Whirled Piece #1, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 4FT BY 4FT. BY MANOJ

SEEING THE WHIRLED AS IT IS.

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Please stop it!

Stop What?

Whatever you’re doing.

But, IT’s doing it to me.

Well, then stop IT.

I’m tired of trying to stop IT.

Good. So, stop it already.

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Before reading on, please go back and spend a few moments with the image and the commentary again. Then click on “Read the rest of this entry”.

Ok. Before you read on, take some mental notes about your experience with “Whirled Piece #1. What feelings or sensations did you experience? What do you make of the comments below the image?

The design for “Whirled Piece #1″ was derived from a piece by a famous Op Art painter and transformed considerably using PhotoShop. To learn more about Op Art, click HERE and see if you can find the black and white painting that inspired my painting. Careful, it’s easy to get distracted out there in the Whirled Wide Web.

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Although much maligned as being too grimicky, I find many OP Art painting of interest because they can provide what might be called a Zen Moment.

Want to have a Zen Moment right now? Click to start the video below.

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DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that you don’t have to be in Japan

to have a ZEN MOMENT?

NOW YOU KNOW.

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Here are some phrases I found in Art Forum (5/07) describing how viewers responded to pieces in a recent OP Art exhibit:

1. “assault on vision”

2. “invasion of the physical corpus”

3. “tactile bodily experience”

4. “keenly felt physicality”

5. works caused museum guards to petition to wear sunglasses”

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How does this relate to Zen?

In the Zen literature, great value is placed on experiences where you are not caught up in thought but rather are fully aware of your senses, your bodily sesations and feelings. In an article in Tricycle, (Fall 07), Will Johnson argues that an important practice in Zen is to make this heigthened sense of ones body one’s modus operandi. Here are some key quotes:

“Learning how to relax while remaining upright in the sitting posture allows the body’s full range of sensations to come out of hiding and make their existence felt.”

“..if the mind that is ‘lost in thought’ is somehow dependent on my not feeling the sensations of the body, what happens to the mind if I let myself feel the entire body, head to toe, as an unbroken field of sensations?”

Johnson also goes on to say that as we relax into newly available bodily sensations, we often experience painful emotions and feelings that eventually will go away. He suggests that one way to work through these is by regularly sitting in longer meditation retreats.

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In Genjo Koan, Dogen says that we can learn and grow from every life situation we face. One way to do this is to observe how we cut ourselves off from the bodily sensations that accompany each event and practice allowing ourselves to fully experience them.

Viewing and being confronted by Op Art can be considered such an opportunity; much like the sound of the weed wacker in the previous Experience.

So called “OP Art” can provide us with an opportunity to play with getting in touch with our bodies. This is really true of any art, but in this kind of art there is no object or even anything to allow projections of objects and so the mind has no stories to tell. If you engage yourself with the art fully, you simply must experience it’s perceptual assault.

Like many situations we confront in the world (Dogen’s “10,000 Dharmas”), we may not particularly like the experience. We considered how this works with sounds in the previous Experience. So what is one to do? What do you usually do in such situations?

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What did you do with Whirled Piece #1? Did you try to stop it? Were you successful? How? How did your experience with the painting affect your evaluation of it? What did you find yourself saying internally about the painting? Do you think those thoughts kept you from “fully experiencing” the painting?

If so, maybe you want to go back and see if you can let the piece assault your senses without internal commentary on the process. If you meditate regularly, try doing what you usual do to quiet your “internal chatter”.

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Please click on the thumbnail image below ( a slightly altered version of Whirled Peace #1)

to make it larger. Spend some time looking at the larger image.

How did this experience compare with your experience of the earlier image? If it was different, why do you think that was? Which of the two was more of “a Zen Moment”?

Are there moments in your everyday life where you try to stop IT to avoid unusual or uncomfortable sensations and end up missing IT, that is, missing the Moment?

If so, then “stop it!”

The chances are, if you focused on the “STOP IT” inserted in the image, you were able to stop the movement of the picture and any uneasy feelings that accompanied it. However, you may want to see if you can just let go and be with that movement without trying to stop IT. How? Try just “playing” with the image. By that, I mean approaching it as a learning experience. Simply noticing and fully experiencing whatever is happening, much as one would do during sitting meditation.

If you have practiced Zazen, try looking at Whirled Piece #1 as you might at the wall in the Zendo; that is “not looking”, not trying to see anything or make anything happen.

The title of Robert Irwin’s biography is Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.

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In discussing Experience #2 with Jake Sensei, he pointed out to me a whole other way of responding to the efforts to “stop IT”! This alternative – one I hadn’t considered- is entirely consistent with the way one might respond to a Zen Koan. To try it, go back to the Whirled Piece with “STOP IT” inserted in the center. Imagine that your teacher is sitting next to you as you gaze at the computer screen, mouse in hand. He asks you to show him how to “stop it”. For an answer, scroll down.

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ANSWER TO KOAN: click on STOP IT. (Give it a try) This possibility was not planned by me and when Jake Sensei showed it to me, I assumed that this was due to some special powers possessed by the teacher. I since learned that I inadvertently programmed in this possibility.

Alternative Answer; Use the mouse to close the picture, the page or turn off the computer.

Before leaving this post, why not go back to Whirled Piece #1 and spend some time playing with it.

Here are some questions to consider as you play with the image.

What is IT? Where is IT? Who is IT?

Can you “let IT be”?

Can you find peace in the “Whirled”?

Then, please take the time to share your experiences, observations and thoughts in the Reply Box below. Also take the time to read what others had to say.

It’s your turn; “you’re IT”.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.