Miksang - Contemplative Photography

Blog dilemma over.  As I sit by my lovely new stove with a kettle bubbling on top, I finally have time to reflect on the crazy state of mind my even crazier schedule helped produce this week. Of course if I were a realised yogi my mind would have been calm, like the eye of a storm, but obviously I still have a long way to go.

Seems that this whirlwind busy week of mine, work, making travels plans, decisions, PMT and a more than healthy dose of catching up with old friends, got my mind spinning so fast it just whirled past it's use-by-date and started creating spurious problems which were both unnecessary and detracted from the real work at hand.

Why did I develop a blog dilemma all of a sudden?  After a lovely yoga practice, which slowed the spinning down I realised that my blogs are fine. It's all OK. But I do need to stop making rules and barriers for myself. I like to post photos with few words on black, and post words with few photos on white, and would like to invite anyone curious about daily life in Northern Japan to take a look at the photos.  This was my original blog, made for the purpose of showing far-away friends and family where I live and what I'm seeing.  I love taking photos and had thousands I never showed anyone, and began wondering what the point in it all was, if not to show someone, anyone.

At the beginning of this year a friend sent me a yoga magazine.  When I finally got a chance to sit down and read it I had a huge 'Aha!' moment.  It was an article on Miksang, or contemplative photography.  'That's it!'  thought I, that is what I'd vaguely had in mind as an ideal for my photos but hadn't known this was actually an art form.  I am nowhere near realising this  yet, but I have found a direction for my photo-blog.  I've fallen into a tedious rut of pretty scenes, clouds, mountains and food. So if you do visit I apologise for lack of inspiration.

The article in Yoga International states that;

Miksang, which means "good eye" in Tibetan, is a process that captures arresting moments of everyday life - and deepens our awareness of them - by using the simplest mechanics of a camera.


It feels like all my interests are slowly coming together, (for years it felt like I had too many and should drop a few) that of Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Photography and Art (there are many MORE, but not relevant here..).  Now I need to put in a little more work, or rather need to stop a little more often to smell those roses and practice some Miksang photography.

Thanks to far away friends for inspiration and support in both the digital and paper formats.