"Superficially there is negligence, but deep down in people there is love and craving for the beautiful. There is a past, present and future in the fall of a dress. Don’t arrange it.Keep up the work. Try to reduce everything you see to the utmost simplicity. It is harder to see a landscape than [...]
"Do not require of your work the finish that anyone may demand of you, but insist on the finish which you demand. It will not do to have your fine thought yesterday, and paint your picture today. Good painting is a result of effort to obtain order, and the order must go to all the [...]
"It is not too much to say that art is the noting of the existence of order throughout the world, and so, order stirs imagination and inspires one to reproduce this beautiful relationship existing in the universe, as best one can. Technique is to me merely a language, and as I see life more and [...]
... continued from More Art Spirit I was searching for inspiration today to work on some drawing or painting – as a newbie art student – and I was resisting working on my blog. All I had to do was pick up this book and I got inspired to do both. First this, to [...]
The holidays, the election, and the uncertainty ahead have many of us worried and out of sorts: I know no better way to return to the center and maintain serenity than meditation. In my case it takes the form of Zazen – “sitting meditation” – and below is a beautiful paean for this practice [...]
Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing. Dennis Waitley Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. John Allen Paulos The future is completely open, and [...]
Faith Even if you take all the suggestions in my books and this blog, you are bound to come up against a wall now and then. You may sometimes wonder exactly what you are doing, as nothing seems to be happening. And at times throughout this quiet-corner process (there’s that term again!), you may question [...]
When I, a student of Dharma, Look at the real form of the universe, All is the never-failing manifestation Of the mysterious truth of Tathagata. In any event, in any moment, and in any place, None can be other than the marvelous revelation Of its glorious light. This realization made our ancestral teachers and [...]
... continued from The Art Spirit "The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an art education; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for [...]
Since moving to the country a year and a half ago, I’ve been engaged and busy with so many exciting new things that I put teaching my meditation classes and workshops on the shelf as I adjusted to my new lifestyle. On Monday this week I led my first meditation workshop up here in Hudson. [...]
