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#3838 - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
There's a new nonduality magazine called ... Non-duality Magazine, published by John LeKay. You can read it here: http://www.nondualitymagazine.org/index.htm
Back in 2000, when nonduality was still wild and full of juice, we published Nonduality Salon Magazine. It only had two issues, which you can access here: http://www.nonduality.com/magazine.htm
In this issue I am including an excerpt from the new Non-Duality Magazine and a selection from the old Nonduality Salon Magazine.
I really like this article
from the art section in the new Non-Duality Magazine.
It is an interview with artist Miya Ando. You
can read the entire article and see lots of her artworks at
http://www.nondualitymagazine.org/nonduality_magazine.1.miyaando.interview.htm NDM: What was it like growing up in the Zen
Buddhist temple? How exactly did it impact your creativity
and your art work?
Miya Ando: My temple is in Okayama, surrounded on 2 sides by rice
fields, it is very beautiful - it is a small, community temple
and I really loved having ritual and religion as part of my daily
life. My grandfather was head priest of our temple for over
50 years, he was a Buddhist priest to me but also someone who
loved and took care of me, along with my grandmother, aunts and
uncles. I was a very devout since I was a little girl, I
now feel that I have my temple and practice in my heart.
I've made a commitment to my family and temple that I would
approach our traditions and heritage of sword making (steel work)
and Buddhism with respect. NDM: Can you tell me about
"MuShin" and how you apply this in the process of
making art?
Miya Ando: Mushin is the total absorption in a single task
- meditation, prayer, sanding metal. I approach my studio
practice as a practice of Mushin - a complete focus on the
physical task of creating my works. The intention is to go
toward a state of non-duality and loss of ego.
NDM: When you talk about going into a "state of non
duality', do you mean becoming one with the work; loss of
subject/object awareness during the process of making the
work? Or do you mean that you are using the art-making
process as a means of meditation to attain a non-dual state on a
permanent basis? As a form of transcendence of the egoic state?
Miya Ando: Yes, I consider my studio practice to be a meditative one; a practice in the loss of the ego via absorption/focus in a task (in my case that would be the task of working with steel - the process of creating my works involves some extreme activities that involve working with fire, serious caustics, sharp tools, loud sanding, acid etching, heavy vapors that require a respirator - many of these activities call for total focus given the intensity of the activity and the very short working time, this I have found to be helpful in my practice of concentration and focus). The state of non-duality is on wherein the is a loss of difference between the viewer and that which the viewer perceives. I do see the practice of art as potentially transformative and can be transcendent.
NDM: "Ghosts' prints on aluminum" seem to be a departure from your other work (Seascapes); can you tell me how you came to make this work?
Miya Ando: The ghost series is about non-duality, actually. The difference is that there is a figurative element to the works. The idea was that the surface of the work is reflective - perhaps there is another being reflected back - the work become a window, the work becomes a trace of something very subtle. Perhaps the ghost is an iteration of a quality we all have universally within ourselves. I am very interested in these very subtle traces of what could be nothingness.
for more info visit http://www.miyaando.com
http://www.nonduality.com/1000pol.htm
issue number two - October, 2000
Nonduality Salon Magazine
(X)
THE CITY DOESN'T CARE
by Polar, Judit Dawn, David Hodges, and Mark Otter
POLAR
The way I see it the nonduality experience can easily become a
comfortable place for the sleepy unaware ego to hang out in. In
large part it is a projection on the enlightened state encouraged
by students of Indian mystics who were looking to escape the
realities of everyday life in the West. Fair enough - but
nowadays some are returning home and realising (yes)there is more
work to do. Hmmmmm.... Encouraging the idea of nonduality is only
telling half the story. Try: "Sorry I was late today boss
and we missed that $10million contract but we are all one so it
doesn't really matter does it..." Or: "Sorry I fucked
your friend last night but I love him/her also and we are all one
aren't we..." Or: Scenes from the Serbian war which don't
need to be gone into here.... ... you know what I mean from your
own life I'm sure. Nonduality is a beautiful space but it's easy
to get stuck there, and it is really poor without the shitty
richness of separation on the planet we actually live in. New
York City...wow...gas stations and everything... So today there
is a creation called heaven and yesterday there was one called
hell. Is there any difference? Damn right there is - pain and
separation are a part of this thing called life and that's where
I see the challenge to bring the nonduality experience back into
this place called home.
JUDIT DAWN
Dear Polar,
in the late hour of the early night I am pondering over your
words "shitty richness of separation", it is that, that
keeps me up late in the night sweating to find the right words,
trying to connect, looking for approval, feeling guilty of not
being able to create more beauty of nonduality, yes I guess I
just love that creation.
Love Judit
DAVID HODGES
Yeah, the city...the city doesn't care. The city will break your
heart. Just when you think you have found a nice apartment the
city will raise your rent. Just when you get used to parallel
parking your car, the city will break in and steal your radio.
You'll be walking along having a fine nonDual walk and the city
will roar past in a big fume-spewing bus. Or the city will jump
in front of you demanding spare change. The city...you'll find a
lover there for a night but in the morning she'll leave and never
come back. You'll go out to the park to get some sun and some
jerks will be playing rap music too loud. You try to meditate and
about a million fire trucks go screaming past your house. The
damned city. Too loud, too noisy and you can never get enough of
it.
The city is like the deity in the Old Testament...on moral
grounds, undefendable, so the only thing you can do is give it
praise.
Wait..what about Duality?...well...Duality sleeps in the nearly
hidden dry canal bed under Orange Street, shivering with the
homeless people. Duality sits on a bar stool at 2 AM Saturday
night still hoping against hope to get laid. Duality stays all
day in the library looking for answers in dusty old books.
Duality argues with the meter maid and duality smokes its big
cigar in the park on a fine Autumn afternoon. Duality is always
hungry and Duality is afraid to die. Duality is about to alienate
its last friend by borrowing 20 bucks which it knows it will
never repay. Duality is out looking for those guys who are hiding
out in NonDuality and is going to kick their ass.
MARK OTTER
Yeah, the country doesn't care. The country will break your
balls. Just when you think you have found a nice rock to sit on,
the country will send a mosquito to get your itch going. Just
when you get used to gazing at the sky and the clouds, the
country will distract you with flowers and other sexual safety
deposit boxes just bursting to get your seed. You'll be walking
along, having a fine Dual walk and the country will grab you with
spider webs and prickly seeds and velcro imitations meant to
spread the word. The evangelist country will take your heart and
open it wide. Open hearts bleed. If you're wide, you can't afford
to make pickles and jam. You can't afford to have a dog named
Jake and domestic hens to give you eggs you won't fertilize with
your patient love and feed with your placental hopes. You can't
take the time to slow down to meet the season's needs. You live
in the city and can never get enough of it because it does not
exist.
The country is like the Torah, you must argue with it for months
on end just to reap a crop of cautious agreement on the
definition of terms. And even then, you know you will talk for
years to know the truth. The only thing you can do is take the
other side and argue it with joy for the learning that will come.
Well, what about Nonduality? Nonduality sits in the dried up
stream bed and waits for the spring that it is. Nonduality throws
an acorn at you and chatters in tongues hoping you will leave
well enough alone. Nonduality asks for ice and responds to steam.
Nonduality rises just to fall. Nonduality loves this word play
and you. (and so do I)
The above exchange occurred on Nonduality Salon email list