There are times spent in Vipassana meditation practise, and when I am fully present and aware in the landscape and places around me, when I enter a way of ‘dwelling’ of ‘being-in-the-world’, in relationship to the world which the philosopher Heidegger called ‘Dasein’.
Dwelling in the world in this way my senses, feelings and awareness of time and space slow down, merging into a simple, very alive and present experience of fluid moments of changing phenomenon and happenings. In this space of impermanence my eye slowly, continuously follows the seemingly spontaneous phenomena, lines and shapes that it is attracted to and curious about in the qualities before me, through the pencil or paint onto the drawing paper.
Being with and reflecting on these gestural drawings and paintings reminds me of the Buddhist understanding of interdependence in the world. Every thing and every occurrence being dependent on all other things in a mutual relationship which Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn called ‘Inter-being’ *.
Noticing this ‘inter-being’, the web of relationships that bind the universe together into a cohesive whole, spatially and in time, can sometimes reveal causality in action*, moments when the relationship between cause and effect become apparent.
Deeper awareness of these universal laws of cause and effect, the persistent life-force back of things occurring in their own natural, meaningless rhythms and patterns, may also potentially bring better awareness of contingencies*. Those future events or circumstances which are possible but, being dependent on whatever is actually taking place in a given world, cannot be predicted with certainty.
Embracing this uncertainty in all its eternally messy and chaotic unfolding I gratefully celebrate in awe and wonder, all that life is.
image: Teign estuary many moods