do not produce it, paradoxically, you can solicit it. This is a deeper aspect of right intent. In part, Nalanda Miksang trains you to become a lightning rod for the flash of perception."
Flash of Perception Exercise: This is the same as encountered in Practice of CP text and intended to simulate a flash. Stand in an open space, close your eyes, turning 180 degrees, then open and connect to the first thing you see. The exercise develops a bit differently, as the authors then offer an important maxim.
Fill the Frame with the Flash. Most often what you will notice is something isolated from its surroundings - a color, texture, or form. If you take a photo from where you stand, the object might be quite small and the frame full of extraneous information. It is therefore suggested that the practitioner get as close to the object as possible so as to fill the frame.
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