Ornoth

Last week I read this article from the Chicago Tribune that had been syndicated on the Buddhist Channel web site. It talked about a contemplative photography practice called miksang, which arose out of the art teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of the Shambhala meditation tradition.

more photos

The idea is to view one’s visual sensory input nonconceptually, without interpreting it into the world of objects that form the majority of our lives. The medium of photography is used to attempt to capture that perception unaltered, so that one can then provide the same, unaltered perception to another viewer. And, of course, it combines two of my passions—photography and Buddhism—which I thought was very cool.

As I was mousing around, investigating miksang, I happened to notice that John McQuade, one of miksang’s two founders, was holding a “Miksang Level 1” class at the Shambhala Center in Boston: the following weekend! The web site said registration was full, but when I emailed, they let me attend.

Miksang Level 1 images often isolate individual elements of the visual realm, in much the same way as other beginning photographic disciplines. Our first assignment was to work solely with color. Then we tried photographing light and shadow. Then pattern and texture, space and dot-in-space.

The most important difference between miksang and mainstream photography is the mindset of the photographer. The idea (haha) is to divorce oneself from ideas: just look at the visual input as an almost meaningless sensation, without associating it with purely conceptual constructs like “room” or “pencil” or “taillight”.

What one winds up with is a set of categories of perception that’s very reminiscent of what the German gestalt artists arrived at: color, pattern, shape, and so forth.

In essence, the miksang approach deconstructs the world of objects. For that reason, Miksang images often show small portions of an object, enough to show the perception, but not so much that it becomes an identifiable object. Because of this, miksang photos often wind up looking like abstract, impressionist, deconstructivist, or zen-like artwork.

That’s what makes miksang a contemplative practice, and to be honest, that’s its primary goal. The point isn’t to make great images, or even necessarily to improve one’s photography, but to assist the individual in reaching a place beyond concepts and objects, and into the absolute sensation: a taste of the unconditioned.

I definitely felt that, while we were out shooting. You really lose yourself when you’re operatings at the level of the raw sensation, rather than the objects they represent. You just have to be careful not to walk out in front of a moving vehicle while you’re in that space! You might not be actively seeing it at the time, but the world of objects does still exist.

One thing I discovered is how exhausting it can be to operate on that level. After a two hour introduction on Friday, the class went 9 to 5 Saturday and Sunday, with two homework shoots after class Saturday night. So much for that weekend! So between the hours and the surprising tension of looking at the world in a different way, I’m pretty beat. And my eyes continue to scan for interesting colors and light and pattern.

I really need a good long snooze.

On the other hand, the dozen-odd people in the class were all pretty interesting. It’s amazing how showing one’s creative work tends to break down barriers and promote connections and respect between people. It’s very likely that the group will maintain some form of contact over the coming months, which is cool.

And like all good Shambhala schemes, there’s a number of additional levels to get trained in. In Level 2 one works with themes to begin including recognizeable objects in space. In Level 3 you begin to explore energy and chaos, and then there’s something called “Absolute Eye”, which explores the commonality between miksang and the formal fine art forms I mentioned above. Although the levels aren’t necessarily sequential, Level 1 is really the minimum requirement for understanding what miksang is, and equally importantly what it is not.

The images you see at right are some of the shots that I took during the Level 1 class. There are writeups for these, plus more images here on my Flickr account. I’m pretty pleased with them, although some of them vary from the exercise’s ideal. I wound up with a hit rate (of really good images) of about one in seven, which is really good (often the hit rate is closer to 1:24 or 1:36).

In the end, I think miksang provides both some great lessons about photographic composition as well as an interesting exercise in nonconceptual thought.