Welcome to Episode 25 of the painting experience podcast. On the podcast,
founder Stewart Cubley explores the potential of the emerging field of
process arts and shares inspiration from his ongoing workshops and retreats. Today
you'll hear a conversation between Stewart and Zen priest and teacher
Rinzan Pachovnik as they explore the crossing points between process painting
and meditative practice, in preparation for an upcoming workshops they'll be
leading together.
[Stewart:] Welcome Rinzan! I'm really looking forward to our conversation today and
especially to this workshop that we're going to be hosting together and
teaching together. This is very new for me to do something like this, to partner
with a person who has a discipline and long experience with that discipline
outside of the painting process so I'm quite excited about it. I think we're
going to be making inroads into new ground together. As a way of introducing
you, maybe you can say just a little bit about who you are and your own
experience with zazen. [Rinzan:] Yes, my name is Rinzan Pachovnic and I am an
ordained Rinzai priest and my home temple is Chobo-ji up in Seattle, and I
trained under Kendra Maranello Osho. Here in Portland, I run my own temple No-Rank
Zendo. I'm also a psychotherapist working in private practice here in
Portland. The two developed almost hand-in-hand for about 13 years, a little
bit more longer with the Zen practice than being a psychotherapist. We've known
each other for several years now and I know that I felt an immediate
connection and affinity with you and you said the same with me and I always
wondered how our paths would cross and they haven't seemed to cross much but they
seem to be crossing now more dramatically. They've crossed in terms of
me attending retreats, so I'm looking forward to it. My first
exposure to The Painting Experience, well, one, I followed my wife Anne who had
already done a retreat or two with you and I could see the benefit that it was
having for her and I became incredibly curious so I did a
retreat Still Meadow with you and that's after having had a background
in studio arts. Back in my younger days I was a studio arts major in in college
and throughout my teenage years I was totally studio art so I was going to be
an artist and after my freshman year something just like a wall came up and I
stopped entirely . . . gave away all my materials everyone
thought what's he doing and I don't know, I didn't know what that wall was but I come
to Still Meadow to work with you and I'm looking at the blank page and I
was right back 20-some years earlier at the easel when I was a 20-year-old
freshman. I found that what I had left was waiting for me, what I had not
processed was still waiting for me and I found all those judgmental voices. You
know: Is this good? Is this bad? What are people going to think? Is this going to make
me famous and people can be attracted to me when I do this-- are they going to
think I'm cool? Boy, all those 20-year-old concerns we're right there on the
surface again. I was quite certain they're going to say you know you've
overworked this . . . you might want to . . . you went too far and one of the things that
I love is that you cannot go too far and I remember the first night going back
and doing zazen back in my room and just having this light go off: It's like this
is the same thing. This is exactly the same thing. As I was sitting in open
experience in zazen, it's the same thing as sitting in open experience and watching.
[Stewart:] That's beautiful, Rinzan. There's some writing from the Zen tradition that
actually was very meaningful to me early on when I was a young man and way before
I started painting, way before I was teaching. It went right to the core and
gave me a lot of insight into what was my own meditation practice. So I'd like
to read it this morning. It's actually an excerpt from the "Trust
in the Heart Sutra" by the third Chinese patriarch of Zen.
"To live in the great way is neither easy nor difficult. Indeed it is due to our
choosing to acquire or reject that we do not see the true nature of things. If
there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the mind essence is lost
in confusion. When the mind exists undisturbed in the way nothing in the
world can offend and when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the
old way. The great way is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and
nothing is in excess. Just let things be in their own way and there will be
neither coming or going." I love that. [Rinzan:] And that's, that is exactly
the excitement that I have about The Painting Experience and its conjunction
with Zen practice: Our small mind starts to pick and choose what is right
and what's wrong and I would even say that some people approach not just Zen
practice but for many spiritual practices hoping to get rid of: How do I
get rid of my pain? How do I get rid of this and how do I get rid of that: And we
can get stuck trying to pick and choose, like, well, that wouldn't be holy that's
not sacred. I wouldn't want that. You know, that seems impure. Isn't this about
purity, isn't this about clarifying and enlightening and ending all these? Not at
all. It's about opening up, not picking or choosing, but just being receptive to all
of this life energy as it flows. And as I participated in The Painting Experience,
it's been nothing but that. It's almost . . . in The Painting Experience as you come
the first night you have this vast space . . . and then what is going to come and
what's going to present itself and as the workshop continues one's ability . . . I
certainly know that my ability to let myself express itself into that space
expands and expands and expands and I'm left with nothing but the requirement
that I stay present and accepting in curious about what is this? What is this?
And that's the . . . there are two fundamental Zen koans: What is this and who am I?
And that's definitely what's being explored in The Painting Experience. [Stewart:] Yeah, I just
feel like the foundational exploration that goes on in The Painting Experience
is something I recognized as a valid spiritual practice early on and the more
I did it the more I began to recognize that there was something
transformational happening in the experience of expressing yourself
spontaneously and that many of these points that are made in the "Trust in the
Heart Sutra" are actually taking place in the painting process. So I'm thinking of
the first paragraph: it's due to our choosing to acquire or reject that we do
not see the true nature of things. Well in that space that's opened up in front
of the white piece of paper that becomes very obvious when we try to acquire or
we try to reject and the consequences of that. In other words, how that shuts down
the space. If there's even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the
mind essence will be lost in confusion. That's totally experienced by someone
who's painting. I love this part about . . . "When the mind exists undisturbed in the
way nothing in the world can offend and when a thing can no longer offend, it
ceases to exist in the old way." We get offended personally, we get offended when
we take things personally so it seems to me this is a pretty clear way of saying
you have to go beyond yourself. You have to not take something personally. You
have to not identify with the content and this is what happens when someone
does identify with the content of the painting which is "good painting, good
person . . . bad painting, bad person." As soon as we do that we lose the way.
We're lost again in mind confusion. "Just let things be in their own way and there
will be neither coming or going." I think so much about the completion of
the painting process where you have to let it go its own way . . . the whole painting
you have to let it go its own way but we get mixed up with coming and going. We
try to make it go a particular way or make it not go particular way and the
completion of the painting is when we finally just let it be what it is.
Then we enter a state which is really a transformational state where there's
neither coming nor going. Often that sutra is translated as faith in
mind. And that's "shin" in Chinese which means heart-mind, the faith in the heart
or faith in the way, faith in the Tao. And boy I'm loving the way that you're
describing it. I always I like our exchanges as I'm doing it because you'll
say well what do you see there and I'm like you know, well, I kind of see this
and then it's kind of like, well, gosh you wouldn't want to do that, it would be
breaking the rules or you might be embarrassed if you actually paint this. So as
I'm painting, sometimes it's like, oh goodness this is what's coming next and
do you have the courage to express that? Zen practice, one of our core practices
is going on a long retreat, in sesshin, and very often people like okay I'm going to go
to sesshin and I'm going to work on this or, you know, I'm going to have this
clarification and we have this idea of what's going to happen in this
experience and you sit for a day, you sit for two days, and then suddenly you
realized the way is going somewhere that you're not picking or choosing and
that what is coming up is something not of your picking or choosing, you know, oh
my goodness this is coming up in me! What does this mean? And we're exposed to
ourself in that process just as in the painting experience were exposed to ourselves
through this mirror of the painting. And you're left with nothing but to
hopefully eventually go yep, that's just part of the landscape. There's a
disidentification with it so the mind is no longer disturbed by reality and what
happens is a great space opens up . . . and often there's a fear like if I
paint violent images won't that make me a violent person? Well guess what? It's all
in there. It's in there anyway so face it, look at
it, be aware of it and what happens is you no longer attached to it and then
you no longer disturbed by it and you're no longer controlled by it anymore. In
fact, eventually it gets to the point where there's no you but it's simply this. It's
just this and we don't have to get caught up in coming and going, exactly
what you said. [Stewart:] That's wonderful, Rinzan, I really like that very much.
This whole concept of "not doing" which feels so central to the Zen practice, as
well. "Not doing" . . . being in the space without acting unconsciously is very
very powerful and certainly one that comes up in The Painting Experience and
I think it becomes an interesting question then about what's the
difference between acting spontaneously and expressing oneself spontaneously
without mind interference versus acting unconsciously and reflexively in a way
that's not helpful. Very interesting discussion. [Rinzan:] Anything goes then? Well this
is great! I get to debauch. I get to drink beer. I get to have sex whenever I want.
And this is wonderful, because it's just the way. And Shunryu Suzuki has a great
dialogue with somebody who is saying, "You know when I drink beer, I'm a beer
drinking Buddha." And Shunryu says, "If you are a beer drinking Buddha, you wouldn't be
talking about it." And so that touches exactly on what you're talking about but
there's a different quality when there's spontaneity and when we're just caught in
our primitive reactive qualities. There's a cleansing that takes place, I
would say, with a spaciousness and this practice cultivates and develops. There's
a pristine quality. You can feel it walking into a zendo. You can feel a
depth of concentration which would be called samadhi.
You can feel samadhi walking into The Painting Experience, as well.
You walk into that room and there's an energy that's been cultivated in that
room. You can feel it and you can see it in people and so when we create these
opportunities either through Zen practice or The Painting Experience to
go more deeply, we have this much richer, fuller experience fewer hooks, greater
space, more flexibility, more spontaneity. [Stewart:] I'm really excited about this weekend
that we're doing together. This is our inaugural weekend. It feels to me like a
wonderful way in which to characterize and hold both of these disciplines:
painting process and Zen practice and realizing that they both are pointing at
the same thing. And our endeavor here is to integrate the two in one experience:
We'll have periods of time in which we're painting and we'll have periods of time
in which we're sitting and we'll have times to have dharma talks and
discussions and I have a feeling it's going to be quite interesting and that
the integration will be very fertile. I'm looking forward to this very much.
[Announcer:] Stewart and Rinzan's workshop, Process Painting and Zen Practice, will be held
from November 11th through the 13th at the Still Meadow Retreat Center near
Portland, Oregon. You can learn more by visiting our website at www.processarts.com. If you
enjoyed today's episode, we hope you'll share it with a friend. The theme music
for our podcast comes from Stephen Jacob. We thank you for listening and
hope you'll join us again soon.
For more infomation >> Aniridia Day - My #ShiningSuccess Story - Duration: 6:10. 
For more infomation >> MISS BRASIL PLUS SIZE - Duration: 0:30. 
For more infomation >> V-NEWS BREAKING NEWS Live Stream - Duration: 53:36. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét