“Material riches mean nothing, you haven’t achieved anything of value unless you are one with God.”  There is nothing incorrect about this statement alone.  But, however, when it is clear that it is said to convince someone to attend a church, the statement becomes meaningless.

“What is suffering?” can be looked at from three perspectives…

1. “What does the word “suffering” mean?”

2. The philosophical question “what is suffering,” or in other words, “what is the nature of all suffering?”

3. “What is it that is suffering?” Or, “who or what is suffering!?”…

…perhaps if someone is truly suffering, he/she will ask “what is suffering!?” when it is the same as asking oneself honestly “who am I?”

Upon truly questioning “who am I?” one will realize the answer to the different question, “what is the nature of all suffering?” One can realize what weight the word “suffering” held.

“Genuine Human Beings” Meditation

It is when the mind is quiet that one is receptive. When there is only receptivity, when one is “waiting and seeing,” just as an athlete in the zone is doing, there is no thought. Everything slows down. Reacting perfectly becomes possible.

From thoughtless-receptivity the most beautiful things will flow effortlessly. …While witnessing a perfect, effortless reaction – that itself is enough to create another quiet mind, as someone else observes this rare state of complete perfection. And it is this blissful silence that the critic experiences upon witnessing such an act, an act which becomes possible in this state of silence – the zone.

So few, the truly intelligent, are aware that we have a far greater purpose. It may or may not be a lot of moments we get, and because of that, those that we do should not be wasted on cultivating attachment.

Success and failure are dualities; one mirrors the other.  They depend on the judgment of the ego; they depend on the attachment to these judgments which alone makes one player superior or inferior to another. Rest in the middle, always between success and failure, a middle state where thinking of either isn’t happening, a state where there is only awareness, where no one individual exists. This is the state of mind of good sportsmanship when it is applied to everyday living, every single moment.

It’s the Pursuit of Any Goal that Makes Failure Likely

The moment it is known that one won’t smoke or eat unhealthy foods, that knowing is the end and the new beginning.

It’s the pursuit of any goal that makes failure likely, just as new year’s resolutions and goal lists are indicative that one is not ready – even that one is not going to transform.

What Does This Say About Mind? (Wait and See)

          The state of being immersed in “what is,” is like a state of consistently “waiting to see.” This is not a mindstate because it is the awareness that one is not in a mindstate (a pre-conditioned tendency), because the mind is not focused on thought (which gives rise to tendencies). The mind is empty, focused on nothing, “waiting and seeing”  whatever arises in the mind, or in the present moment.

As long as there is “waiting and seeing” there is not a state of mind, because to wait and see what happens, continuously, even as something is happening, or a thought is arising, waiting and seeing resiliently allows whatever arises to pass away. There is no one, no ego, expecting to see anything.

One remains waiting and seeing the present moment alone and whenever it is realized that the awareness of the present moment is absent, because a thought arose, all five senses are reinstated, and one waits to see if they diminish. While waiting to see if perception diminishes, there is pure, present, effortless perception.

Should a thought linger and the mind remain focused in that for a while, and upon perceiving that the ego should reprimand oneself for entering this tendency, that would be entering a mindstate!

Waiting and seeing, it is obvious that any word or thought that enters the mind destroys awareness, because the mind activates with a single word, a single thought, and begins to pay attention to mental commentary.

Once in this beautiful absence of separation, if the mind focuses on examining the state of mind, the state of mind disappears. If the mind tries to understand itself further with thinking, the effortless mind-state is gone along with the present moment, because it is effortless.

Waiting and seeing is easy, realize that it is characterized by being easy. If it is hard it is not waiting and seeing. Sense the easiness, and be aware of the state of the mind and body at all times. Don’t even think about the easiness, which would create tension and make it hard. And once it becomes hard, trying to make it easy again makes it harder.

Be aware that you are not letting yourself get in the way. But also be aware that doing that is letting yourself get in the way.

The cycle of thought does not end until one experiences effortlessness; the more the mind thinks, the more it has to think about!

       Earlier, talking to my mom, she mentioned a guy at work who played guitar well, she said, “like me.” At the time I shrugged it off, but tonight I found myself playing guitar not only well, but enjoying doing it. And I haven’t picked up the guitar in nearly a year, or thought of myself as a good guitar player since I began. Therefore I recommend complimenting another, “you’re beautiful,” “you can be so genuinely kind;” just slip the truth – merely how you feel about another in your heart – into conversation nonchalantly.

Crafty Clearance Creations

After receiving a lot of wonderful comments from friends and family on the pieces in the room, usually something to the tune of “where does a self-publisher get the money for that!?” arises. So here’s a post featuring a quick walk-through, starting with the entry way…

In Columbus, Ohio there is a wonderful store called Half-Price Books. And of the five different locations in the city, all of them have clearance sections. The location at Lane Avenue has a wide selection of books in their clearance section – while the one on N. High St. has really nice novelty gifts in theirs. A book of landscape portraits was purchased for $2. Then between two other Central Ohio staples – Hobby Lobby, which has mat-board on sale for 40%-off every few weeks – and Michaels, which has 40%-off coupons in their Sunday ads and inexpensive black gallery frames – what you see here was fashioned and hung all for under $15.

Next, the eye is drawn between the two windows to the television which sits on another piece. This is a coffee table with a faux-bamboo-look table-liner tacked onto one side. The table liner was $2 at Target in bargain bins at the front of the store.

To the immediate right is a leaning mirror. Originally $279.00 at Hobby Lobby, it was left for $27.00 in their 90%- off clearance sale because one of the corners is dinged. Really it’s not that noticeable.

Behind that is a bed and a “nightstand,” which is really an old Sauder television stand. Do you remember CRT’s!? With a 40%-off coupon, a yard of this fabric at Hobby Lobby totaled $7. A discarded old white pantry with sliding glass doors offered the top. Then the  knobs visible in the picture below were attached to dress this thing up for a total of $11.

What holds the printer is a decorative box with inner storage space, and pre-cut glass. The glass was $2, and the box was $6… both in the aforementioned 90%-off Hobby Lobby awesome sale.

This little room used to be a storage box of its own. One week and a coat of paint later it’s an office!

This Sauder desk with a removable frosted-glass top was on Craigslist for $40…

The black fabric was $3. The orchard print was $4 at Michaels in an outside clearance bin (80%-off).

Would you consider sawing a foot off its legs, adding some pegs and bringing in a  meditation pillow to create a different touch?

This makeshift side table is a clearance white pillar and another one of those $2 books from the Half-Price Bookstore.

All the decor in these photos was on clearance.

There is nothing to do but this – meditation.

Maybe you have been a part of a few situations that you feel you never resolved, situations that you weren’t ready to forget about – situations that just kind of faded away over time?  On the rare occasions of solitude away from work and family this is some of what people are thinking about.

On a short work break, perhaps smoking a cigarette out back with only a brick wall to face, the mind tends to think about something else, rather than stare blankly at the brick wall of the business – the place I break away from – the place I escape from.  Past experiences makes us who we are.

                Why am I still thinking about it?

1) Perhaps being aware of the thought – the memory of this past situation now – is preparation enough in case a similar one happens in the future?  (Ultimately, that having experienced this situation, though I still can’t get over it (because I am still thinking about it), I am somehow more experienced?))

2) Because I feel like I have not acted to my fullest capacity.  I might feel like I could have done or said something more.  Indeed, after the fact, the mind often puts a spin on thoughts and imagines oneself saying and/or doing the perfect thing, attaining what it could have attained but didn’t. (Only, in this imaging of oneself, the self-image is self-created.  Imagining that one could have said or done the perfect thing, after the moment for saying or doing it has gone creates the “capacity.”)

Often, the mind deems that the very past experience that it is escaping into is boring and comes back to the present leaving it unresolved.  As one walks back inside, one may or may not realize that the brick wall never existed, the cigarette neither, and meanwhile some people remark that life is short and quickly passing them by.

Perhaps five years from the cigarette in front of the brick wall, this mind thinks about that exact unresolved past situation/experience again and relives all the same thoughts another time, and creates the same feelings once more.

If the mind is still attached to the same feelings and thoughts it created from long ago, does five years seem very long; how quickly is life passing by in the mind? and here, now!

People remark that “it seems like it was just yesterday…,” and lives do become predictable, because thinking about any situation or experience is not resolving it.  The very thought of this experience is preventing experiencing the present.

Unless this one situation is resolved in the mind, this particular thought and feeling, in five more years, perhaps next time re-watching a movie, or sipping a glass of wine, the mind will relive it again.  The word “resolve” itself implies that this situation wasn’t handled…

the mind must re-solve it! and honestly, that seems to be the only problem.

Perhaps if we figure out the formula for resolving one situation – rather, living each moment to the fullest – we could be able to resolve them all instantly?

If resolving were a process, short or long-term, it would create experiences not unlike the one the mind sought to resolve. And at the end of a tiresome search – many white hairs and forehead crinkles later – one would still feel experienced when thinking about “that time “I” resolved a great problem!”  Even then one is still not living in the present, immersed in the mind, as a thinker still exists who might, on that very day, come to a new experience and not react perfectly… driving home thinking about better ways to say or do things in the future.

If the mind is to ever let any experience go, it has to watch it arise.

What unresolved experience would there be to remember if one hadn’t forgotten about the experience!?

Don’t try so hard… it is often what you don’t do that people notice…

 The Determined Jogger

You are jogging on a narrow path. You approach a man walking – heading in the same forward direction as you. He cannot see you and he is not likely listening to your footsteps approaching – his head is down and he appears to be thinking. As you near passing him he unknowingly steps into your way at the last moment, and you hit him with a medium amount of force. He falls down and uses his hands to catch himself.

If you stop jogging what has become your intense jogging routine, to apologize and/or to see if he will let this incident pass, he will realize that you were kind enough to interrupt your practice to see if he was alright.

If you keep jogging and just look back and say something to the tune of “I’m sorry,” or even if you say nothing at all as you run away from him, then it is not as kind.

Stopping yourself for him makes him realize that you could have kept running…

If you keep running he will realize that you could have stopped yourself for him.

 Don’t think too much.

Don’t try so hard.

Don’t try to impress others.

The effort is counterproductive.

It’s the people who don’t seem to care who always appear unaffected. It is these people who don’t even try and who speak the least – who attract others, who don’t insult others, who impress others. It’s not as much saying or doing the “perfect thing” that people are looking for. Just as the man walking did not hear or see you coming, in the same way many people aren’t expecting anything…

The End of the World

If you had the ability to know the exact date and time that you were going to die, and how you were going to die, would you want to?

 

Attachment to Things

The ego is all over the place.  If you were looking to dissolve it, it is not hard to find…

The ego is big in nature for if it was small it would be much easier to erase.  Big egos have more possibilities to realize the big ego.

Creating Attachment

“Soul mate”

This is the duality of judgment…  For example: good and bad, fair and unfair, light and dark, poor and rich, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly always co-exist.  And, merely because they cannot be perceived simultaneously by a single judgment, the ego does not see how one makes the other possible…

A single thought is not able to simultaneously think that a single woman’s looks can be both ugly and beautiful.  This is ego.  Thus, the ego is who chooses.  (Perhaps choosing one beautiful woman?)

And therefore the ego is trapped and continues to suffer not questioning the cyclic nature of its analysis’.  Perhaps, as one has not yet seen how thinking something is ugly creates beauty.  Once the thinker has the definition of what has been judged, that judgment makes the exact opposite possible even in the same woman.  It is very interesting how picking one woman over another for her wit makes a man instantly aware of this duality should a single “stupid” thing ever come out of her mouth.  Stupidity is only “his” thought, his ego – just as her beauty, her ugliness is.

What are Things?

This egoic ineptness is certainly not limited to one judgment.  It also applies to the children, his job, retirement and death… entire lives composed around comparisons.

For instance, to call one’s children “my” children, to call a job “my” job, retirement “his,” and to know “he” will die… to call a woman “my” wife only once out-loud is to subconsciously create something to lose.  The ego can only lose things, which is only what it perceives it has earned, acquired based on what one perceived as valuable, which indicates that one feels that whatever was obtained actually belongs to oneself (to the ego).[1]

Ego can only earn what one has tried/worked to get so the ego can only lose what one has tried/worked to get.  The ego can only lose what the ego itself has founded, or rather, what it has judged as worth finding.  Thus, one might say and really feel that one has found the true self whenever one finds oneself happy with an object.  Clearly, a woman is not a thing until the moment a man asserts she belongs to him, or even that she completes him.  To him she is a very important and necessary thing and when she is gone the man’s ego will feel a loss no different from losing a wallet or a stereo except in the intensity.

              By categorizing things as important the mind creates loss.  The single statement has three implied meanings:

1.  Through judgment alone it becomes possible to create loss.  It is noticing a difference between things, between ideas or between people.

2.  Through the judgment that one difference is more or less important than another difference to oneself… the ego is strengthened through the process.

3.  And the more important a thing attached to is seen as; the more time there is spent attaching to the thing; and the more intense the suffering in its absence, and vice versa.

Simply put, the possibility of loss in the future is only plausible if the ego feels it has gained something in the past. Right now without the judgment of value and without perceiving comparisons there is no “I:” the two arise simultaneously because the “I” is the judge.[2]

Discarding a judgment about what one may or may not need becomes impossible when one decides that he/she may need it later (that the object is valuable or not valuable, beautiful or ugly), because at that moment the possibility that it also may not is discarded.

Perhaps the very possibility that it might not be needed could be reason enough to discard it?  Wanting itself is something to be lost…

 If that woman should leave why does he suffer?

Because it might be her behaviors : how she looked or even the way she spoke, attributes that he has deemed important – valuable to himself, that he misses.  Because it might have been her behaviors that caused him to choose her over someone else… in choosing her she represented him.  And, who anyone is constantly changes, which becomes quite apparent at the moment of her absence.

The way she deduced information or the way she added jokes onto the end of serious statements, the way she smiled, or perhaps the way she was aware of everyone’s needs except her own… This might be what the ego misses about her because this might be what he identified with.  These “good” things about her is what made her different from all the other girls (regardless that other girls are capable of these traits) and allowed the ego to grow because she was “his,” because he was worthy enough to her for her to accept him.  After her death this ‘missing her’ is his suffering.  All the while this is about him, not her!  He is pained.

This suffering is brought about because her death is the death of years of evolving predictions and analysis’, and evolving judgments and opinions – the death of creating new memories with her.  It is the instant death of the conditioned continuation of each moment they were together.  Now he cannot find out that he was wrong. Perhaps he can’t be surprised by the “bad” traits she exhibited any longer.  Now he is not living.  He is not growing  because he cannot create any more memories with her.  Maybe now is the time to reflect on the one’s he has?

Suffering – this feeling of loss; this thought of loss – is brought into being simultaneously with this conflict between her absence and the loss of the way he has evolved with her and because of her to think for himself.

She was who he is.

So, when she is gone, a part of him has gone.  How big that part is depends on his judgment, and on the amount of time that the two  spent together.

His current suffering, his conflict, is his lack of understanding, which is his attachment to his own judgments.  The lack of understanding makes this seem like a tragedy.  It happens now because throughout the moments they spent together at times he admired her and at other times resented her.  He has judged her; he has respected her.  He has disrespected her.  She was judged “important;” “valuable.”  – Worthy of his respect and disrespect.

She was the woman he had spent his life with.

Because he respected her then he misses her now.  Over their years together the feeling of respect he created, which was created within his high/low standards and thus the high/low standards that he also held himself to is what he is pained about – resisting letting it all go.  So he avoids it.  So, now he remembers the good-times.  Now he thinks about how he admired her.  Now he may even think about how he shouldn’t think about how he admired her.

Now “I” am suffering.

Let us go through his mind after her absence to observe the suffering the “I” creates, perhaps in the hopes of arriving at the absence of avoidance, maybe where the ego can resolve itself into peace…

She Is Gone

Images of moments together randomly and endlessly flash on the movie screen of the mind.  Because I am helpless to stop thinking about these memories whenever I want I feel like I am suffering.  The ego is rendered helpless… Times at the kitchen table at home-cooked breakfast.  Trips to the annual fair and out to eat.  Perfectly timed jokes.  Overcoming hardships.  Every time she helped me; stood out from others; smiled; suffered; joked; came through for me, cycles through memory.  This feels like coping but deep down I know that I haven’t got over her absence and may never because I haven’t gotten over her.  I wonder, “how can something this deep-rooted, created years into the past, be coped with at the instant moment of her departure?”  I lie to myself to offset the pain brought into light through thinking about these things, through thinking about her present absence.  Ego tells itself, I tell me, that this suffering is a natural process of “coping,” only I notice that after telling myself that I still continue to suffer.

Instead of moving on I think that I have to move on…  and so how to go about it naturally follows, which indicates attachment; which indicates not really wanting to move on!  “Moving on,” or coping, is truly instantaneous or else it would never occur.  Telling myself I have to move on is the same as not being ready to move on.  Instead I am telling myself to move on because I don’t intend to accept her leave, because at the moment of her absence I was not ready to face how I felt honestly, in order to see why I felt like that.  This is the wall the ego built.  It was there all along but it is merely more prevalent at moments like these.

Instead of becoming quiet in the realization of what has happened I think about my job; about family; about friends; about money; about moving on; and about her, etc.  The ego is heavily conditioned and this is apparent more than ever now as this is the time to realize that the judgments I created that made her important, were more important than she was to me.  So, how can the ego observe that?  The ego judges.

Of course, the ego refuses to and exists now in this state of denial.  I will think about her all the time or try not to think about her… and this is called “love.”  Since I do not know how to stop thinking about this I will accept this problem by avoiding it, perhaps by labeling this “keeping her memory alive.”  I may never get over her.  I am suffering because I say to another, “she will always be with me!”  And deep down because I make this true – because I assume that avoidance itself must be easier than the true pain that surrendering to the problem, to what actually has happened might create… that every memory arising, the mindstate I now create – any thought of her keeps me from living in the present which undoubtedly she would only want me to do.

Now I realize how thinking that ‘I have to move on’ is creating my suffering.  It is the mindstate; it is the ego!

Why start over?

Why reset myself back to the beginning perhaps only to repeat the exact same process over with a different person?

After serious self-introspection I realize now that if I “cope” with her absence I have not learned anything.

Perhaps, I am suffering because after she is gone, after some time of hesitating entering an ego-less observation of what is going on within me, I perceive this as an unsolvable problem?   Unfortunately, there is no doubt that if I had truly been aware of every single timeless present moment we were together while she was here, then letting go wouldn’t be “letting go;” it wouldn’t be so hard now.  To understand enough to say “she didn’t belong to me” is to have spoken the truest statement of love.  It is a realization that unfortunately one rarely realizes while someone is alive.  If one truly realizes that then one understands that the moment her physical body has disappeared she never existed.  It implies letting go.  But much further it implies living for the moment and never missing a second to conceptualizations.  How could I miss her now unless I had missed her then?  How often did my mind delve into the past or future while she was very much here sitting on the couch next to me?

A New Realization of the Quiet Mind

One becomes aware of the timelessness of the present moment when one realizes that the moment she is not present she does not exist, because it implies further that when she is present that moment is timeless.  The mind must be equally aware at all times…

…possible only with the awareness of the now rather than thought itself, which becomes lost in the past, future, or amidst judgments of the present…

This unsolvable problem; this feeling of loss bringing about intense suffering, is created because I intensely regret that there were wasted moments between us.[3]  Because I kept things bottled up then I am bottling up now, given I wish and imagine that she was/is still here.  I feel ready to say what needs to be said now that she has left, as her death makes the ego realize that “I” have been avoiding saying it.

I realize, how different is “missing her” from feeling ashamed? 

That is what “keeping her memory alive” is all about.

That is not love.

Missing her after she has passed is tragic. Because, regretting anything is useless; because it is just the continuance of a similar mindstate of thought to the kind that ego created – to the kind that avoided her while she was alive.

Is thinking about the times I failed in the past different from failing in the past?

Once one accepts not arriving at the truth, if the mind is clear, the truth rushes in…

The Truth

Because at times I felt she was immensely important it made the unimportant things about her possible.  The things that at times I was more unaware of than the traits about her that caused me to choose her.  It was my thoughts about her that built her up and tore her down which made her both important and unimportant.  She was much more than that.  She is not an image or a thought, a single beautiful experience or several, or my soul mate.  Of course she is much more than that.  No image, no thought, no beautiful experience and no person belongs to anyone.  The very moment one thinks one does they make an image, a thought, experience or person unnecessarily valuable and they suffer as they resist allowing it to pass away…

…to place in the natural course of things.

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[1] Does a man have to know that a woman is valuable to value her?  Or, must he know that to want her?  All women are valuable, how can he choose one out of all women?

[2] Wanting to try cigarettes causes a person to like them.  Or it might have caused a person to dislike them.  Either way, that “want” itself created an opinion.  The “want,” and the resulting opinion is ego-the ego is the thought, the judge.  “Want” cannot exist where everything is equal.  The ego is what categorizes things as different-as beautiful, tall, intelligent, quick, delicious, or colorful, etc.

[3] Perhaps including arguments, but most definitely including not speaking one’s mind, like relating to her how I truly felt at times… keeping things bottled up… avoiding saying what needed to be said, or doing what I felt needed to be done,  predicting our future in the present.

With maturity there might be sadness…

When you slow down enough to observe yourself and how you have acted and what it means… you discover the immaturity that you previously exhibited.

Then you may nor may not realize that that is how the people who you have interacted with immaturely view you no matter what.  Often times opinions aren’t changed as easily as they are created.

Whenever you see them you remember that they already expect something petty out of you.  Your image to them becomes your image of yourself.  Now instead of simply being happy you conserve your words and movements to prevent doing something else immature, or perhaps to look for ways to act or speak to prove that you have matured.  There is a great deal of stress in this.  And now even though seeing that you have been immature is maturity in itself, you refuse to relax in a hopeless quest to prove something that just is.

There is no proving it.  When the time is right, and when you aren’t trying, the new you will shine forth…

…because there is no way of knowing how another mind truly views you.  The image that you believe you have created for yourself in another mind is created in your own mind.  If you know you are mature, truly, then you don’t feel the need to prove it… you don’t need anything.  Knowing itself is enough.

Catch the Breeze and the Winter Chills

Self-Portrait with a Grey Felt Hat, Paris, 1887 - Oil on Cardboard

Madness (both insanity and anger) is being able to think of nothing else.  It is the absence of creativity. 

Therefore, Van Gogh was bi-polar, if he was mad.

No one can create beautiful works of art in a state of madness.

Perhaps if he was mad, it was merely in-between paintings?

This leads to the idea that his paintings expressed such talent because each painting was a way to focus on something – which also might be why he painted some of  the same exact scenes over and over again.

At times he might have painted with the fear of losing his mind, and that fear is perhaps the greatest of all fears; his paintings were some of the greatest of all paintings to many enthusiasts…

But in a sense – of performing well out of an absolute necessity – he was not unique because we all have that capability – to lift a car off a person being crushed to death.

While he was painting, Vincent Van Gogh might have been able to do that at will; because Vincent Van Gogh’s fears, his mental illness was so great – because he was aware of it. And it was because he was aware of it that we can actually see it in his paintings…

But consider that The Starry Night is one of the few like it in Van Gogh’s portfolio. You can actually see in this painting the man’s mental state as he painted it.

The large brown figure to the left is a tree stump; likely Van Gogh was hallucinating as he painted this, given all his other paintings were more or less accurate to reality – still life’s, self-portraits…

One thing is certain – long before Vincent Van Gogh, people painted what they saw. Perhaps what separates Van Gogh’s paintings from the rest is that he painted his own consciousness, regardless of his mental state. He truly loved to paint. Truly. Starry Night becomes unique as it actually represents the face of his mind. It is so magnificent that this single painting can bring the viewer into Van Gogh’s very consciousness, that this single painting can represent, to some, his evolution over time in his short 37 years…

Someone cannot think straight when they become angry, happy beyond belief, or even worried out of their minds, because thought precedes feelings.

Realizing that thought causes feelings must be overlooked by the person who becomes overwhelmed at any given time.

Clarity of mind, and the peace of body, which are together known as the mind-body connection, are only possible in the absence of thought.

It is from the state of clarity that all progresses are made from out of suffering states of body and mind. Progress is only possible in that clarity; there is no longer the tendency of thought to jump around… and a person consciously enters this state.

A visitor said:

“I suffer from worries without end;

there is no peace for me, though there is nothing wanting for me to be happy.”

The Sage asked:

“Do these worries affect you in sleep?”

The visitor admitted that they did not.

The Sage asked him again:

“Are you the very same man now, or are you different from him that slept without any worry?”

“Yes, I am the same person.”

The Sage then said:

“Then surely those worries do not belong to you. It is your own fault if you assume that they are yours.”

- From the Maha-Yoga or the Upanishadic Lore in the Light of the Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

People who become angry, worried out of their minds, or lottery winners, eventually retain their resolve… usually. And in the absence of that flood of feeling, in the clarity that arises (detachment), one can observe the situation directly.

…Until thought runs away with the body again. Perhaps even as one thinks about wanting this very clarity back, until one realizes that thought causes suffering.

For the majority of people this is not a problem, until one becomes angry, happy beyond belief, or worried out of their minds. The inability to enter this clarity at will is the mark of the lost.

I Love Music

If you have a long enough attention span, your awareness will bring you peace…

Why have we not discovered that time is not real?

When you don’t want to be at work ten minutes seems like an hour.

When you truly enjoy and are immersed in a performance, a three minute song seems to last forever.

To step out of the flow of awareness and say, “I have only been here working ten minutes,” after this period of time, disrupts the flow; the continuity.  As one thinks this, that very thought, that “I have only been here working ten minutes,” creates a feeling of dislike, anxiety that itself is time slowing down.  This thought seems to last because it occurs as important. In other words, perhaps you wish you were somewhere else?  That feeling of anxiety, caused by that thought of, perhaps,  dislike, is making the ten minutes into an hour.

At that moment you have stopped yourself and you aren’t allowing what is going on in the environment around you to exist.  The flow is gone… The timeless flow is gone. The thought has created time, and at once the mind exists, as one is lost in the mind, about thoughts of anything.

While you sit enjoying a three minute performance there aren’t any such thoughts arising. It is that “enjoyment” that is timeless; effortless: absent of thought.

Time exists where there is no continuity.

The Painter’s Studio; A Real Allegory

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about a realist painting is the tangible sense of the progression of time presented in a still fixture. A renowned master, Gustave Courbet must have truly loved to paint.  Evidenced in the body and mind of “The Painter’s Studio; A Real Allegory” is the soul, the vision that does not separate. Gazing upon this painting is effortless. All at once the moment comes to life. It is painted from a point of view that would seem impossible, as Courbet himself is in the midst of a crowd. A true expert, his painting enables its watcher to pretend that he is a part of the scene. The combustion is truly interesting enough to consider. Could a description of the “Painter’s Studio,” an analysis of the principles of art used, and the meaning of the “real allegory” reveal Gustave Courbet’s intentions?

"The Painter's Studio; A Real Allegory" (1855) Gustave Courbet

Courbet allows for a lot of detail. The Painter’s Studio is a painting of. . . a painter’s studio, however it seems more like a party. Roughly twenty-five people, including Courbet, are gathered amongst the mural-covered walls. An abundance of light allows detail, both in the painting Courbet is working on in the painting, and the painting itself. The most necessary face amongst the sea of people is from a naked woman standing behind Courbet; watching him paint. Her head is tilted to the side and her expression is still, as she studies the painting for meaning. Her shoulders are relaxed and she seems indifferent to her nakedness in relation to the people surrounding her. A white sheet that covers her front and leaves her backside exposed surmounts her. Clearly a subject, it is this very woman who creates a sense of the progression of time. Either she has been painted already or she is waiting to be painted next.  Being naked I sense an urgency to move in this painting. Although she seems comfortable, a woman needs be clothed.  She will be moving.  Wherever she moves, surely she will remain the focal point!

Since the focal point is directly in the middle, as well as the only lightly colored object in the painting, I take in the entire painting at once. Being instantaneous, there is no eye movement from one side to the other. As i examine the details individually I notice a writer sits along the right wall with a book. Musicians are present.  There is an instrument being studied on the ground opposite Courbet and the woman, and there is a violinist playing in the deep background. It adds realism to the scene. The more I study the painting, the more noises are apparent, and movement necessary to add themselves. There are cats and dogs that would be making noises. There are two children. . . one is playing with a cat, and another, possibly the woman’s child, stands near her mother imitating her interest in Courbet’s creation. The crowd likely isn’t silent.

Some elements and principles of art are more apparent than others in “The Painter’s Studio.”  This piece is an oil on canvas painting. The texture appears smooth, like the surface of a photograph. Line is demonstrated in a true realist talent. Neither too soft nor too hard, the usage of line is not over-abundant or too light to see.  The outlines of everything in the foreground, from the people to the canvas, create a kind of tangible feeling in me.  It is tangible in the sense that I wouldn’t have even considered it. The lines are where they are supposed to be. Courbet’s use of color is very distinct, although the absence of bright color would seem to contradict that statement. There is stength in his choice of rustic colors. They create age, and thus an idea of maturity. With this maturity is the absence of confusion. The content of the painting creates my thought, not the usage of colors.

This painting of Courbet’s studio lacks space in the area where he works. There is no one and nothing behind him, however, as though everyone accumulates in only one side of the room.  This absence of objects creates a sense of distance, and along with the support murals, do not end at a ceiling. Does this room have a roof? Though the room could be very big, Courbet proportioned it to create a sense of intimacy. In addition, there is repetition evidenced in the silhouettes of the crowd as well as the canvas, which is directly in front of a similarly shaped door. It creates a sequence of round and vertical shapes, which adds a realist sense of variety and rhythm. The shapes of Courbet’s friends in the studio are clearly defined. Only the mural behind them is sketchy. I can barely make out a house, trees, and some clouds.It is hard to tell what is it a painting of. This backdrop of uncertainty in contrast to the foreground of clarity, to me, actually adds emphasis to the foreground. Since it is hard to discern any concrete image amongst the wall, my eyes decide that they don’t want to work so hard, and they adjust to the other details of the studio.

The angle of Courbet’s canvas is the most noticeable example of a diminishing scale in this painting. There are others, however. Near the rear left side of the painting are three gents from biggest (front) to smallest (back), although they are all likely the same height. The people on the right are slightly angled in a similar fashion. Though not exactly symmetrical, the left and right sides seem to mirror one another to create balance. They lightly create the form of a road that gets smaller as it approaches the horizon, with Courbet, the canvas and the woman where a car would be.

I initially overlooked an important detail. A woman is slumped beneath the canvas. She appears impoverished and pathetic as she could be an allegory for the poor working class that dominated this time period in France. To the right is a woman dressed in a heavily embroidered flowing gown. She is clearly wealthy. She stands proudly next to her husband. The contrast in the posture of the two examples of class is quite a statement about the nature of the revolution. The poor struggled and were overlooked, while the rich stood through the times and were acknowledged. Courbet could be saying that there is no discernible difference in people regardless of class, because both rich and poor join Courbet in his studio, and everyone can appreciate art and understand its meaning. Interestingly enough, the young child watching Courbet is indifferent. He seems neither rich nor poor and thus he represents a kind of innocent awareness to me. An exponent of realism in its most traditional portrayal, whether or not this entire moment took place in time seems irrelevant because it absolutely could have. Indeed, I buy that this environment might have been where Courbet often painted; he could have painted it from memory.

These realist human elements are not an allegory because they are very real. Courbet used his paintings to create strong statements about the times he witnessed and the happenings in his world at large – and at small.  To name the painting a “real allegory,” is to strengthen the meaning within the paintings realism, perhaps to viewers who might have simply seen an artist, his canvas, and his friends and admirers. He adds meaning without any trickery, as the very nature of the classes is evidenced in the spirit, worn on the sleeve of the individual.  Effortlessness and suffering are very real.