I had an illuminating experience wading in the whirlpool and sweating in the sauna this morning: I had a thought rise like incense from the hidden depths of my mind. The I Ching says to expect the unexpected and as I breathed and absorbed the mist from the rejuvenating hot water and steam heat, the thought I had was simply “life”. Life. Suddenly very gently I moved away from my body. I was aware of being a few feet away from this vehicle, my body, the current life form through which I experience and agree or disagree on realities. At that exact moment, I experienced life itself as No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind which cannot be expressed, nor is it ever expressed; it is both inexpressible and unexpressible.
In the state I was in I knew that, as photographers, we don’t do photos “in-order-to” something else, not even to express our idea of ourselves as in who or what we are. Contrary to what we might believe about creativity, painters don’t paint and writers don’t write, sculptors don’t sculpt and photographers don’t snap shutters and scientists don’t discover and uncover the universe “in-order-to” make something out of ideas. We may think we do, but the Tao that can be expressed is not the Tao because the Tao is not an idea that can be thought. It just Is, and what there Is are fractals of indivuated distinct manifestations of consciousness becoming conscious. The presence No Mind manifests Itself as differentiated, individuated and, apparently, separate forms of awareness particles: energy subdivisable into spontaneous motion.
In fact, we are those particles living, breathing and having our being in, and of, No Mind of the Tao. We are energies of No Mind, the interdependent core and collective aggregate of all life forms as particles of an inward breath, as it were. Consider this the manifestation of No Mind without individuality or identity. Consider the outward breath as a metaphor for the vast spaciousness of differentiated individualized energies, the substance of creative intelligence; this is not God or gods. There is no father-figure or trinity sharing power. The appearance of individuality and secular identity is experienced as natural living processes of breathing in and breathing out, life and death, youth and old age, the recurrence of ocean tides, the revolutions of the planets and the seasons of the year and many more cycles far too complex and numerous to know about.
As photographers, we're not expressing No Mind of the Tao or anything else particularly through our work. On the contrary, No Mind of the Tao itself is the product of our work, not the expression No Mind. If photography is not the expression No Mind it's because it is No Mind, such that a photo by Simon Kossoff or John Linton or Claudia Luthi or Niki Conolly, for example, and anyone else for that matter, is a photo within No Mind. Like smoke rising, photography is an experience of becomingness through direct manifestation of the deepest inspiration.
Finally, before I moved closer to my body and yet still exterior to it, I could see that communication between particles of energy is through images. These images may be photos, or paintings, sculptures, mathematical formulas or some other form of imagery and symbolism; but not language, not words and not speaking. This may be important because how we communicate with life forms from other planets, galaxies, universes, worlds and times is clearly suggested by what Confucius meant when he said "a picture is worth a thousand words." Perhaps he was giving us a clue how to communicate with intelligent extraterrestrial life energy: through images, pictures, representations, facsimiles and visual energies within photographs like magick.
As members of JPG's on-line community, we communicate with each other through images we post. Moreover, we communicate with each other whether we post photos or not. This may be similar to the butterfly effect whereby a butterfly's wings create atmospheric changes in one location that may ultimately alter or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of changes somewhere else. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, communication might be vastly different. The flap of its wings is an essential part of communication. Without it, communication may not have existed at all.
The photograph I've posted here represents No Mind communicating in a language of imagery and space. In this space there is no me, no you, no them. There is only No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind. Our photographs are of the same No Mind, the same undivided Tao and the same uninhabited/uninhibited space. Our individuality is a necessary appearance just as breathing out is a necessary function of breathing in. So it is with profound respect that I dedicate this photo to all the photographers I have come to know (and there are more than I had room for on this photo) as the energy of No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind.
