Rag & Koan: Nonduality For Better Painting

Its a tricky thing using spiritual concepts to understand technical or daily practices. The easiest way to do it is to compare it to or think of it as a ritual since many things we do especially creative processes are ritualistic. However ritual itself is not spiritual it is simply a way to enter into the spiritual. To simplify things I'm going to pick one single spiritual concept to explore here; Nonduality. I wrote a short article titled "Painting As Nonduality" about this same topic in 2012 on another blog. Since it is what inspired this line of thinking I will paste the text below as it is not too long.

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I did a painting at my Grandmother’s house the other day of this owl lamp that has been around since I was a baby. Not only has the lamp been around for decades but it has been in this same spot for that length of time as well. I could probably paint the thing from memory and that got me thinking about how painting creates this weird experience of merging memory with pure perception. Its something I have taught to students for a long time, the classic “draw what you see not what you know”. After doing this painting though it hit me just how profound this process of working directly with one’s senses can be during painting. The process of creating something entirely new from something that is so familiar isn’t just a creation of the painted object but a creation of new neural pathways that “know” the object.

This also connects to the Buddhist concept of Non-duality in a more thorough way than I had considered before. Previously I thought of this concept as being present with what is either in the outer-world or in our inner-world but after this painting I see its more of a simultaneous merging of these worlds and others as the memory of the object and the sense perception of it all co-arise with the process of painting it. Of course the painting is just a formality and this co-arising occurs continuously while painting or not but I'm really excited to continue exploring how this “painting as meditation” develops and merges with my previous meditation studies.
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That was an impression I got after that particular painting, it is a bit unfocused though so I'm going to elaborate and sift through this idea in a bit more detail.

The Buddhist Concept of Nonduality

My understanding of Nonduality comes from Buddhism and Eastern philosophies from the Tao Te Jing. It is by no means an easy thing to sum up or even talk about but lets try. Essentially everything we do most of the time is think of ourself as one thing and the things we perceive outside of ourself as something else. Our understanding of the world this way is greatly influenced by spoken/written language and our need to communicate in that particular way. We need to categorize and designate things and to do this we have to distinguish and separate everything we want to talk about. There is nothing wrong with this but by its nature it leads to an understanding of things being separate. What Nonduality says is that nothing is actually separate. The simple test is try to find where "You" separate from everything else. Go ahead, come up with a possibility or two. The most obvious is "well my body and skin say where I start and end". You are not just your body though, what about your opinions, your memories, your dreams, where do all of those end and begin? This can go on and on but that is the most cursory, basic summary of Nonduality which will suffice for the purposes of this essay.

How We Experience Nonduality

Now lets explore how we experience Nonduality because this concept didn't simply pop up out of nowhere, it comes from our actual human experiences. Lets start again with the easiest example to convey. Do you play a sport of some kind? Have you ever been "in the zone"? That experience is Nonduality, that state of being very sharp and accurate while not straining or thinking. What about musicians? Ever play an incredible jam or a really intense gig? Thats it too, again its the letting go of thought and just flowing, trusting. Finally artists; ever pull off an incredible work, one that you don't know exactly what went so well or if you'd be able to duplicate the process? These are all about the right mixture of physicality with mental state. The ability to let your training take over while also following instinct and very limited cognitive interference. Meditation really excels at bringing this out in us and tapping very deeply into our ability to sustain this state. It is essentially a meditative state anyway which is why so many people say "this or that is my meditation", its not actual meditation but it taps into the same state of Nonduality.

Why This Experience is Important for Painting

It is easy and natural for us to get stuck in a certain way of seeing, thinking or being. When it comes to painting its very helpful to be able to shed this "stuckness" like a snake sheds a skin. The more we approach a painting and our scene or idea as separate from us the more we will feel unfulfilled and frustrated by out painting practice. If I may alter one of my favorite movie quotes; "There is a way to [paint] with Earth and a way not to [paint] with Earth." The quote actually uses "live" instead of "paint" but you get the idea. You, the landscape (or whatever you paint) and the canvas are the same. Relax and breathe and let yourself fall into a state where your instincts and training simply happen the same way that the landscape is simply happening.

Be well