This is such a poignant sight for me.

A month and a half after planting, the first of the spruce seeds, species epicea abies, have sprouted [in the left-hand pot]. For so long I thought the seeds were no good, that they’d never germinate, but after putting the pot in darkness for a couple days, they then reached the surface. As to whether this was a direct result of that, merely helpful, or completely coincidental I cannot say, but I am happy that there is new life afoot.

However, just as life is beginning for these spruce seeds, it is ending for the pine seedling [on the right]. My attempt to re-pot it into a larger amount of soil did not go well, and the trauma has been too much for it. It is something to reflect upon, that while I have the power to bring new life by nurturing seeds, I can bring death just as easily through lack of skill, even though my intentions were good. I can only learn from it, and be thankful that the plant is more accepting of death than I.

The timing is a lesson in itself, that birth and death co-exist; the old must make way for the new, and even though the partners may change, the Dance goes on and on.

Look close,
The buds -
They are there.

The cold weather here seems to have set back Spring a bit. It’s mid-March and for a great many trees buds are barely visible still. The seasons will come at their own pace, though, they don’t care much for our calendars.

Here we see the progress of my bonsai, some five weeks or so after planting. It’s fast growing really, though I only say that because I was expecting it to be slower. The blue firs on the left are doing their evolutionary best, engaging in a battle of survival of the fittest. There’s already been a few casualties (you can see the patch of mould where less advanced seeds are now decomposing), and those that come out victorious will show it in their interesting shapes, just as those who have been through battles in life tend to show it compared with those who’ve had little struggle or challenge. Of course, to battle it out for resources, they need enough to go around to prevent them all from dying, so I’ll be putting them in a bigger pot shortly.

For a change of pace, I’ve put this photo through a sepia filter during editing, using the wonder program that is Picasa2, and it’s led to some interesting thoughts.

Can we ever be sure that we are seeing things as we really are? When we take photographs, we do so as if to take a snapshot of the moment, as real and objective as can be. But how often have you taken a photo and been disappointed with what came out in print? Invariably they often fail to capture the moment, partly because they are one sense compared to the whole array of senses that we have, and partly because of the difference in equipment a camera offers compared to our eyes. But that difference is neither good nor bad. Photography can be a real art, from capturing something as we want to capture it, to filtering it during capture, and editing the image afterwards. The real skill of photography, like in life, is in knowing that what we see isn’t reality. When we know it is an illusion, we can deal with it appropriately. We need not deny illusion or image, only stop mistaking it for something real.

Yesterday I noticed how sometimes I enjoy putting a lot of effort into something. Like drying myself with a towel - I get much more of my body and muscles involved than are necessary, and seem to derive a kind of satisfaction in all the work, as if saying “ah, yes, now this is really doing something!” Noticing this, I let go of all the extra tension, adopting a much more relaxed posture, and letting those muscles that needed to do the work do it without interference from anything else. I found myself thinking then, “this is too easy”. Too easy? It felt like nothing was getting done, nothing was happening. Life is hard, right? If we want to get somewhere, we have to work hard at it, put lots of effort in and then maybe we’ll get a small reward for all that energy we put in.

This is the problem many of us are facing. We have been taught that anything worth doing is hard work, that there are no free rides, and that we must struggle and struggle and struggle if we are to get what we want and achieve something with our lives. There is an element of habit at work as well, we are so used to putting in lots of energy, straining hard, that when we do something in a relaxed way it feels wrong. It feels uncomfortable. But that is only habit, it is only because we are used to all that excess tension.

And naturally, if we are like it with the way we move our bodies, we are like it with our mental tensions as well. We hold on, we work too hard to solve a problem, we stress out, we try, try, try. Life is hard, but only because we make it hard. If we were to relax, let things unfold at their natural pace, do things simply, with the minimum of fuss and effort and with the minimum of tension, life could become easy. Too easy? Well, that judgement is down to you.

This is Issue #204 of my webcomic Q&V. I thought it appropriate to be shown here. I’ve pulled out all the stops with an extended length issue. Enlightenment has never been as sweet as this.

When following a spiritual path such as Zen, all moments are equal, and all actions are equal. It is simply a case of doing what needs to be done, and doing it wholeheartedly, with all of your attention.

The same applies to art. It is simple, and in a sense, everything becomes art (from the verb, “to be”). However, much of art in our culture is mind-orientated, with “the arts” such as painting and music and acting coming from ego, coming from a state of “what can I gain from these for myself?” It might be applause, recognition, money, but invariably it is not for the art itself, and so it comes from the mind. It is judged, it is categorized good or bad, and that is the domain of the mind: judgement. In this way, much of what is called “art” these days is created by the mind, with its judgements about what is good and bad, what is beautiful or what is popular. For true art to flourish, we must go back to the source, to the space and creative sense of being that is beyond the mind, that can hold the mind in its spaciousness and not be moved by it.

Michaelangelo said this best when he said “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” There is no sense of ego here, there is no conflict between what he wanted and reality. You might ask how you can “not mind” the art, and it’s easy, it just means contacting the source of creativity and not judging what comes out. You might ask how you can write without the mind, and of course, you can’t. The mind is needed for its knowledge of how language works. The key thing here is to remember that mind is not the source of the creativity, it is only the tool which helps to bring it into the world. Seen in this way, the mind is not unlike the pencil, with the hand behind it being the source. The mind in itself is not the problem, it is that we are asking the mind to do something which it cannot do, be a source of creation and inspiration itself.

I myself have stressed about this web site. I’ve had ideas for how I wanted to change the look of it, how I wanted to expand the sections into different designs to keep things separate for those who might want only to read certain subjects rather than all I produce. But when it came down to it, I saw (though not immediately of course) that much of what I wanted wasn’t necessary. Things could be done much more simply. And realizing that, I was able to drop my ideas and desires, though not without first seeing how much of myself I had invested in those ideas.

And then? Then I found peace.

Stop!
– And the world goes boom.

We all like to talk about ideas, to read about them, to debate them. We speak of descriptions as though they are the real thing, as if by explaining we negate the need to actually see or experience anything. This is the cloud of smoke that lives inside each of us, obscuring reality with our own thoughts about reality. We might see a tree, name it tree, and not really see it. We might define it further, name it pine or rose or yew, name it tall or short or green or blue. We might think this is being more precise, getting closer to reality. But it isn’t. These classifications might be handy if we are trying to describe something to another without them being there, but no matter what we say they won’t really know until they experience it for themselves. You could describe a pear forever, but you could never transmit how it tastes. And without tasting a pear, what would anyone really know about it?

Describing only makes the world smaller. Dropping all concepts and seeing it for what it really is… now that’s an explosion.