Looks like Mindfulness

Late last spring my local gallery contacted me and asked if I would participate in a show they were planning for October. The subject of the show would be something to do with words, or the graphic power of words, and they were particularly interested in four-letter words.

I agreed to participate -- I always do, no matter what the subject, because it's always fun to explore their themes, and I always learn from them. I began thinking about four-letter words, and this image, the base of which has appeared before in this blog, came to mind. I learned a lot about the layers feature in PhotoShop while putting this together, but by the time I submitted it as a possible candidate for the show, they had moved beyond four-letter words and this one only merited a passing glance.

I had chalked it up to a learning experience and pretty much forgotten it until this morning, when I read in The Wise Heart Jack Kornfield's explication of the Four Principles for Mindful Transformation.

"In many Western mindfulness retreats," writes Kornfield, "the four principles for mindful transformation are taught with the acronym RAIN: recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-identification. The Zen poets tell us that "the rain falls equally on all things," and like the nourishment of outer rain, the inner principles of RAIN can transform our difficulties."

Recognition, he goes on to say, is the act of acknowledging what is actually taking place in the particular moment. Think of it as the opposite of Denial.

Acceptance -- not to be confused with passivity -- "allows us to relax and open to the facts before us."

Investigation is a determination to explore the situation more fully, to pay attention to what is being expressed or felt in our body, mind, and feelings, and to assess the nature of the experience.

And Non-identification is to begin to realize that there exists an awareness within us that is not overwhelmed by the situation or experience; that we are not wholly consumed by or identified with whatever is happening to or within us at the moment.

"Without identification," says Kornfield, "we can respectfully care for ourselves and others, yet we are no longer bound by the fears and illusions of the small sense of self.... When we meet the world with recognition, acceptance, investigation and non-identification, we discover that wherever we are, freedom is possible, just as the rain falls on and nurtures all things equally."

Reading this, I remembered this image: both the sensations of peace I felt when I shot the original photograph, looking out the window of my friends' home in Vermont on a quiet rainy morning, and the challenges I faced as I explored ways of integrating the word and the image. And now I see that the effort wasn't wasted after all: I can offer it to you as a simple visual reminder of the principles of mindfulness.

Last night we decided to watch a movie my husband had collected on a whim from a local video store. When we turned on the TV, it was set to the local public TV station, and they were showing "The Last Lecture," the one given by the MIT professor who died of cancer this past summer.

It was near the end of the program, so we decided to watch the movie, but before we changed the channel the lecturer said something like this: if someone is driving you crazy, just give it time, and you'll see there's a gift, a redemption in the situation somewhere.

Sounds like mindfulness, to me.