Julie DuBose

In my previous post, I shared some thoughts and an outline of a new book on contemplative photography by Julie DuBose called Effortless Beauty: Photography as an Expression of Mind, Eye, and Heart.

This book is based on the practice of Miksang contemplative photography.

Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as “good eye.” The Miksang approach is based on the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is about uncovering the truth of pure perception. It is a way of direct seeing.

Julie graciously answered a few questions I had after reading the book.

A common comment I hear about contemplative photography is that we can never be completely free of judgments or filters and also that the process of composing within a frame is in itself a type of filter. How do you respond to that?

Of course, mind thinks; it has an endless ability to generate thoughts. Filters develop as we develop an identity and learn to cope with the overwhelming influx of data, stimulation, and rules for successful navigation in our lives. We are not trying to destroy this, but working to free ourselves from its grip as the arbiter of all experience.

Another way to look at this is that we are developing the ability to broaden the scope of our experience, so that it is not predominantly composed of what we think about, but is more mixed with a mind of openness and permeability. What does this mean? We can rest in the basic state of mind that exists before thoughts arise in each moment. This way we can connect first to what we see with our openness, our pre-thought mind. That mind is a big place, and when we can rest there, we find that the world is full of sights and sounds we haven’t been available to see and experience.

If someone has done any meditation, then they know that freshness and spontaneity, even the possibility for new experiences and growth, are blocked by our belief that our thoughts are real. Thoughts are not solid; rather they arise, appear to us, and then dissipate. We can make them seem solid by fixing on them, fleshing them out with more concepts, developing a point of view, and fueling them with emotion. When we do this, there is no fresh perspective, nothing occurring to us outside of our frame of reference, nothing new under the sun.

I have heard that no matter what, it is impossible for thoughts to cease. This is not true, they cease every second, and they arise every second. What we have to do is train ourselves to see them come and go without attaching ourselves to them. We have to let go of our desire to secure ourselves with our point of view. When we do that, when we stop fueling our thoughts, they subside and we notice the space between them. This is a process of shifting our allegiance from our attachment to our thoughts, to the fundamental space of openness and relaxation that exists always, just on the other side of our conceptual mind. This requires intention and a desire to taste the electricity, the potency of our unmediated experience.

For those who think that it is not possible to do these things, I would suggest to them, stop believing in your thoughts. They are useful for many purposes, but not for direct seeing. And come to a course at the Institute. Our visual exercises will give you a taste of what we are describing.

We want to loosen the grip of conceptual mind on our experience of seeing. When we do that, all sorts of possibilities for new beginnings arise.

For more on this subject go to Effortless Beauty. The whole book is about the experience of nonconceptual seeing.

In one section of the book you speak of resonance – “when we feel our heart touched by something we see.” How is resonance different from filters or judgments – likes, dislikes, interesting, exciting?

When we think, we objectify our experience, then we step outside of it, and so are unable to experience what we are experiencing without the mediation of our conceptual mind.

Resonation can arise within us when we are resting in the space of openness and simple appreciation. This happens when we receive our perceptions and connect with them deeply. Resonance occurs when our being responds to what we have seen in a deep way, so that our body and mind are fully engaged; we have physical sensations, and our hearts open and we feel joy in the act of connecting. Resonation is an expression of our innate wisdom as it connects to our world.

Towards the end of the book, you bring up the current societal problem of continuous distraction. It is a challenge for us in this fast-paced world with all of our gadgets to relax our minds. How has your practice of conscious seeing changed the way you deal with continuous distraction?

There is a tremendous amount of extraneous noise in the environment. That is my experience of it. A lot of how I relate with it is through clarity of intention. I can’t experience anything fully if I am attempting to do something else at the same time. So, I am disciplined enough to disregard anything that is not on my frequency. I try to relate fully to what I have engaged with, and when I have finished that completely, then I am open to what arises next. When you have confidence to know what that means to you, what frequency you are on, then this is not difficult. This is the way I am when I am photographing as well. It works for me!

Learning to experience our world with our innate wisdom fully engaged is a great challenge for us. It is the antidote to many spiritual afflictions in our world: alienation, depression, or despair. This means not accepting everything we see and hear from others as fact, as how things are. That is like believing that every thought that occurs to us is true. When we can rest our minds in our innate wisdom, we rest in the stillness beyond the turmoil, the suffering. We rest in the possibility beyond the discord. This is how we can keep our hearts and minds open and ready to connect and appreciate our world. In Miksang we talk about this as resting in the mind of stillness.

 
Thank you, Julie. For more, visit Julie’s Miksang Life blog.