FEATURE 125 ~ Without You My Life Would Be Boring

The Knife have just released an album of remixes of old tracks, called Shaken Up, which, judging from what's on You Tube sounds pretty far out and FAB to me. This is a remix of Without you my life would be boring,  featuring, as is usual in The Knife videos, no one from The Knife, but this time numerous people in a hospital miming to the song. There is something simultaneously quite serious, sublime and stupid about it that I find myself giggling all the way through it. Anyway here it is.

FILM REVIEW ~ The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson, well, you either like him of loath him ,right? Certainly I've been in the latter camp ever since I saw The Royal Tenenbaums. Too knowingly quirky,too contrived and mannered, telegraphing his often rather obvious, if not lame, comic conceits several moments before they happen, then flogging them to death, plus all the Hollywood elite falling over themselves to do a humble short cameo for dear old Wes.

That was until The Grand Budapest Hotel, which for some reason avoids the pitfalls of stilted artifice and archness present in his previous movies. It's genuinely off beat, but a pure delight from start to finish. Yes, it does have a cast list to die for, with all Wes's usual collaborators putting in an often brief appearence. Two things have helped transform my appreciation of his work. First, its the script, starting from the stories of Stephan Zweig, he concocts a ludicrous confection, light, frothy and insubstantial, but it has razor sharp dialogue and moments of quick witted light footedness. Its edited very well, with a fluent speed and an unflagging romping pace. He allows just enough time for the gags and then moves on, with none of Wes's usual strangling of every last ounce of humour from a situation until its dead. Second, he has found in Raplh Fiennes a really great comic actor to base his film around. His character Gustav H, is a fantastic cartoon creation, actorly and camp, but with superbly well crafted and judged comic timing. Without Fiennes this film may well have fallen into being the standard sniggering conceit of a Wes Anderson movie.

Gustav H is a control freak, the servant/lover of all his blonde female guests. He is there purely to serve their every need, and I mean every need. He runs the hotel like clock work, as he brings on his latest ingenue Zero as Lobby Boy. With the death of an elderly Countess, he finds himself bequeathed a highly valueable painting, and the vengence of her family knows know legal bounds to get it back. Its a wonderful farce, inhabited with the spirit and tone of a boy's own adventure.

 Taking place on the edge of conflict, there is a framing poignancy surrounding this story. A certain style and approach to life was already in the process of fading away, a flickering candle to be extinguished completely by the ensuing war. Gustav H upholds certain standards, never be caught smelling of anything other than a rare perfume even when escaping from prison and being chased across snow.

DIARY 124 ~ Talky Talky Happy Talk

Even though my back is playing up badly at the moment, the muscles around my hips and shoulders are perpetually tender and painful, the pattern of my sleep seems permanently set on irregular and short, and the osteo-arthrutis in both my hands is slowly worsening, I am quite happy, at this juncture my life is good.
Why is this? Human beings, and I make no exception of myself from this, don't generally pause to wonder why they are happy, or what has brought this pleasant state about. We welcome it with open arms and, if we wonder about anything, its for how long it will last. Generally we are better at the causes of our suffering and pain, which we often catalogue and rail over in minute detail.

I would hazard a guess that the causes for this present good state are relatively simple. I've recently joined the Property Team at Windhorse:evolution, which I am currently rather enjoying. We are in the process of revamping seven or eight of our shops, in a much overdue rebranding. Initially I was drafted in to paint the new Evolution typeface signage onto planked panels. Much to my surprise I've done them to a really professional standard, and they look good up on the wall too. I'm also supervising the painting of uprights, shelves and assorted furniture & fittings for the shops. Its all gone very well, puts a feather in my cap, so my general self confidence levels are robust, if not high.

I'm only doing alternate shop fits, yet the intensity of these plus the unrelenting painting work prior to them, is I suspect the primary reason why my back is so troublesome at present. I feel constantly tired. I was aware last week that I'd been running for the last two or three months, pretty much at maximum capacity, given my continual sleep deprivation, its effect on my energy level, and of course my bodies numerical age. The three days of a revamp are full on, being physically, mentally and spiritually demanding affairs. By the end of the first day of the Norwich Shop's revamp. I was pretty pooped and tell tale early signs of strain in my back were wagging a finger at me. A week later I'm still nursing it and there's no sign of it easing off yet. Standing up or sitting down for too long are still an issue.

Since my Solitary Retreat At Home in April, my personal painting has continued to go from strength to strength. Pushing my artwork into fresh and often uncharted areas. Being able to practice 'Just Painting' quite regularly, taps into a deeper need for some form of creative expressive outlet in my life. So this is one very significant factor in my current happier disposition. There are, however, a few issues around that remain outstanding.

The website for my artwork is still unfinished after nearly a year. I haven't yet cracked getting consistently top quality photographs of my artwork. The main limitation is my camera, which is has a mini compact zoom, with a wide angle, that's unable to take photographs without bowing the edges of paintings. Any future plans I might have to sell printed reproductions, cards or any other use they might be put to, all hinge on photography good enough for reproduction. Until I'm over this hurdle, all these sort of ideas are a bit of a none starter. I have yet to find a gallery through which to try selling my work. which I was hoping to use my website as a promotional  tool for. I could go on, but I wont, for fear of soiling the mood.

So these few things are still hanging in the wings awaiting my attention or finding a workable solution. There's the lack of time, at present also energy, to resolve all the above outstanding issues. There is also the at times interminal struggles with my own apathy, which I do on occasions find frustrating. I am making it a practice to try remaining relatively cool without becoming insipid, about when these things might significantly move on. In my current lifestyle, I must acknowledge, there is not sufficient time to do more than keep painting. So I'm learning how to be more laid back ,if not patient about it, which in itself supports and encourages a happier visage for Vidyavajra.

Jnanasalin and I's civil partnership was two years ago this coming September. Though we each have our individual areas of strain and difficulty, in our relationship we are still happy, infused as it is with a sense of enjoyment and appreciation of each others qualities, and an easy compatibility. We are also committed to supporting each other in our respective creative and spiritual endeavours. This is a very significant positive factor, whose impact is easy to underestimate. I don't believe either of us would be attempting to do what we are currently doing in our work or creativity, if our relationship wasn't at present a consistent and stable one.

One should never take any of the above for granted, of course. Last night I was doing some preparation for Mitra Study on the Attandanda Sutta, from the Sutta Nipata. One of the lines that stood out for me was 'whatever things are tied down in the world, you shouldn't be set on them' . In other words, you can't be set, rely or depend on anything being permanent no matter how fixed or tied down they might appear to be in the present moment. Happiness, like any other phenomena, has a fluctuating transitory history. In moments of absentia it's likely to slip your grasp.

FILM REVIEW ~ Silence

Silence is an Irish film, directed by Pat Collins from 2012, which I seem to have missed noticing completely at the time. Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhride plays a sound recordist living and working in Berlin. You first experience Berlin entirely through the sound he's recording, sounds drowning inside sounds, man made noises chugging,rumbling and screeching. He receives some sort of commission to record sound back in his home county in Ireland. Its a particular quality of sound they want, quiet sounds, sounds with no man made presence in them. It's never explained for whom he's doing this. There is a conversation with his girlfriend in Berlin, where she asks why he needs to do this. Significantly what he says gets drowned out by the sound of a freight train. Something is unsettled, not right with him, and their relationship. This takes you all of five minutes into the film.

The rest of the movie  continues as if it were a hybrid of an audio documentary, with visuals added as a beautiful afterthought. As the film progresses you find yourself paying closer and closer attention to the qualities and varieties of sounds. Sometimes its natural sounds, then sounds of someone singing or speaking, interspersed with old film recordings of a past Ireland, then the roar and thrum of wind, rain and sea, the sounds of a landscape speaking whilst mankind listens. As one voice says, silence is the space between noises. At various points he bumps into people, local folk giving their own slant on their quiet lives rooted in their sense of place and their belonging. The film, if its about anything, it is this search for a sense of belonging through sound.  The sounds of a place provide texture and definition to our experience of this. The main character has moved away, maybe kept himself away from home for fifteen years. Where indeed does he truly belong now?


By the end of the film he returns to his island home, a place so suffused with familiar sounds that he appears to stop recording them. What was previously a vicarious acquisitive collecting of sound, becomes more and more a personal recollection of it. The film concludes with him visiting the family home,now empty and much dilapidated. As he walks around its musty, damp, almost windowless rooms, the sounds of distant voices half remembered and indistinct are background sounds, as if emerging from out of the walls of the house. Recollected sounds of a place once filled with human activity and noise. Sounds of past lives, of his past life.

Silence, as a film, is more poetry than narrative, more an evocation than representation. Suffused with beauty and a poignancy that is never forced or laboured over. It reminds me of Tarkovsky at times, or John Cage's 4 mins 33 seconds, where what one hears during the pieces duration, are the sounds of whatever is happening in those moments in the concert hall. Like Cage, this film subverts the artifice that's obviously there. Mixing story and reality,actors and people playing themselves, it blurs the distinctions between drama and documentary, subtly and to really superb effect. Its a simple pure delight, that I suspect will repay repeated viewing.

DOGEN - Instructions for the Artist ~ No 8 ~ Putting Your Whole Attention Into The Work

The eighth in a series of articles based on Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo, exploring how it might be applied to artistic practice and work in general.

'Put your whole attention into the work, 
seeing just what the situation calls for.'

Dogen

I don't know about you, but my mind does wander off, losing focus and deliberative purpose. In the middle of a conversation with a friend my attention might be drawn away by something happening on the periphery of my awareness, a plane flying over or a phone ringing. My friend might be telling me a really interesting tale about what happened to them and yet I find myself wondering what led them to choose that T shirt or make judgements about them based on the unkempt nature of their shoes. Failing this then my mind will return to further ruminate upon some minor upset earlier in the day or in my life. In short, my attention wanders.


Our mind becomes drunk on experiences. In its inebriated state, it has two major things it leans upon for support; to look backwards, to remember, to try to reconfigure aspects of our past experience; or to look forward, to envision, to preconfigure or fix, in our minds at least, what the future will be like. This may not be entirely without practicality or usefulness. We do need to make sense of what has past. It could help us behave better if we reflected on and learnt from our previous experience, and be carried forward to influence future behaviour. This might make us better at handling whatever comes our way. If only all this were true.

The majority of our mental activity is useless activity, mostly trivial concerns, sometimes positively unhelpful, particularly if we are trying to improve the nature of our interactions, to be kinder, more beneficial or ethical. Our mental processes are dominated by selfish emotional impulses which proliferate along a rambling associative line of thought. Anxious, paranoid, neurotic, envious, vengeful, mostly selfish, or self-deluded thoughts, with poor self esteem running through it like an underground stream through rock. Against these thoughts our better nature struggles, to contain, to neutralise or overcome them.  So bringing our whole attention to our work will be of no small order.

Whether you're working or not, it's good to be able to concentrate on what you are presently doing. A good cook has to think ahead, to when things need to be cooked by. This shouldn't be confused with multi-tasking. It's about maintaining a broad awareness of ones purpose in the present moment, what you are trying to achieve, how you are to achieve it and when you want it achieved by. Remaining aware of the passage of time, recalling our past experience of cooking the recipe, what went well, what would improve it,what proved to be a mistake. In other words 'seeing just what the situation calls for'.

'Putting your whole attention into the work', might be seen as keeping ones attention in the present moment. If you've ever tried consciously to do this you'll know it requires an impossible level of rigid mental discipline. We intuit that being in the present moment ought to be possible, but find it is has a much more slippery fluid feel than that. It's something that cannot be taught. We come into alignment with the present moment through creating the conditions from which we might experience it. We train ourselves in meditation to calm our distracted mental state, eventually being able to bring this more and more tangibly into everyday life.

In everyday life, you have to remain mindful of what your overall purpose is. This includes everything that feeds into the present moment, what preceded it and what is yet to come. Being aware of ones past and current mental, emotional and physical state, what our habitual responses and reactive tendencies to those are, and where these might lead if we do or don't focus upon them. Attentiveness to the needs and state of the people you're working with, is also called for. Holding all these within a broad spectrum of awareness, without becoming hooked on them, and staying focused on the demands of the immediate task before us. You wont be able to stay in the present moment simply by design or desire, but by paying attention to what pulls your attention away from it. What or where is this present moment anyway? It can seem like a thinly sliced piece of ham, invisibly sandwiched between the bread of the past and future. The present moment wont be found if we see it as a destination, but if we become one with the nature of the journey, alive to when life is being fully lived.

Whilst working on an artwork, I travel back and forth from the past, to the present and the future of what I'm doing. I find if I think too much about a pieces future development I become tense and more anxious. The experience in the present moment is of confusion, creative direction becomes frozen, frigid even, as it is mired in the quicksand of uncertainty. If future thinking dominates, this usually indicates my ego, rather than the work itself, is now leading the creative process. Issues of self identity and reputation begin to infuse thoughts; the usual I'm a good artist/bad artist stuff; will this piece be rubbish or the most wonderful, ground breaking thing I've ever done?  Dwelling in the present, in the uncertain place that is the future inevitably does frighten you.

The past, is an imaginary place constructed around facts. All history has this illusory stability and coherence that we embroider around it. Everything we've ever experienced acquiring a sepia toned homogeneity, created by our endless remembering of it. To remember the past is to reconstruct it, to redesign and update it. Our desire in the present moment is to turn the past into a prediction of the future. Creatively, thinking of the past, has for me a depressive air,it smells of death and decay. It usually means I've become stuck in a habit, a comfortingly familiar idea or way of working.  Whatever we had in the past, has by virtue of time passing, been lost.  Past glories, past times, past endeavours, all tell you you have past it, whatever 'it' is. My artwork and creative process then becomes overly self-identified, a self designating rather than a liberating thing. This is what I am, this is what I do, this how I do it. Dwelling in the present, in the certain place that is the past inevitably does bore you.

I try to counter this past/future dichotomy, by trying to stay with whatever stage in the creative process I'm currently in. Actively discouraging myself from worrying about what I've done or where I'm going with it, and staying with what I'm doing. Sol Le Witt said  'If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results'  So there is artistic benefit in sticking with the zeitgeist of the present creative moment.  My mind still gets drawn back into past ideas or distracted by future prognostications. Yet similar to meditation, you simply bring your mind back to the focus of the artistic practice, which is right in front of you. Through listening attentively to what you are currently doing, you do unconsciously prepare the ground for whatever is to come next. You cultivate calmly abiding with whatever you are presently doing, give it your whole and undivided attention, and not drift off into past or future concerns. If I'm able to stay with whatever is happening right in front of me, then when a particular idea has been followed through and completed, whatever is to come next generally emerges quite clearly into my mind. It seems blatantly obvious to state, but the future always arises out of the present moment.

It's similar to tomorrows weather, we all read or hear the forecasts, but until you wake up to find it's gloriously sunny you won't decide to take that long walk along the riverbank, or to visit the seaside. You could spend time the night before worrying about the uncertainties of the English weather, and what you may or may not be able to do the next day if you wish. Until the conditions of the present moment arrive you don't really know what you actually will do. Its in the nature of the present moment to trigger the unexpected, to allow exciting things to arise. We all carry with us excess mental and emotional baggage, that encumbers our ability to give what we are doing right now our full attention. Once we are aware of what we bring to the present moment then we are more able to 'see what the situation calls for'.  Dwelling in the present does inevitably enliven you. For the present moment is the active energised place where we are simply being alive.
  

TV REVIEW ~ Wallender

I've become a big fan of Henning Mankell's most famous creation Kurt Wallender.  Wallender follows the tradition in detective fiction of being an unconventional man who expertly solves crimes against all the odds. What makes Wallender stand out is his psychology. Whatever it is that makes him a good policeman devoted to his job, also seems to sabotage his off duty life. His family have all up and left him. His relationship with his daughter veers from estranged to strained. He just about holds himself together enough to unravel the mystery, but a crime is always a useful distraction to draw himself away from contemplating the mess that is the rest of his life. All the TV adaptions try to capture the carefully drawn internal world of Wallender that is there in the books, but to varying degrees of success. The conflicts, the petty proffessional jealousy with Martinsson and the endless recriminations and ruminations aren't easy to put on screen. Who you get to play Wallender is key.

Kenneth Branagh is the most recent actor to have a stab at it, doing three short three episode series so far. Though there is something about him that strikes you as being too well adjusted psychologically, to pull off the dishevelled eccentric that hovers just on the edge of catastrophy.

Rolf Lassgard is probably one of my favourite actors to have played Wallender. These were all feature length episodes,based entirely on Mankell's books. His Wallender is overweight and crumpled, and you can believe that he is mentally one step away from being fucked up by his job. The only thing that doesn't quite match are his looks and appeal to women. Wallender is a bit of a ladies man, never without an attractive woman he's either wooing or bedding. All eventually become fed up with playing second fiddle to the latest serial killer, but none the less there's rarely a shortage of women in Kurt's life. Lassgard is a great actor and has charm, but you can't quite see him as a great catch.

Krister Henniksson, has done three series. His third and final series has just finished being broadcast on the BBC. I've not always been convinced by his Wallender, but in this third series my opnion has changed. During the series there's been a slow building back story of Kurt's increasing forgetfulness and moments of inexplicable blanking out. Gradually it emerges that he's experiencing the early stages of Alzhemers. Here Henniksson has really come up trumps, playing this supremely intelligent man struggling to hold his life and career together in the face of a debilitating illness. I have been moved to tears by the truthfulness with which his predicament has been portrayed. This largely comes down to the scripts and Henniksson's supreme skill as an actor.



There's been a theme song featured at the closing of each episode. Its written and sung by Ane Brun,and called The Opening, its a touchingly poignant song, that I've come to be found of, enough to buy it from I Tunes. While this was definitely the last we'll see of Henniksson as Wallender, there is a fourth series with Branagh in the pipeline..Until then there is still plenty of the books I have yet to read.

DOGEN - Instructions for the Artist ~ No 7 ~ As carefully as if they were your own eyes

The seventh in a series of articles based on Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo, exploring how it might be applied to artistic practice and work in general.

' "Use the property and possessions of the community as carefully as if they were your own eyes" The tenzo should handle all food he receives with respect, as if it were to be used in a meal for the emperor.'

Dogen

Communal ownership of property and possessions often leads to a diminished sense of personal responsibility for them. Replacements for broken items often bought without it hitting any one's pocket financially, means we stop knowing the actual cost of things. This means we value them less. A casual carelessness then creeps into people's behaviour towards community property. Though looking after things means they last longer and make the most of earth's limited resources, this can escape the notice of even the most environmentally aware of individuals .Everything we use, whether our own or a communal possession, ought to be given due respect and care.  If  you were to treat things 'as if they were your own eyes'. you wouldn't want to needlessly damage or render anything useless.

Countless lives, and  lots of human energy, resources, time and ingenuity have gone into the making of our possessions. Its hard to remember this when they're so easy to dispose of and replace them with newer more fashionable versions. Everything has its own value, not just because they are useful to us, but because they exist at all. A lot of sweat, tears and personal suffering, both current and historical, lie behind the making of most ordinary household items. Those who made these items are valuable because they've provided their time, energy and labour, they put something of their life into making them. What we choose to make with what they make, is only one aspect that brings value to them. To be unaware that value has other applications beyond use, shows a lack of imagination for the whole lineage of conditions that have ended in these objects being present in our lives, for us to use and delight in at will.

Our highly developed economy provides us with most things on demand, whether it be food or art materials. We don't have to wait above a few days for goods bought online to be delivered. This should be treasured and valued for the wonder and the boon that it is. However, fast service can become an expectation, and treated as if it were some inalienable human right. We don't like to be kept waiting in banks, restaurants or cinemas.  Speed of delivery has quickened our impatience, we become critical and intolerant of people and situations that take their time. Having to wait, to delay the gratification of our desires, does cultivate patience. We also value a thing more when it finally arrives, simply because we've spent time waiting for it.

Whether the meal we make is for ourselves, our friends or our community, our approach should be no different. We should make it as though it were destined for an emperor. This impartiality extends to the ingredients as much as to the cooked meal. Dogen follows this paragraph by saying 'Cooked and uncooked food must be handled in the same manner'  Raw vegetables are raw vegetables, cooked food is cooked food, each has its own qualities and value. In the same way, we should appreciate tubes of paint or brushes as much as what is painted with them. Our free market economy gives objects value on the basis that someone has made them, the object has a market and a profit can be made. In capitalist terms, value is always added   Dogen is saying something radically different, that value is intrinsic, a quality that everything possesses. The partial value judgements we make have no lasting bearing on the impartial true value of things.

However, to not value something at all is to be in a state of wilful indifference, to not notice. Its harder to treasure or take delight in things if you're blind to their value. To appreciate is to value, but you must first be able to notice, become aware, to take things in and see them for what they are. If we are taking things for granted, then there is an underlying assumption that they will always be there, or that their existence has no significance. To not value a thing existing means we are still in denial about the nature of reality, we dont want to acknowledge that our lives, and the lives of objects will shatter, be lost, or die. The way we view and judge objects mirrors that of our own life, we operate as if we and they are all eternal.

'As carefully as if they were your own eyes' requires us to change our attitude towards the realm of 'things.' Things, like people, break, become worn out or will die on us. Things are impermanent, so what we value today may not be here tomorrow. In our habitual haste we can lose our mindfulness, start to handle things roughly and without care, respect or awareness of their essential fragility. Our interactions with the world and with 'things' should be lighter and gentler in its tone and touch.  Behaving as if everything were as vulnerable, sensitive and delicate as an eyeball in the palm of our hand.

Valuing all things, obviously includes ourselves. Our own existence is a very precious thing, we matter, our life is valueable, is worthy of care and respect too. So 'as carefully as if they were your own eyes' is asking us to perceive, appreciate and respond to everything as if it were an intrinsic part of our own being. 

DOGEN - Instructions for the Artist ~ No 6 ~ In Spirit Different

The sixth in a series of articles based on Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo, exploring how it might be applied to artistic practice and work in general.

' Although the work is just that of preparing meals, it is in spirit different from the work of an ordinary cook or kitchen helper.'

Dogen

Although an artist's work is just that of creating art, it can be in spirit different from the artistic work of an ordinary artist or creative individual. It's not that the work is changed in its form or content, but by the aim or purpose it is being put to. The purpose of the act of creation, becomes as important as the purpose of the completed artwork; to transform oneself, others and the world. This action and purpose of creation being the ultimate altruistic action.

Any artist wants through their act of creation to challenge, surprise and change his/her own percetions of the world, and through their artwork to challenge, surprise and change the perceptions of those who view it. This seems to be so for most truly creative acts. What is in spirit different here is that the change envisaged is fundamentally a spiritual one, to have a vision and knowledge of reality as it really is, to see the world as if through the eyes of an awakened being... a buddha. This makes every brushstroke, every colour chosen, and every composition desvised an activated insightful opportunity to enlighten self and other.

FEATURE 124 ~ St Vincent

The quirky and sophisticated style of St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, has been around for a while. The eponymously titled St Vincent is her fourth album, though it has all the freshness of a debut. Its obvious her collaborations with David Byrne have left their mark. The album St Vincent has at times that jerky off kilter quality which has shades of early Talking Heads, whilst remaining quite uniquely her own vision. Anyway, here are two of the best tracks from the album Digital Witness and Prince Johnny.

DOGEN ~ Instructions for the Artist ~ No 5 'Making a constant effort'

The fifth in a series of articles based on Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo, exploring how it might be applied to artistic practice and work in general.

' Making a constant effort to serve meals full of variety that are appropriate to the need and the occasion, and that will enable everyone to practice with their bodies and minds with the least hindrance.'

Dogen

Every week I work for two days in Windhorse:evolution's kitchen. Although I only prepare vegetables, I can see that a cook has a difficult job to do. If they set the same menu each week, it simplifys the budgeting and planning, and provides people with familiar food. Yet, variety doesn't mean constantly familiar meals or perpetual innovation, but a interesting mixture where the familiar is refreshed by the presence of the new. It requires 'constant effort' to keep this balanced.  In these days of special diets, food intolerance's and differing ideas about what healthy food is, cooking any meal becomes logistically complex. No cook I've known achieves a balanced variation of meals every week.

Variety keeps us awake to what is happening in the moment. Routine, though a reassurance, can cloud perceptions, and even stop us looking beyond its often rigid constraints. An element of flexibility allows variations to enter into any creative act. Cooks also need to stay interested in what they are doing too. Though they must keep an eye on desires for the new and innovative getting out of hand and becoming the flourishing of their ego alone. Keeping a healthy productive relationship between self and other is never easy, requiring 'constant effort.'.

Within the unchanging regularity of a retreat programme, food becomes a focus for sensory stimulus. So Dogen sets some specific provisions, that meals should be 'appropriate to the need and occasion' and 'enable everyone to practice' with 'the least hindrance.' On my ordination course a number of my fellow ordinands were cooks. Cakes began to be conjured with increasing frequency, often without sufficient need or occasion to celebrate. Eventually the retreat leader put his foot down, and said, 'birthdays only guys'. The desire for stimulation through food, had started to interfere with the focus and intensity of the retreat. Eating cakes had become a hindrance rather than a useful leavening factor in the conditions for practice.

Even though no practical need propels artistic creation, an artist has nevertheless to apply 'constant effort'. Intermittent art practice can be worse than no practice at all.  If the flow between ideas and actualisation becomes fractured, creative interest dwindles. Consistency in application keeps any artistic endeavour alive and vital.  Variety has the same benefits and draw backs for an artist, as it does for a cook. Just repeating a working formula becomes boring for both artist and viewer. Predictability is artistic death.  Yet too strong a focus on being innovative can tip any originality into novelty seeking.

Regular themes appear in my work; a love of squares, layers on top of layers, patterning, colour intensity, depth and contrast, to name but a few. I have a conscious intention to develop and experiment with these themes in each painting. Most of my artwork requires me to be methodical, to do a lot of preparation and take pains over the details of its execution. This is the zeitgeist, my love for detailed work, that seems to manifest whether my creative activity is art, writing or knitting.

Any conception about being freer or more spontaneously expressive, has frequently hindered or blocked the channels that my creativity flows down. A commonly held myth for what an artistic process ought to be like, is that it should be a spontaneous expression from an artist's depths. Actually, the creative act is frequently much more extended and considered than that What is expressive or spontaneous manifests in quite a wide variety of forms. Though technically controlled, my finished work is rarely cold, lifeless or lacking in visual energy. As long as I stay aligned with and respond cleanly and unselfconsciously to impulses, my finished pieces of art can become possessed of a life affirming warmth and vibrancy.

I do, however, like introducing elements of chance, like choosing colours by random methods, or deciding where elements are to go by rolling a dice, or following the advice on Eno's Oblique Strategies . This I find helps relax any desire I might have for complete control over the final outcome. For an artist, the 'needs and occassions' are found by responding to what arises unbidden from the moment, whilst staying aware of when more consciously deterministic motivations start narrowing the scope of an artwork's evolution. Once our ego takes over the artistic process, the pursuit of fame and novel concepts, will not be far behind.  When any creative expression turns into a selfish desire, this hinders that expression from being of spiritual benefit.

Other 'needs and occasions'  do need to be taken into account. An artist's spiritual life cannot be built on creativity alone. Other elements need time and effort too, such as one's relationship with a partner, friends and family. Efforts of the imagination require frequent internal and external watering to prevent them drying up. Activities such as meditation, devotional practices, walking in nature, viewing other people's art, reading poetry, going to the theatre, sometimes simply doing nothing for as long as possible or giving oneself permission to take unstructured time for reflection, are all creatively beneficial. These things 'need' to find there 'appropriate occassion' too. A rich creative life is fed by a variety of activities, as long as the pursuit of them isn't an aversion to getting down to 'just painting.'

No one has a burning need to see art, human life can survive very well without it. Any artform has to actively seek out its own audience. It can only become 'a finger pointing at the moon' provided the viewer is there, ready, receptive and doesn't walk straight by. Art has the potential to communicate, once the person and the moment for it coincide. If an artwork points towards something beyond ordinary perception, then a variety of forms, connecting with a need, finding the right occasion, and enabling practice by being unhindered, are important here too. Ugliness and offence erect barriers, hearts and minds close and receptivity becomes rigidity. To open hearts and minds you have to present a beautiful vision, a new aesthetic variation for the visual senses and spirits to be drawn towards.

Sometimes, when I think about my art, I do wonder 'what am I creating this for? or 'who am I creating it for?' Creating any art can become like farting in a private enclosed room. No one knows you are there, or what you are doing, or whether what you are doing matters one jot. If art remains only for oneself, then its right to question what its for. If its entirely for one's own fame, praise, adulation or self-glorification then apart from those short term impermanent gains, what is the point? Art has to be created with the intention of benefiting others beyond the confines of ones own life. It is the altruistic aesthetic action of any trainee Bodhisattva.

FEATURE 123 ~ Lucius

Emerging from somewhere in Brooklyn come Lucius. Built around the sublime twinning of their two lead vocalists, they are simultaneously retro and effortlessly contemporary. Here they sing Go Home in a video from 2013, and Turn it Around on Later with Jools Holland this year. Their lead guitarist twiddles some Robert Fripp like fuzzed tones in the background, whilst the two women up front do their glorious thing. Judging by even eartlier stuff the identical dyed blonde hair and dresses is the result of recent record company grooming, but musically they seem to me to not need such blatent window dressing. Having sampled their album Wildewomen, its doesn't quite capture the sparseness or thrilling spark that these live recordings do. Something important really did get lost in the mix.

FINISHED READING ~ Hee-Jin Kim ~ Dogen on Meditation & Thinking

Hee-Jin Kim in American Zen circles is a very  highly respected academic and Zen practitioner. He's a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. His reputation is based on one book, Mystical Realist, which he wrote in 1975 that has been reprinted and revised many times. Deservedly so, as it has become the foundation for many subsequent modern commentarial interpretations and critical analysis of Dogen's uniquely poetic, densely argued expositions.

In Mystical Realist, Hee-Jin Kim managed to explore and explain some of Dogen's underlying religious/philosophical views, and the particular rich use he makes of language. It is on occasions impenetrable itself, but on the whole it was more than worth persisting with. A few years ago I spent a very delightful week at Padmaloka, studying one chapter from Mystical Realist, where my ability to interpret and grasp Dogen's zeitgeist grew immensely. So, Meditation and Thinking, published some thirty odd years later came with high expectations.

I have to say I've been largely disappointed. It has many of the faults of Mystical Realist with not enough of its virtues. I think largely this arises out of Hee-Jin Kim writing primarily as an academic. He uses a distinctly specialist language, which many sentences are structurally jammed tight shut with. Sometimes his explicatory statements can seem just like one long list of words separated by commas. I've rarely read or reread paragraphs so much, in the hope that some sense of meaning might emerge, only to result in a 'nope, still don't get it'. It's very sad to read a commentary that appears to demand its own commentary, that makes the impenetrable more impenetrable.  I've only ever had this experience once before, with Masao Abe's ~ A Study of Dogen, where quotations from Dogen's actual writings emerged like beacons of clarity from the surrounding mud of philosophic framework that they were set within.

I'm not so dim witted that I can't get something out of any book, even if it punches above my intellectual ability by often quite a bit. I'll certainly give it a go. But I never want to read another paragraph with salvific, soteriological, hermenutical, perspectival, atemporalised, telelogical, ontological,or epistemological all within it. This is simply not a direct uncluttered communication of the Dharma. Dogen himself, I believe, would despair at use of language that is so remote and excluding.

Well, having given its style and form a bit of a thumbs down, I think I ought to give some sense of its content. It has six shortish chapters, but each is huge in ambition, scope and potential. They touch on Dogen's views on the nondual intimacy of delusion with enlightenment, on emptiness as a dream within a dream, on language as much more than a finger pointing at the moon ,that right thinking and Dogen's term non thinking describe the same thing, and that micha dittis are part of the striving of reason to perfect vision.

Kim also makes quietly questioning, yet searching criticisms of recent assertions made about Dogen, Zen and the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, as being non-buddhist, that have emerged via the school of Critical Buddhism in Japan  Whilst acknowledging that Zen has often neutralised the role of ethics in spiritual practice because of misconceptions around Buddha Nature, he also recognises Dogen was critical of these views in his own time. Kim is therefore not entirely convinced by some of the unfavourable interpretations that Critical Buddhiism attempts to draw. There is in potential at least, a lot that could be discovered from this book, and it might reveal more on a second reading on a long solitary sometime. Perhaps if my understanding this time was of only ten percent , then that was actually not a bad result.

DOGEN ~ Instructions for the Artist ~ No 4, 'Put your Awakened Mind to work'

The fourth in a series of articles based on Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo, exploring how it might be applied to artistic practice and work in general.

'Put your Awakened Mind to work'

Dogen

I have by no stretch of the imagination 'seen things as they really are' Though I do have an intuitive vision for what it may be like, and I've been lucky enough to find the Dharma as a means of moving myself towards it. So, whilst I'm not fully awakened, my eyes are open and able to see, if not fully comprehend, should I wish to. The desire to see things clearer is awakened in me, even if its still quite densely foggy most of the time. Whatever state my 'awakened mind' has reached, Dogen suggests it should be put to work within my day to day life.

To have any degree of insight, you have first to be able to see, to actually notice and interpret your ordinary everyday life from the perspective of the Dharma . It is, after all, right there before our eyes, yet mostly we blink and miss it, because the 'awakened' part of our mind is not yet substantial enough and is less accessible to being put to work.
Whether we are creating a meal, or creating an artwork it is no different in terms of what we practice. The same general human neuroses, mental habits, self esteem issues, emotional mood swings, fluctuations of feeling are there regardless of lifestyle or circumstance. I can go from elation to frustration in the space of a second, be very still and concentrated one minute only to be tense and restless the next. To start a morning feeling inspired and on a creative roll only to be wallowing in despondency, feelings of stagnation and worthlessness by the end of the day.

Spotting these shifts of mood and being able to respond creatively and with sufficient agility to transform them, is the bread and butter of everyday spiritual practice. It requires confidence in oneself, not just as an artist, but also as a spiritual practitioner. What throws our state of mind and emotions into such states of turmoil?  It's usually a 'wordly wind' making itself strongly present in our mind. There's a need for praise, or to avoid blame, the desire for fame, or to escape shame or guilt, you've lost something you loved, or gained something you wanted, experienced great pleasure, or strong aversion to a painful situation. These 'winds' can suddenly rise up and blow us off course at any time.

When one of them gusts through the artistic process, questions of 'I want' or 'don't want' will undoubtedly be fouling and clogging up the aesthetic air. Worldly winds are generally instantly recognisable. they are just that very obviously 'worldly'. They are neither good nor bad, just unhelpful if one wants to encourage spiritual progress in oneself.  Making a negative judgement any time they should appear, tends to only compound the issue, by introducing further 'blame, and 'pain' on top of what is already all too present.  As these issues arise during the day, an artist, or anyone for that matter, has to train themselves not only to spot the 'wordly mind' when it is present, but then to put their 'awakened mind' to work, in order that a healthier perspective can be reestablished.

DOGEN ~ Instructions for the Artist ~ No 3, 'Carried out by Teachers'

The third in a series of articles based on Dogen's Instructions for the Tenzo, exploring how it might be applied to artistic practice and work in general.

'Carried out by Teachers settled in the way, and by others who have aroused the bodhisattva spirit within themselves.'

Dogen

A tenzo isn't just someone who fancies a bit of large scale catering. It's someone who is 'settled in the way,' notice it is now 'settled 'not 'settling'. There is nothing much that isn't sorted out, this teacher has to some degree 'gone beyond.' sorting themselves out.  Dogen adds, it could also be someone who has  'aroused the bodhisattva spirit within themselves', which ultimately means the Bodhocitta, but they may have at least aroused the aspiration to attain this. He also goes on to warn that those who don't possess 'such a spirit' are setting themselves up for suffering and a very hard time indeed, where all efforts in pursuit of the Way would be ineffective. Being a tenzo means exerting 'all your energies', all your mental, physical and spiritual strengths and resources into practice. A tenzo needs to be a reasonably well integrated, clear thinking and emotionally robust person.

Similarly, an artist whose succeeded in making their work a spiritual practice, has to know themselves pretty well, and be emotionally resilient. Primarily because being an artist can be such a solitary existence. To prevent any artist's work from becoming an egotistical  self-indulgence, their creation has to be informed by an altruistic spirit. It's not so much about who an artwork is for, but what the artwork is for. Does it have a positive life enhancing benefit at its core?

A painting is unlikely to 'save all sentient beings from suffering'. Whilst an artwork does not necessarily have to be about human suffering, it should be informed by, or be in response to suffering. Art should aspire to be an encounter with beauty, that lifts the spirit and lightens hearts. It should be a torch light that shines until we get to the end of the longest and darkest of tunnels imaginable. Art that lacks 'such a spirit' isn't necessarily 'bad art' but it will be of no spiritual use in the pursuit of the Way. This is Dogen's main theme in these opening paragraphs of the Instructions for the tenzo. He's laying out the ground, the background ideals that underpin what he is to say subsequently.

Any artist whose in the midst of creating has imagined the effect on the persons who might view what they have made. They may want the viewer to be excited, exhilarated, perplexed, thoughtful, intrigued, or whatever response they wish to conjure in another persons being. For in these moments they 'imaginatively enter into the lives of another' as Sangharakshita puts it, which cultivates loving kindness the root of all compassionate feeling. Envisaging creating this response ithrough their artwork is a huge responsibility for an artist to take on their shoulders. It requires a lot of love and generosity to keep giving of your artistic talent for the benefit of others.

The function of much contemporary art is quite different from this, and though it serves its own function, its not one the Buddha nor Dogen would have necessarily endorsed. It can have an air of nihilism about it; provoking, challenging conventions, causing offence or breaking moral taboos. Engaging a viewer not with their aspirations but with cynicism or humiliation. Often aesthetically amoral, unkind, hostile, angry, even cruel, it exemplifies what happens when art 'lacks a spirit' of love, benevolence and altruism. It ends up causing further hardship and suffering, pulling ones attention away from any spiritual path and into the path of despair.

Whether you're a cook or an artist, your individual talents are being put to the service of others, and in a sense to serving all humanity. Feeding a world that's full of hungry stomachs and souls. An unpalatable meal is no different from an unpalatable artwork, in that it is unpleasant to look upon or consume. There should really be no inedible or unedifying art, only rich feasts for the eyes.