Author: Anna Aysea

In part 2 of Anna Alyssa’s article On Acceptance: How do I accept World War 3?, she continues her investigation into how to transition from resistance to acceptance in the face of the state of the world. This week she looks at the role that imagination and fear play in the arising of resistance.

Imagination & delusion | The rope & the snake

The ability of the human mind to imagine and create mind projections is unique to our species. It is the source of all creativity. Imagination enables us to envision realities that are beyond sense perceptions. Imagination enables us to envision a bridge that connects two riverbanks; to envision spaces that connect people; to envision art that expresses subjective realities; imagination enables us to express human experience – from suffering to redemption – in literature, poetry, scriptures. Our imagination gave rise to everything from the invention of the wheel, the aeroplane, space travel to buzzing metropolises enabling billions to live and interact together. Our imagination is an extremely powerful tool that has shaped the world we live in.

Imagination and delusion are one and the same creative force with a single difference: with imagination I know I am dealing with the creative power of my mind, with delusion I am being tricked by that creative power into believing that the creation of my mind and senses is reality. The metaphor of mistaking a rope for a snake is about this extraordinarily creative power of our imagination which can and does produce very evocative projections of fear. These anxiety driven projections are very powerful as they partly tie in with the body’s survival mechanism.

By the way, fear driven projections can also cause the reverse, that is, mistaking a snake for a rope. In that case we remain in a situation that is unsafe and toxic because we believe the anxiety driven mind projections about leaving the situation. Mistaking a snake for a rope is probably far more common, in any case it is is far more detrimental. Fear is central to imagination becoming delusion, one way or the other.

Fear
It is important to differentiate between psychological fear and what I call primal fear for lack of a better word. When someone is coming at you with a knife, that triggers primal fear, that is the instinctive survival mechanism of the body – the result of thousands of years of evolution – that is being activated. In survival mode, thought processes are halted, instinct takes over, it is all in the now and resistance does not arise. In contrast, psychological fear is very much the result of thought processes of the mind creating an evocative projection into the future and believing that projection to be reality. This gives rise to rejection and resistance.

Hyper vigilance is a state of perpetually activated primal fear caused for instance by trauma at an early age. The existential terror and the accompanying panic attacks are not caused by thought processes like with psychological fear nor are they caused by imminent danger. This makes coping extremely difficult. Meditation is not conducive to coping with perpetual primal fear, a fact that is unfortunately not much known in the spiritual community. The prevailing belief is: if you’re experiencing fear without imminent danger, that is all caused by your own mind, keep meditating! Primal fear makes it almost impossible to meditate, making meditation practice a harrowing ordeal at times. Only imagination and creativity can forge a way out of the debilitating state of perpetual primal fear.

Meditation is, however, an excellent tool for dealing with psychological fear. Being established in mediation enables you to catch mind projections and the accompanying resistance early on, learn to drop it and be fully present in the now.

Acceptance & World War 3
The fear for the state of the world, the fear of war is the result of the same process as the fear of falling into the precipice; it is the mind creating a projection into the future. Meaning, it is not reality in the now. Being aware and being present – that is the heart of zazen – is all that is needed to come back to the reality of the now.

Contrary to a fear driven projection into the future, the reality of the now can be acted upon, can be dealt with. The next step at hand – possibly moving my right foot two inches to the left – is something that is always doable. Applying myself to the next step as best as I can is trust actualized. Being grounded in the reality of the now, being grounded in trust, being grounded in not-knowing, and having the focus centered on the next step, leaves no room for fear and despair. Thus actualized trust is undeterred and imperturbable, no matter the situation. It may not look or feel like anything heroic, it may in fact feel clumsy and inadequate. Nonetheless, the power that is in fact being actualized through an act of faith is far greater than the capabilities of the limited individual.

The countering of suffering can only be done from a position of open acceptance, of trust, of not-knowing. Resistance and rejection – which at maximum intensity is hate – are symptoms indicating that we have been tricked by the power of imagination and have mistaken the rope for a snake, or worse, mistaken the snake for a rope.

Skillful means
Learning to recognize mind projections and to drop resistance is part and parcel of becoming established in meditation. There are however skillful means that can also help indirectly with getting a grip on psychological fear. This may be as simple as concentrating on the breathing; maybe you need to talk to yourself as if to a child from time to time; maybe you need to reduce your news consumption and set yourself on a media diet, shunning click-baits and limiting your news consumption to reputable sources.

The form doesn’t really matter. Whatever works to weaken the belief in the fear driven, compelling mind projections and dissolve resistance will help loosen the grip of psychological fear, ground you in the now and help to focus on the next step, help to discern right action, whatever the life situation.

Acceptance of life as it manifests, in all its forms, is a basic tenet of the Buddha’s teaching. However, the word ‘acceptance’ is often misunderstood. In this two part blog, Anna Aysea explores acceptance as an awakening to a more insightful understanding of reality.

The radio show I was listening to recently had a guest on who spoke about her experience of a panic attack during a hike, alone in the mountains, while descending a particularly challenging and steep section. As she heard the sound of dislodged small rocks rapidly falling into the precipice next to the narrow path, she froze and started to experience racing thoughts: “Oh this is bad.. I don’t want this.. I am going to fall, I am going to die in a minute… no.. no.. no.. oh I want to get out of here…get me out of here..”. At some point she recognized her thinking was not very helpful and she intuitively started to talk to herself out loud as if speaking to a toddler, saying: “Its Okay Jane, just breath now and see if you can feel your feet, are they both on the ground? Yes they are, good, excellent! Now, put your left hand on the rock beside you, yes very good! Okay, see if you now can move your right foot two inches to the left, yes, excellent!”. This way she was able to get herself out of the panic state and safely make the difficult descent. She said that speaking to yourself as if talking to a child helps you to get a grip on fear because it is a form of positive thinking and positive motivation.

The path from resistance to acceptance
Focusing on the positive can of course be good in dealing with challenging situations, I feel however that what truly worked here was the simple fact that this hiker was able to stop resisting. What she describes is the transition from: “No.. no.. no..I don’t want this, get me out of here!” to “Okay, lets look at this situation right here, right now, and see; what do I need to do?” The first position is fear, despair, resistance, rejection, the second position is open acceptance, trust, not-knowing.

Notice that it is not about acceptance of “I am going to die” – that thought is a mind projection into the future – rather it is the acceptance of reality in the now – standing with both feet on the ground in this case – and just leaving the projection for what it is for a moment. Notice also that trust is a state of open willingness, not ” trust in Something”. The state of open acceptance comes about by recognizing thoughts / mind activity for what it is, ceasing resistance, and simply being fully present in the now: “What is good to do now? What is the next step?”. The path from resistance to acceptance is the way to discern right action.

The News
We are facing bleak times which may even get bleaker. Listening to the news seems to hold the same challenges as standing on the edge of a precipice. News about wars that are ongoing or that have recently erupted, more escalations on the horizon for the very near future, with political leaders fueling divisiveness. Even the possibility of a World War 3 is now being mentioned . All this easily triggers fear driven projections, which are further multiplied by a media that has an incentive to exactly do that, as fear commands attention and increases news consumption, which in turn serves the underlying revenue model.

So what do you do when you find yourself in the grip of fear for the state of the world, for the possibility of World War 3? What do you do when your thought process echos: “Oh this is bad.. no.. no.. no.. I don’t want this.. get me /us out of here!”? How do you transition from resistance and rejection to open acceptance in the face of war, in the face of atrocities?

To investigate these questions, it is helpful to have a brief look at the three main aspects that are involved: acceptance, imagination and fear.

Acceptance | What it is not
Acceptance may be one of the most misunderstood terms in the Buddhist teaching. Most of us may have tried to practice acceptance in one or more of the following ways only to realize that it doesn’t quite work that way.

First of all, acceptance is not the same as passivity;  If I am able to act and change a situation for the better but I remain passive, that doesn’t sit right. Acceptance is not subservience either; Accepting everything my guru, my master or my tradition tells me without questioning, without investigating is not acceptance, it is dependency. Subservience combined with inadequacy is often mistaken for acceptance but is far from it; To think: “I am going to die, I don’t want that, but Buddhist teaching / my master says I must accept, so I must somehow learn to accept death.” is not acceptance, it is delusion. When I fail to accept death – and I will because accepting a mind projection as reality cannot be done – I feel inadequate because I erroneously think: it is just me who is failing, everyone else seems to be perfectly able to do it. Now I have completely lost my way in trying to follow Buddhist teaching.

Acceptance
Ultimately, acceptance is about reality. The thought “I am going to die” is not reality in the now – I am not dead or I would not be heaving a thought – it is a mind projection into the future and needs to be recognized as such. Trying to accept a mind projection as reality is a fools errand.

An arising thought – be that a projection or otherwise – can and should of course always be acknowledged and accepted as an activity of the mind. The problem arises when we mistake a thought for reality and then convince ourselves that we can accept that so called “reality”. That is not accepting reality, we are simply being tricked by the creative power of our own mind, tricked by the power of imagination.

Part two will continue the investigation on how to transition from resistance to acceptance in the face of the state of the world, and the role imagination and fear play in the arising of resistance.

Continuing our theme of “In the Shadows”, Anna Ayse describes how her childhood experience of pain caused a disconnect between body and mind, as a method of survival, and how Buddhist practice, over time, was  the catalyst for a deeper understanding of ‘reality’, bringing greater harmony and a sense of wholeness into her life.

As a fifteen year-old teenager I wrote in a dairy entry that my greatest wish in life was to become as transparent as fine cloth.

That wish was born out of the experience of the body* as dense, dark, heavy, claustrophobic. It was born out of the experience of being trapped in this limited form that was being judged, mistreated, medically probed, jabbed, grabbed, pushed and pulled; that was being restrained by plaster casts, by cold hard gripping metal drilled into it; that was being subjected, many times over, to the deep slicing of the surgical blade, slicing-drawing broad, indelible lines of considerable yardage, creating intricate cord like scars, with a halo of crude stitch marks, as scattered grains of rice. I would often dissociate and retreat from the body so as not to feel the pain that was being inflicted on it. To this day, it does not come naturally to say “my body”, although perhaps it is partly for different reasons now than it was in the past. This type of detachment from the body is a mode of survival, induced when the current experience is felt to be too overwhelming, when the current experience is existential terror.

A few years after writing down my greatest wish in life and as a slightly older teenager, I traveled to a Buddhist monastery to learn to meditate, led by a deep intuition that the key for realizing my life’s wish and overcoming the shadow world of the body, may lie there. It was surprising to learn that Buddhists deem a state of detachment as something desirable, something to aspire to. It would long remain a mystery as to why.

Localization in the body

The experience of being localized in the body is a difficult conundrum to crack. Our senses seemed to reinforce that “I” is localized “here” behind the eyes and the world is localized “over there” outside “I”, creating the dichotomy of self and other, the duality of subject and object. Ideas like “a healthy mind in a healthy body” reinforce the belief that we are localized in the body. This mainstream belief is challenged when suffering becomes so excessive that it forces a disconnect. Existential terror induced at an early age is one of the causes for such a disconnect. It results in a debilitating state of affairs. Nowadays, terms are used like childhood trauma and PTSS. Information and research in that area can very much help understand and deal with the impact of certain experiences on the body-mind, even though solving the root cause falls in the spiritual domain.

The Immovable One

Becoming established in the unmoving, unflinching presence of Zazen meditation – vividly personified by Achalanātha, The Immovable One – makes it possible to face debilitating states.

It took more than 35 years of remaining present in the experience of being trapped in this body, being in chronic pain and in existential terror, to realize the simple, glaring truth: the body is within “I”, not the other way round. The erroneous belief that the self is trapped in the body, and shares the limitations of the body is a contraction and that contraction is at the root of suffering.

The unbound state

The body being within “I” is glaring because it is our direct experience all along. All that we know of the body is bodily sensations, that is, how the body feels on the inside and sense perceptions of how it appears on the outside. Both sensations and sense perceptions arise within the space of awareness, the space of stillness. This collection of bodily sensations and sense perceptions we call “my body” is an activity within the space of stillness, which is the true “I”. The activity of bodily sensations and sense perceptions is ‘the contained’, not ‘that which contains’. Ignorance, that is the ignoring of this reality, is the root cause of suffering. Ignorance obscures the true “I” but it can never obscure it completely. Even in the midst of deep suffering, the truth remains as the deep wish in the heart to be free of the contraction, to be free of the belief of being a limited entity. The deep wish in the heart to dissolve the contraction is like a beacon directing ships at night, it guides us through suffering to return to our true home, the unbound state, which was never lost to begin with.

Effortless detachment

Coming back to detachment, the disconnect caused by suffering shatters the belief of being localized in this body but it does not eliminate that belief altogether. Even without trauma, the idea that the body is an obstacle; the experience of being a limited entity and the wish to overcome that limitation, are all forms of disconnected detachment, are forms of suffering. The detachment the Buddhist teaching speaks of is not a disconnection, rather it is the natural outcome of seeing the truth of the matter, which is: the true self does not share the limitations of the body. The body is not an entity in its own right; the body-mind is the activity of the true self. Seeing it for the activity it is, seeing that the body cannot impact the self, puts the body in its rightful place in the wider perspective. This natural detachment is effortless and intimate.

Buddha recognizes Buddha

The realization that the body-mind does not contain but is the contained, that it is within the space of awareness, the true self, is a major shift that has far reaching implications. It is not just this body-mind that is the activity of the true self; the whole universe is contained as activity of the true self, therefore the universe is our true body. The expression: “Buddha recognizes Buddha” does not mean: “I as Buddha recognize you as another Buddha”. This had been the underlying assumption. The teaching does not say: all beings are Buddha’s. The believe that there are multiple Buddha’s is duality, is still the believe of being a separate finite entity. All body-minds, all beings, the whole universe, is the activity of a single, universal True Self. The teaching says: All beings are Buddha. There only ever is one indivisible Buddha. Buddha recognizes Buddha is the true self recognizing no other than itself. To reconcile this reality with the sensory experience of a world “out there” is the work at hand

Old habits

The ingrained thinking, sensing, feeling based on the belief of being localized in this body-mind, of being a limited object in time and space, are conditionings that have deep roots. These patterns have been reinforced over a lifetime, are still reinforced in the world. The work of re-examining these ingrained habits whenever they arise, aligning them with the truth and allowing them to dissolve is a long process. Some conditionings laid very early on at the time of infancy may never dissolve completely as the imprint is too deep. That is okay. It does not obscure the inherent transparency of the fine cloth.

This article is a brief write-up about an ongoing, non-linear process, I hope it may be of benefit to others.

* Wind from the Sea by Andrew Wyeth: The curtain in the painting represents the “fine cloth” in the article. The transparency and the gentle flowing in the breeze of the illuminated curtain evokes a sense of spaciousness and freedom that is not inhibited by the dark frame. This represents the wish to be free of the contraction that shines brightly as the truth which cannot be obscured within the experience of the body as dark and heavy, within suffering.

We continue our theme of Borders, Boundaries, and Barriers, with a post from Anna Aysea, in which she talks about the borders, or lack of them, between self and others and how this is often experienced.

Walking into a room where there is a tense atmosphere, you can instantly feel the tension without anything being said. This is one of the ways our interconnectedness is manifested.

A newborn child has not yet developed a sense of a separate self and lacks the filters that come with it. A baby is highly sensitive and impressionable and is not yet able to differentiate between self and other. This changes during the process of socialization the child undergoes when growing up.

Due to a combination of predisposition and environmental factors, this high sensitivity can remain intact in adulthood. In that case, there are no filters in place and the emotions of others are experienced as the emotions of the self, that is, the emotions of others are experienced from the first-person perspective.

Up until around my mid-twenties, I believed that I was emotionally unstable. It was a surprise to discover that not all of the experienced emotions originated from this body-mind.

I used to have a recurring dream about doors. In the dream, I have locked all the doors of the house but somehow the locks don’t work and people can just walk in. They can even come in through the walls.

This borderless state where the feelings of others are experienced from the first-person perspective is confusing, to say the least. In the end, it doesn’t really matter where emotions like fear or anxiety are coming from. How you deal with them is the same in all cases: allowing the feelings to arise within the space of awareness, knowing that that space cannot be disturbed by whatever is arising within it.

When you start to notice a correlation between the arising of certain feelings and being in a particular situation, that insight gives you the freedom to walk away from these situations. The lack of filters as symbolized by the dream of the failing locks is less problematic by becoming more and more established in the space of awareness and the freedom that comes from gaining insight into particular situations.

This week, Anna Aysea explores darkness and the colour black as potential gateways to spiritual awakening.

Suffering is often associated with darkness. This may be due to the fact that some of the synonyms of darkness include obscurity and concealment. It could be said that when our true nature is obscured and veiled by ignorance, suffering ensues.

In this post, I would like to explore darkness and the colour black from a slightly different angle. In spiritual terms, darkness can also mean the absence of manifestation. Sunyata or emptiness refers to ultimate reality being void of name and form as manifestation. In this sense, ultimate reality could also be called limitless potential unmanifest.

Interestingly, the colour black is said to contain infinite colours and in the Zen tradition, newly ordained monks wear black robes, which symbolize their unmanifested potential for enlightenment.

One of the prominent works of art, which uses the colour black in the spiritual sense of ultimate reality unmanifest, is The Rothko Chapel by the American painter Mark Rothko. It is a non-denominational chapel which serves as an ecumenical centre.

The chapel contains 14 large-scale paintings all in varying shades of black. The paintings appear to be solid black but Rothko uses many uneven washes of pigment to create subtle colour differences and depth. The layered surface of the paintings are alive with myriad variations which can be observed by taking the time to sit quietly with the paintings. Rothko’s intention was to draw the vision of the viewer in and beyond the canvas which serves as a window to “look upon the infinite”. Using human perception to point to something which cannot be perceived by the senses is the goal of all sacred art. Yearly, thousands of people come to meditate in front of the paintings in the chapel. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary, Sotherby made an interesting video about the Rothko  Chapel and the thinking behind the idea of a contemporary spiritual space.

Perhaps there is a work of art that is drawing your vision beyond itself to that which is beyond sense perception? Buddha statues are like that. They can evoke in the viewer the stillness they symbolize as a finite object.

We are grateful to Anna Aysea for this entry on our blog, this week – Buddha in Glory, indeed.

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

– by Rainer Maria Rilke

English version by Stephen Mitchell

It is said the poem Buddha in Glory came to Rilke when meditating seated in front of a Buddha statue in the garden.

Continuing our theme of Bright, this week, Anna Aysea writes an evocative reflection, which is “inherently intimate, shining with the light of Being that is beyond time.”

Light is a central element of his composition, and because of his skill in how to render it, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer is called the master of light.

In a Vermeer painting, light entering through a window permeates the whole scene, gently illuminating the figure and the objects in the room, making everything almost shine with an inner glow.

Woman Reading a Letter (for a higher resolution please click on the image) depicts a quiet, private moment where a young woman is absorbed in reading a letter in the morning light. All of the colours in the composition are secondary to the radiant lapis lazuli blue of her jacket.  While the objects in the room cast shadows, Vermeer has deliberately omitted the woman’s shadow, creating an ephemeral, atemporal effect, as if the figure and the act of reading are beyond time, in eternity. The luminous blue acts as a portal to draw the attention, giving the viewer a taste of that which is beyond sensory perception, the infinite nature of Being.

Through the mastery of the artist, as the viewer, we transcend the limits of the body, the limits of time and space and are pulled into the stillness, into the emanating timeless tranquillity. We expand and extend into the domestic scene,  dissolving the seeming distance of the subject-object mode of perceiving. There is just the sweet intimacy of Being.

In the eighties, still the era of the Iron Curtain, travelling through Europe, my first acquaintance with a Soviet country was Hungary. I remember the extreme poverty, the other-worldly urban streets, completely devoid of any commercial signage screaming for attention.

One day, trying to find a place to eat in a suburb of Budapest, I ended up in what appeared to be a soup kitchen. It was located in a dilapidated monumental building of former grandeur. In the great hall with ceiling-high windows, people cued up for the counter where workers were dispensing plates of plain boiled beans for a few cents. Waiting in the cue with locals in ragged clothes, there was a serenity to the whole scene emphasized by the soft shuffling of feet. Light was filtering through the dirt-covered windows, clouds of vapour rising from bin-sized pans, myriad dust particles dancing in the beams of light, the worn down wooden floor, the shabby tables and chairs, the toothless old man in front, the scene was like a painting, intimate, timeless, without distinction between the mundane and the sacred.

With the abundance of spring oncoming, why not take inspiration from the master of light? Ultimately all perception is like a Vermeer painting, inherently intimate, shining with the light of Being that is beyond time.

Dear friends, Like many in our community, we are saddened by the sudden death on the 3rd of March of Rev. Saidō Kennaway, our beloved friend and teacher and the prior of Telford Buddhist Priory. Today it is Rev. Saidō’s 73rd birthday and we like to take the opportunity to pay tribute and express our gratitude.

The greatest teaching of Rev. Saidō has been by example. He was the embodiment of kindness, compassion, generosity and wisdom in all his dealings with others, regardless of status or rank. His lightheartedness and quite joy was infectious. Speaking to him would always lighten your mood, even if your burdens remained. Rev. Saidō was a truly humble human being. He deserves recognition for everything he has done for the Throssel and Telford community, for the sangha at large, for his interfaith work as committee member of the Network of Buddhist Organisations and for his work during many decades with Angulimala, the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy.

Dear Rev. Saidō, our heartfelt gratitude and thank you for the light of wisdom you’ve shared,  the difference you have made for so many of us and for the inspiring example you have set in our community and in the world at large. The soft spoken voice, the chuckle, the twinkle in the eye, it will be much missed and held in loving memory.

“When we think sincerely we find that birth and death are cyclic as are cold and heat”   – From the Buddhist funeral ceremony

A small anecdote about Rev Saidō I will always remember. My first stay at Throssel Abbey was as a teenager in the early eighties. One afternoon, I had collected my dried laundry in a basked, before I could process it any further in the old laundry room, I left it there as I apparently needed to do some other errand first. Upon my return, someone had used the same basked – baskets being in short supply – to collect wet laundry out of the washing machine to free it up for the next load.  As I stood for a moment looking at the basked with the mix of wet and dry laundry, wondering what to do, I heard the monk, also present in the laundry room, say: “Oh dear! I am sorry!” He quickly came over to remove the wet stuff out of the basked to prevent my dry laundry getting damp. I remember being quite surprised that, first of all, this monk would notice and get the situation without me having said anything, then he would actually apologize to me, a foreigner and a youngster, and he would make the effort to correct the situation. The small interaction seems insignificant but to be attuned and accountable, to be decent and kind without there being onlookers, without a spotlight, and regardless of rank or status, is the hallmark of true empathy and humbleness. My young self may not have been able to articulate all this but I understood and it left a lasting impression.

Funeral

Funeral service for Rev. Saidō will be held on Saturday 18th March at 09:30 am, Telford Crematorium. There will be a Live Cast broadcast during the Funeral. Further information also on Jademountains

 

In our latest feature on the theme of Blue, Anna Aysea explores the origins of the colour blue, the language used to describe it and how our perception of it has developed over time.

There is more to blue than meets the eye. Apparently, the colour blue did not exist for our ancestors. Researchers analyzed ancient texts from all over the world, the Hebrew Bible, the Quran, and ancient Chinese, Hindu, and Inuit languages. All major languages seem to show the same development regarding colour: words for black and white appear first as indicators for dark and light, then the word for red as an indicator for danger, then words for green and yellow, the word for blue is the last to appear in the language. In ancient texts, black and white are mentioned the most, to a lesser degree red is mentioned, then green and yellow, researchers found no mention of blue, not once. The word for blue appears only after the invention of blue synthetic dye by the Egyptians about 5000 years ago. Our ancestors did not see blue as a separate colour but as a shade of green.

The reason that there was no word for blue in ancient times is because blue pigment does not exist in nature. You may ask: “Well, what about the ocean, the blue sky, blueberries, my blue hydrangeas, my blue eyes? The blueish colour of less than ten percent of flowers is caused by a natural modification of a red pigment, which is also responsible for the colour of blueberries. The pigments of indigo or woad are variations of violet. The blue of the sky, the ocean and blue eyes are the result of how light is refracted. This is also true for the vivid blue of exotic birds or butterflies. The microscopic structure of the feathers or wings is such that it refracts the light in a way that the surface appears blue.

Lapis lazuli and the ultramarine made from it is the exception as a true blue pigment in nature. The fact that the pigment is so rare may be the reason why lapis lazuli is associated with healing, wisdom and compassion in Buddhist teaching. Also, plants thrive best under blue light. Afghanistan being the major source of Lapis lazuli, the pigment was mostly used in the east in Buddhist and Mughal art for centuries. Its diffusion in Europe began during the Crusades in medieval times, but its rarity and cost meant that it could be afforded for the creation of artworks only for the most wealthy. Hence blue is the colour of royalty.

The ephemeral nature of the colour blue is in fact true for all colours. According to modern science, colour is the way light is absorbed, reflected and scattered by a surface, colour does not exist as such but is an interpretation of a wavelength by the sensory apparatus. In other words, colour is what reality looks like when it is filtered and interpreted by the body-mind. Sense perceptions are not reality but an image, like the map, is not the territory but a representation of it. I am reminded of the Scripture of Great Wisdom which also dismisses sense perceptions as reality:

… in this pure there is no … eye, – ear, – nose, – tongue, – body, – mind; No form, – no tastes, – sound, – colour, touch or objects…

The world is real, but it is not what it appears to be based on eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Form, taste, sound, colour, touch or objects are images, are representations, not reality. Mistaking the image for the territory is entering the world of illusion. Without that erroneous belief, there is beauty and joy in the play of the senses, in the radiant, glorious blue of ultramarine as one of the myriad faces of the one reality.

Completing our feature on the theme of “An Unexpected Visitor”,  Anna Aysea shares the artwork of David Chatt and his 108 Meditations in Saffron, which is a very unusual and insightful take on the litter that we leave behind.

Last week as I did a search for something completely different, the algorithm served a most irrelevant image which grabbed my attention. There was something very familiar about what looked like a series of neatly arranged random objects and yet I could not determine what I was looking at. Following intuition, I clicked and unexpectedly found “108 Meditations in Saffron” by American artist David Chatt.

I’d like to share the artist’s statement about the experience which inspired him to turn trashed objects into glass-beaded jewels as a form of contemplation :

“A few years ago I made it my habit to walk every day. I was living in a large city and couldn’t help noticing how much garbage littered my path. I lamented this fact, and wondered, with more than a little sanctimony, what kind of person throws trash to the ground? My indignation increased with each bottle or discarded wrapper. As my regime progressed, I gained a begrudging interest in these objects of contempt. I noticed that there are socioeconomic patterns to street garbage. One neighborhood’s garbage is not the same as the next. I learned the places where homeless people sit and drink. I was fascinated when visiting Kyoto, Japan to discover a city where not one speck of litter could be found. I began to see the detritus in the streets where I live as a record of sorts and even looked forward to what I would find each day. I also began to see items that had not existed until recent years and wondered what a collection of litter from today would look like in ten, twenty or one hundred years.  Inevitably, I began to pick up objects that appealed to me. When I moved to a neighborhood that was less inclined toward litter, I found that I was disappointed not to see so many of these messages from my community along my path. It felt unfriendly. My own transformation complete, I wanted to show this work in a way that the wonderment I felt for these objects could be shared. I think of my walks as meditations and decided to showcase my collection by covering each found item in saffron beads the color of the robes of the Buddhist monks I had seen in Southeast Asia. I collected and covered one hundred and eight items.”

Visit the artist’s website for more inspiring and meticulous beadwork