Meditation Photography

Photo Copyright Suresh Gundappa 2006

The Japanese word haiku means the beginning. Since time immemorial, the haiku poets conveyed the message that We only begin and never end. What a poet began, the listener had to complete.This bond is in keeping with the true tradition of Zen thought. The state of Zen is achieved through dhyan and Japanese poets wrote out their experiences after meditation as haikus. Some haikus especially the ones written before death were remembered for centuries as their last words. Haikus of Basho, the most famous Japanese master, should be savoured. Repeat it, sing it, swallow it deeply and then sit silently, waiting for the meaning to be revealed.

Let me share with you one of my favourite haiku:

“Strange how a teapot Can represent at the same time The comforts of solitude And the pleasures of company” -zen Haiku

Drinking tea with awareness is one of the meditations of zen. Tea ceremony has been the most meditative phenomena of Zen. The above sentence says it all. If you can drink tea with all awareness sipping slowly then you can be in meditation. Just drinking tea is enough to be in Meditation. Zen has a significant message when they say drinking tea, you can be aware. What they are trying to tell you is that you do not have to be sitting in meditative pose to be in meditation. You can bring Meditation in every single act of yours or you can be meditative irrespective of your act. This is what it means when you hear teapot can represent comforts of solitude.

However if you are living in your mind thinking through past and future, then you can be non-meditative also while drinking tea. Just observe your own tea drinking- you will know that tea is only mechanical need for you. Your mind is always somewhere else while drinking tea and that’s what it means when you hear teapot bringing pleasures of company.

try some classic haikus at follwing link
http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/resources/zen_poems.html

I hope some haiku may ignite your spiritual calling

Love and it’s nice to be back

Suresh

Copyright Suresh gundappa 2006
The first thing: meditation is not concentration. In concentration there is a self concentrating and there is an object being concentrated upon. There is duality. In meditation there is nobody inside and nothing outside. It is not concentration. There is no division between the in and the out. The in goes on flowing into the out, the out goes on flowing into the in. The demarcation, the boundary, the border, no longer exists. The in is out, the out is in; it is a nondual consciousness.

Concentration is a dual consciousness: that’s why concentration creates tiredness; that’s why when you concentrate you feel exhausted. And you cannot concentrate for twenty-four hours, you will have to take holidays to rest. Concentration can never become your nature. Meditation does not tire, meditation does not exhaust you. Meditation can become a twenty-four hour thing — day in, day out, year in, year out. It can become eternity. It is relaxation itself.
Concentration is an act, a willed act. Meditation is a state of no will, a state of inaction. It is relaxation. One has simply dropped into one’s own being, and that being is the same as the being of all. In concentration there is a plan, a projection, an idea. In concentration the mind functions out of a conclusion: you are doing something. Concentration comes out of the past.
In meditation there is no conclusion behind it. You are not doing anything in particular, you are simply being. It has no past to it, it is uncontaminated by the past. It has no future to it, it is pure of all future. It is what Lao Tzu has called wei-wu-wei, action through inaction. This is what Zen masters have been saying: Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Remember, ‘by itself’ — nothing is being done. You are not pulling the grass upwards; the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. That state — when you allow life to go on its own way, when you don’t want to direct it, when you don’t want to give any control to it, when you are not manipulating, when you are not enforcing any discipline on it — that state of pure undisciplined spontaneity, is what meditation is.
Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You cannot meditate, but you can be in meditation; you cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.
Concentration has a center in you; from that center it comes. Concentration has a self in you. In fact the man who concentrates very much starts gathering a very strong self. He starts becoming more and more powerful, he starts becoming more and more an integrated will. He will look more collected, more one piece.
The man of meditation does not become powerful: he becomes silent, he becomes peaceful. Power is created out of conflict; all power is out of friction. Out of friction comes electricity. You can create electricity out of water: when the river falls from a mountainside there is friction between the river and the rocks, and the friction creates energy. That’s why people who are seeking power are always fighting. Fight creates energy. It is always through friction that energy is created, power is created. The world goes into war again and again because the world is too dominated by the idea of power. You cannot be powerful without fighting.

Meditation brings peace. Peace has its own power, but that is an altogether different phenomenon. The power that is created out of friction is violent, aggressive, male. The power — I am using the word because there is no other word — the power that comes out of peace, is feminine. It has a grace to it. It is passive power, it is receptivity, it is openness. It is not out of friction; that’s why it is not violent.

oncentration is a friction: you fight with your own mind. You try to focus the mind in a certain way, towards a certain idea, towards a certain object. You force it, you bring it back again and again. It tries to escape, it runs away, it goes astray, it starts thinking of a thousand and one things, and you bring it again and you force it. You go into a self-fight. Certainly power is created; that power is as harmful as any other power, that power is as dangerous as any other power. That power will again be used to harm somebody, because the power that comes out of friction is violence.

Something out of violence is going to be violent, it is going to be destructive. The power that comes out of peace, non-friction, non-fight, non-manipulation, is the power of a roseflower, the power of a small lamp, the power of a child smiling, the power of a woman weeping, the power that is in tears and in the dewdrops. It is immense but not heavy; it is infinite but not violent.Love
You cannot bring it but you can be open to it. You need not do anything to bring it into the world — you cannot bring it; it is beyond you. You have to disappear for it to come. The mind has to cease for meditation to be. Concentration is mind effort; meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation is pure awareness, meditation has no motive in it.

Heart sutra
Love
Suresh

Copyright SUresh Gundappa 2006

Jokes are tremendously important in a way. Jokes are not simple phenomena; they are really mysterious, their mechanism is mysterious. You don’t know how a joke works, how it goes deep into your depths, how it brings laughter to you, how it brings wakefulness to you.

The mechanism IS mysterious.A joke functions almost like a sexual orgasm. It is not accidental that many jokes ARE concerned with sex. Jokes as such are basically sexual for the simple reason that the joke creates a build-up of energy in you, a great curiosity about what is going to happen, because a joke is a joke only when something unexpected happens, when it takes such a sudden turn that logically you could not have conceived it; it was inconceivable. And it takes the turn so quickly and so suddenly that it does not give you time enough to think about it. Because there is no time to think… Mind needs time.

The joke goes on towards the south and then suddenly turns towards the north: your mind goes on moving towards the south, but the joke has taken a turn towards the north so suddenly that the mind halts. In that very halt there is an experience of silence, of meditation.The same happens in sexual orgasm: a certain energy is built up in you, a certain tension is built up in you. You go on moving upwards, upwards, upwards, and then comes a sudden relaxation, a sudden release. It is so sudden – it happens in a single moment – the mind stops, the mind disappears for a moment. It is not conceivable for the mind.

The mind needs time.If you understand the joke you will miss the whole point. If you can understand where it is going, what the logical end of it will be, then it will not be a joke for you. Whatsoever you understand from the very beginning is not going to be the end; the end is going to be absolutely unpredictable.That’s the beauty of a joke; it shocks you, shakes you, it wakes you up. It is impossible to remain asleep when a beautiful joke is being told.
Ta0 -Golden gate
Love Suresh

Photo Copyright Suresh Gundappa 2006
As kids we all have heard teachers saying ” Empty mind is a Devils workshop”. Probably this is the worst lesson you can learn as a child. Our education on occupied mind has driven man to Insanity. Man is restless.

Today if one thing people find it heard to understand is silence. Silence has been the most misunderstood phenomena. First education for the child should have been the value of silence.
I have seen so many times parents trying to talk to a child who has been silent for a while. They will start debating about what happened to the child. Parents start getting worried even if child stays silent for 10 minutes. They will start theories/argument about why child is so silent.

I tell you child is enjoying silence so please stay away!.You never allow your child to explore his own place or his own being. This is where the trouble starts. You will switch on TV or Music system or you start talking to him. You will make everything to make sure that child talks or gets into an activity. I assure you if you want your child to follow gods path then leave him alone once in a while. Allow him to be silent from all your chit chat for a while.

Take him to places near nature where you and child can be silent. Even in Temples, Churches, Mosque People has been shouting loudly as if God is Deaf.
Teach your child silence. If a child can learn silence then he has learned the art of communication. Learned one’s from all religions say Music is definitely Dancing way to GOD. IT’s not without a Reason. If you want to be a good Musician then first fundamental requirement is to understand silence between notes. not the pitch not the higher or lower notes but the Gap between notes is the hallmark of a Great Musician. That’s why Music is sure way towards knowing God.

Ican tell you with Authority if your child discovers Art of silence when is young then you can be sure he has mastered the art of Communication.

Child’s silence is close to meditation. In meditation you are close to creator. In-fact you are the creator. Your creative thoughts will come up like a radio station thru an antenna. As you grow your mind grows into center of rubbish knowledge. If you can plant a seed of silence to a child right from beginning then you have already payed way to a Buddha or a Christ or a Mohammad or a Krishna. To me this very sacred phenomena. Thru silence in Child you are creating a possibility of a Christ or Buddha or Mohammad.

Teach your child silence. Teach your child Empty mind is Divine.

God bless you My friends and May you discover silence in your life!

Lots of Love – Suresh

Death is my favorite subject. As a photographer I always loved photographing Burial grounds. There is a mystical serenity to whole place if you can feel it. I know a cult called ” Aghoris” very closely. I happened to have few good Aghori friends . Aghoris meditation ground is the burial ground. I also grew up around burial grounds . I still remember it very fondly.

In India you see a very strange phenomena associated with death. While carrying dead body of the person. people get drunk and dance throughout the procession. Usually these death parades carry Drum beaters and they beat drums to great rhythm. People keep throwing flowers continuously towards dead body while the procession is on. I always was fascinated at the dancers and musicians who used to play at these dead body processions. These musicians always payed only for death ceremonies. They always specialised in palying for Dead bothem. The drum beat and the drunken beats used to be so inviting – i always used to sneak in once in awhile to join the gang and dance for some dead body. My mom found me dancing ecstatically during one of these dead body celebrations. She came gave serious knocks allover the place and spent a lot of time with my dad to explore possibility of psychiatric treatment for me. My father just laughed it off with a note that he would like to see my dancing someday again.

Death should be a celebration. Death should be more celebrated than birth. Death is like crescendo of life. if you have lived life of richness , life of poetry and life of joy then there is nothing to look for except celebrations. People really created darkness around death. To me death is the only certain prediction in the world. rest all is just probability of analysis. The fear society has created around death is really hurting Individual growth. people see death as negativity. Death has been associated with losers for long time. Once you start fearing death you fear anything which brings close to you. Once you have a fear factor in life – you start planning too much . You will start planning around death to become secure. All your efforts to build a secure life is to indirectly forget death.

The moment you start building a security nest around you for future – you are already dead. You are dead towards the immense possibilities of life. To me if you can live without baggage of planning for future -you can build a great future for yourself. plan for as many failures as possible. Fail as goal achiever, Fail as a money accumulator. Do what you like most even if it doesn’t fetch enough to attract respect from others. Find a way to be responsible to yourself . Don’t be lazy. people mistake my comments for doing nothing. sorry I am not saying that. All i am saying is work & earn well too but do it the manner where you enjoy it. whenever you work for money and not the joy for working. You slowly start disintegrating within yourself. One portion of your body & soul hates your everyday work. other part of your body mind says i need to make so much money so i have to work.
Once you start pursuing the life you want , the life you enjoy, slowly money also will come. the moment to creativity current flows in you – you will also attract currency. but then currency is only a byproduct of your joy not the other way.
Have fun and make it as only aim of life. there are no failures and success. there is only a perception of failure and success. Celebrate life and you will slowly start celebrating death also. Celebrate life and slowly you will see life will also celebrate your presence.