A little over six weeks ago, I shared a piece about my current meditation practice (or lack there of!) and some reflective rambles around the topic, asking questions about the nature of my meditation and Buddhist practice, though it would have been pretty foolish to try and answer those questions definitively. I've often thought you can really ruin a good question by trying to answer it. Thankfully, although I did reach some sort of transient conclusion for the sake of the post, the questions didn't stop once I'd published the page, so I thought it might be time for an update.
| Having accepted that I was in a phase where I would "trust my meditation practice to my intuition", cultivating a relationship with awareness that is free, wild, honest and authentic, "a live news reel of paying attention in both painful and in pleasurable moments of daily life", I began to actively look for those moments and ask myself, what is my current daily practice? Where is my relationship with the Dharma, with the Divine? How and where do I meet and communicate with Ultimate Reality, this vast, miraculously evolving conciousness that is the Universe? And in terms of freedom and intuition, what am I inspired to do every day if its not engage with formal yoga or sitting meditation? It was actually very easy to answer that last question; firstly, walking. It's a rare day when I don't get out for at least one walk. And it's unusual for me not to start the day by lighting the candles on my shrine, taking a moment to absorb the images, make an offering of incense, remind myself of my commitment to living a life of love and compassion. Keeping my shrine clean and cared for, with fresh flowers, is also important, an act of mindful devotion. And though both these things have an element of physical engagement, actually, on reflection I find they have a deeper commonality, which is in their capacity to gift me a connection to beauty. |  Pennywort Flower |
 Candied Violets on Cupcakes | When my mind lit upon the word beauty, a deep, visceral gut and heart felt YES resonated through my being. That's my current practice. There it is. There, I have a practice. I have a practice of connecting with beauty. And it's not actually a new thing, I didn't learn it in a class or from a library book or a video on YouTube, it's been with me my whole life, as long as I can remember. When I'm walking, I'm connecting with beauty. Natural beauty in the micro and the macro; plants, animals, birds, rocks, water, breezes, the kiss of sunshine, songs of the stream, views of the wider landscape, the sight of a vista of clouds. Then there's time spent connecting to beauty in the garden. When I'm decorating and spending time with my shrine, I'm connecting with beauty. Chanting, for me, is an expression of beauty. When I'm reading or writing poems, I'm connecting with or expressing a vision of beauty. When I'm painting or crafting, I'm inspired by experiences of beauty. Even when I'm making and serving food, it's an act of love, what's that if it's not a connection with beauty? |
| I think it's important to be clear that when I use the term 'beauty' that's not to be confused with aesthetics. Sure, many of the things I've described have a clear and important aesthetic dimension, but in my experience, an aesthetic encounter, even at its fullest, is no more than a means to an end. It's a gateway, a portal to a more refined way of being in the world. Perhaps, I might even go so far as to render that aspect of my world view into a simple equation. Beauty = Love. And no, just as I don't mean 'aesthetics' when I say 'beauty', I don't mean 'romantic feelings of desire' when I say 'love'. I mean that place in the human psyche where the edges of 'self and other' begin to feel less solid and more diaphanous, the place in which empathy, generosity and humanity dig their roots. The condition where an act of kindness to a stranger, human or otherwise, is instinctive and unquestioned. I mean 'metta' as in the Pali word for loving kindness without self interest, not a sticky, clinging wish to own or possess. That, to me, equates to beauty. |  Painted Glass |
Now, I've never been very good at remembering sources, which can make citation a bit tricky and therefore I can't really call this a quote, but these reflections put me in mind of a comment I once read by Sangharakshita, where he asserted that seeing something as beautiful requires you to be in a mettaful (or skilful) mental state. I then rembered someone once telling me a story that upon seeing a dead dog in the road, the Buddha had simply commented on what beautiful teeth it had. Research on finding the Sangharakshita quote turned a blank and it transpires that in trying to find the reference to the Buddha and the dead dog, the original story is actually about Jesus, but never mind, I think I've made my point.
| So, a daily practice of connecting with beauty might be seen as a daily practice of cultivating love. Well, that sounds great doesn't it, but what about the days when it doesn't look like that? What about the days when I don't get up and light the candles, when I don't go out for a walk because I'm actually feeling quite low, sad and bleak? Or what about the less extreme days when I'm walking, but when I see the dead pheasant in the road, I don't notice how beautiful her feathers are? I don't think I'm the first person to suggest that our individual capacity to experience light and beauty proportionally matches our propensity to occasionally lose ourselves in experiences of dark and ugliness. The classic archetype of the troubled artist pretty much illustrates that point for me without dwelling on it too much. But I feel these experiences to be two sides of the same coin and it is precisely in my sometime disconnection from light and beauty that I am most pained by my darkest and ugliest hours. Thankfully, I can finally muster a reliable quote by referencing Christoper Marlowe in The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (that's a version of the story about the guy who sells his soul to the devil) where Faustus (the guy) is asking a pertinent question about damnation of Mephistopholes (the devil): |  Leylandii in Sunlight |
 The Flames of Transformation | FAUSTUS. Where are you damn’d? I couldn't put it better. When you've had a meaningful experience of connection to beauty (and I don't believe theres anyone alive who doesn't have that capacity) then the failure or absence of that connection can be deeply distressing. So those days are the exceptions that prove my rule. My spiritual practice is rooted in my conscious connection with beauty. |
| It wasn't a great leap then, to begin asking myself; how do I 'sell my soul'? What stops me connecting with beauty? Where do I trade in my awareness of beauty or connection with love for a quick fix of something else? Do I sell my soul to my To Do List? Do I trade in my connection with the Divine in pandering to the devil of not believing myself worthy of it unless I carry out certain tasks? I'm back to that other equation I outlined in my last post on why I don't meditate; "If I carry out (X) behaviour then (Y) = I'm an acceptable human being." Do I barter my soul with the demon of believing the whole edifice of life might collapse if I don't work so hard I never even take time to appreciate the life I'm trying to make space for? I also stated in my last ramble on meditation that "it's a radical thing to sit and do nothing (no, not even meditate) in our current social context of constant productivity and exponential economic growth. It's quite a thing to say 'I'm not doing', to sit and just be." Rest is Radical. Doing Nothing is a revolutionary act. |  Shrine to Avalokiteshvara with Hellebore |
 Wabi Sabi Rusty | But actually, how I spend my time isn't as important as how I bring my mind to whatever I'm doing. If I clean my house as if its a chore on my to do list that I must complete before I can rest and connect with beauty; well that's selling the soul of my happiness in an impossible transaction. But if I clean my house as an act of love and gratitude for the space and for the other beings I share it with, if I clean my house as if I'm dressing a great, big, live in shrine to beauty of every kind; well, that's a practice of connection. And in the connection, the sharing is such an important part of appreciating beauty. I can enjoy it alone, but stopping on a walk to communicate my observations of beauty takes it to another level of joy. Now, I dont want to give the impression that one side of the coin I've described is 'good' and one side is 'bad'. One side is enjoyable and connecting and pleasurable and progressive and the other side requires a little more work, for sure, but I belive they both have their place. The Japanese concept of wabi sabi is a good example of this by promoting a world view, often turned to design principle, which values and sees as beautiful the truth of imperfection and impermanance. |
| So my direct experience of beauty is a delight but it is transient, my capacity to stay in a mettaful state is imperfect, but there's something equally as beautiful about that if I choose to see it as such. Something bittersweet about loss and sadness that underpins, far from undermines the experience of beauty and love in the first instance. This whole, vast, beautiful and amazing universe is fleeting and insubstantial. My experience within it no different. Perhaps the best response I can make to that is simply in mindful appreciation, in training my strange, contradictory little chunk of mind, no less a part of it, to really witness it's beauty in as much breadth as possible, as often as possible, acknowledging my part in it but not over investing importance when my experience is of separation, noticing instead the moments of sharing and connection, living into those with every breath and learning to find wonder, beauty and love in an increasing wealth of places. |  Tulip and Dew |
And on that note, there's no better way to conclude than with two poems, one written by myself, one an anonymous but well known Navajo prayer. It is finished in beauty.
 River Tanat Tributary | A Busy Spring in the Tanat Valley |
A Navajo Prayer |  Morning Grasses |
Beach Pebbles and Washed up Roots
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