ZenLife Blog
Organized Illumination
As an artist and painter I have enjoyed portraying the world as I see it. I do not see a world of things or objects isolated from each other. I see patterns of connection. I like to take a metaphor and develop a series from it; to see how many ways I can present the metaphor. One series I did was based on fractals. You are probably familiar with some representations of fractals. This is not exactly what I painted. It was the fractal patterns I see everywhere in nature. And I believe this is one of the reasons we enjoy being in nature. Think of the difference between being in an old growth forest and a high-tech office where all the lines are straight and clean. One is full of fractals. The other isn’t.
Dragon of Inscrutability – Part 4 of Four–Series
Inscrutability is an expression of confidence. You are settled within your experience so you have no hesitation or fear. You can be noncommittal, yet follow through. You don't have to spell everything out because you can be with uncertainty. Truth arises from the situation. You don't need any confirmation so you also don't have to be the center of attention. You are not in any great rush, so you can begin with the basics. You are not calculating according to some idea of gain or loss. You work with the situation, bearing witness to whatever arises, and doing so with sympathy and compassion for those around you. This unconditional confidence comes from giving and extending yourself and overcoming timidity.
Garuda of Outrageousness – Part 3 of Four-Part Series
The warrior of outrageous is free from negative emotions so she is able to face whatever arises skillfully and fearlessly. This kind of confidence operates on an even-keel. This kind of equanimity is free from picking and choosing and treats everyone with respect and care. The warrior trusts in the basic goodness of human beings which is unconditional and free of dualistic polarizations. As a result her actions are skillful and in proportion to whatever context she finds herself.
Snow Lion of Perkiness (Part 2 of Four–Part Series
This metaphor of the snow lion represents joyful discipline. You might have negative associations with discipline, remembering times you were forced to stay indoors and practice a musical instrument or do homework when all your neighborhood friends were playing outside. When discipline is imposed like this from the outside, it can seem suffocating. But here we are speaking of discipline that arises organically from within yourself.
Tiger of Meekness (Part I of Four–Part Series)
Meekness is not a word we often associate with strength, but in fact, the spiritual warrior's strength arises from gentleness, not arrogance. It's about being simple, grounded and embodied.
Groundhog Day
We have never been more divided as a country, each seeing the other side as a threat to democracy itself. How have we come to this point? I think it can partly be explained by the bubbles we live in with our social media accounts, each of us living in his or her own Truman show.
Meditation And Creativity
Creativity is perpetually defined — it deals with problem solving but it also deals with romance and beauty. The design of locomotives is just as creative as Caravaggio’s depiction of Salome holding the head of John the Baptist. Whether we are photographing a flower with a smartphone or blowing on a soup to cool it off—we are performing creative rituals daily.
Mindfulness: Mystery and Not Knowing
In Foundations of Mindfulness, Class 4: Living a Life of Openness, we speak about the first of the three tenets of a Zen Peacemaker: Not Knowing. What it is to not know something? In this culture of quick response time that technology demands, we react fast and faster.
Saved from Freezing: the Spirituality of Art
I’m in my car, on the highway. I turn off the news reports and the baseball game I’ve been listening to and switch to a Beethoven violin sonata that’s loaded in the CD player. Listening to the music, my mind gradually starts to release, like a hand that had been grasping something tightly and is beginning to let go
Mindfulness Road Map
At the Zen Life and Meditation Center we speak of mindfulness meditation as intentional awareness that is embodied and non-judgmental.
Mindfulness: Clarity vs. Certainty
I told my friend that direct experience is what Living a Zen Inspired Life simply is. Embodied. Direct. On the ground. Domestic. He wanted an example of being Zen and I told him: wash a plate. Is it that simple? Yes.
Mindfulness: Ephemeral Art
I place one flower in the center of the given space - yard, floor, table - and make concentric circles until I have used up my materials. Two feet to twelve feet in diameter for various kinds of celebrations and rites of passage: an eightieth birthday, a wedding, a passing, a remembrance. After I sit with the completed piece, I sweep up the component parts, put them in a woven bag, and release it all into a nearby river, ocean, lake or pond.
My Journey Toward Writing The Arte of Now: Practice of Immediacy in the Art by Nicolee McMahon
My journey toward writing the Arte of Now: Practice of Immediacy in the Arts ® is a weaving of Zen, shamanic training, art, and not knowing. To best exemplify how a few of these threads weave together is when I got lost while camping in the desert with my family several years ago.
Symmathesy: A Word in Progress
Symmathesy (Noun): An entity composed by contextual mutual learning through interaction. This process of interaction and mutual learning takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales of symmathesy.
Complexity and the Pattern that Connects
Complexity, like the mandala principle, is about totality, a self-organizing principle without any reference point. It includes samsara and nirvana, chaos and order, death and life, confusion and clarity. Conflict arises when you fixate on a particular point of view and abstract it from the larger ecology where it lives and breathes. T
Ethics of Interdependence
So I’d like to articulate an ethics of interdependence, that dignifies difference by actualizing our capacity for creative, improvisational virtuosity and compassionate commitment to bettering our world, both personally, and publicly.