Bahiya Of The Bark Garment - Mahasiddhi

- What Price Loyalty?

2011-06-14T04:16:00.000-07:00

So Alex McLeish has left Birmingham City and seems set to join arch rivals Aston Villa. I cant say I blame him. He has been treated shoddily by the club in the form of the new owners who came in promising big wads of cash to spend on quality players but failed to put it on the table. Big Eck did what he could with what he had. Hence so many Scots players trickling down over the border. He knows his Scottish football though it doesn’t always translate so easily into English. He has been a refuge of lost causes and the odd scoundrel, too, picking up Bowyer and claiming that people can and do change. I liked that attitude in the manager although I did not like what had contributed to the reputation of Bowyer before he came to Blues. Once at the club, I could see that he was an aggressive and skilful player but also just how much punishment he got and put up with. Just before he left, Big Eck signed another player with a incident packed history, maybe that is one social reform project too many. I have heard of a number of people who are not on board with this signing and will not renew their season tickets.

We had a rough season apart from winning the Carling Cup. Personally as a fan I’d take that cup winning exploit over relegation any time – it’s nice to win something for a change - except that the game has got to the point that it isn’t merely about dropping down a division and trying to pop back up again, it is about financial success and survival. I thought Villa were mad spending £18 mill going on £24 mill on Bent but look where they ended up and where we ended up losing £30 mill straightaway just in the drop.

Losing is something you have to get used to in sport – some of us more than others. So as a full paying season ticket holder some the performances we put together this season were dire. The last home game against Fulham being about the worst. The new season ticket prices were out already, on the high side (sure, other clubs charge more) and when we got relegated there was no adjustment (forget there are a few extra games, the level of football is just not the same). So with Stuart my bro, Jonnie and Louie, whom we go down the match with, Bri a mate, we have all decided not to renew. You have so little space to manoeuvre as a fan to register your protest at what the club does, who it signs, what it charges, and how it plays and how it treats its staff and manager. Loyalty is paper thin in football and it is often only us fans that reveal it in its unconditional form. Alex may well cross the city and I wish him well and I think he will be good for Villa. Just because us fans are not likely to follow him, at the same time, we must not be taken for granted.

- Canvassing for tennis

2011-05-29T05:59:00.001-07:00

It is that time of the year. Wimbledon is round the corner and the French Open is unfolding in Paris. Sandwiched between the two will the Aegon Classic a women’s pre-Wimbledon tournament now in its thirtieth year. My professional life used to be punctuated, as a sports photographer with a special interest in tennis, by the twin events of the French Open followed a few weeks later by Wimbledon. Sometimes I would pop in at Edgbaston between those two pillars of the Grand Slam circuit as it was local. I remember doing the very first one. Billie Jean King played there and what a delight it was to see her on a court in Birmingham. Court On Canvas, currently at the Barber Institute at the University of Birmingham has a picture of her of mine in it which was taken at that time. There was something quaint and home-grown about the early days of this tournament such a contrast to the well organised chic and hugely enjoyable extravaganza that was (and still is) Roland Garros literally just completed the day before; or to the settled sedate and well established presence of Devonshire Park, Eastbourne. I have a photo from that first tournament in Brum in my book, Passing Shots as well as in the exhibition The Odd Ball, of former Wimbledon champion and fellow Brummie, Ann Jones seen consulting her clipboard with a curled scroll of items to check (I presume) at the top on a mound just behind one of the scoreboards (see poto above). When I say fellow Brummie that is about as close as I can claim to be to one who has won Wimbledon once, the French twice and (I think) is a world table tennis champion twice over!

I reminisce because of the Barber Institute’s intriguing show about tennis with a focus on Birmingham called Court on Canvas. It has been curator by the Director, Professor Ann Sumner and includes some memorabilia, rackets, balls, costumes and paintings from the 1880s onwards as well as a few photos including three of mine – presumably I press two buttons through being a tennis photographer and a Brummie. The oldest lawn tennis club is in Edgbaston, the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Club, behind the Botanical Gardens; and not far away, the first game of lawn tennis was played in Ampton Road – in the gardens of a house as opposed to what we called the horse road and played in as kids.

I must go see the show again as when I went my eyes were sore and covered in some healing antibiotic gunge which lent an aspect of dream-like soft focus so the visual experience was hazy to say the least. However, I thought that the early paintings – paintings are very much the backbone and rump of the show – were sociologically fascinating and aesthetically somewhat frustrating. As social documents they represented a new area of leisure activity that was practised amongst a particular set within a stratum of society at a particular time which was deemed to be worthy of representation and for a future regard cast over the shoulder: things noted now for a future past. They were aesthetically frustrating because all the lines were some how inharmonious. There was the net, the players, the women in their ample long skirts, the spectators watching maybe from within the court or from just outside, the court with its own set of lines of delineation. Yet gradually as the game evolves and as representing it becomes more commonplace, the compositions become more ordered and by the 1930s they are much more interesting partly because the painter is not afraid to go for detail rather than trying to depict the whole. (one could trace a similar trajectory in tennis photography much later culminating in the 70s and early 80s.)

I was particularly moved by Ann Jones account of her early encounters with art in her speech which officially opened the exhibition. Ann this past valiant champion, nervous at public speaking, spoke so modestly and touchingly. She told of how she went to an art gallery in Eastbourne when as a teenager she was down there playing in some country championship or other. A fellow player took her to this gallery where she saw a painting which she fell in love with and which moved her with its depiction of the sea along with some interplay with the sun. It suggested something of Wordsworth’s immortality, she said. The painting was 100 guineas and there was no way she could afford it, but nonetheless he eyes were opened and here aesthetic sense awakened. How much do we all value that bourgeoning of aesthetic sensibility and, working in the creative arts how much would we appreciate viewers responding like that to our own work. © www.roypeters.co.uk

- Walking Away – Luck or conditioned co-production

2011-05-29T01:23:00.001-07:00

I was involved in a collision on the motorway a few days ago. I was hit from behind by a lorry which sent me into a spin where (I am told) I hit barriers on both sides of my carriageway and was hit by a car which couldn’t stop. My memory takes the form of flashbacks mainly of being in the cab spinning and turning over and as I hear the bumps bangs and scrapes and sound of cracking and smashing glass like bursting ice. The car righted itself and I was able to open the door and walk out in one piece. Apart from very minor injuries which after four days are healing very well I was unscathed. Except for the mental and emotional damage. This latter has stalked my dreams and waking thoughts and was given fresh impetus yesterday when I went to collect my things from the pound and I saw the vehicle again. It looks worse than I remembered but the basic cage and cockpit area was largely intact which kept me safe even through 360 degrees. What a testament to the build of the car. What a testament to something else which I can scarcely name but which takes me towards karma and a strong connection with the benevolent forces of the universe embodied in the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Or not. What some may say is luck is just another expression of the complex concatenation of forces, causes and consequences which go towards producing any event, what is called conditioned co-production or pratityasamutpada. Nonetheless I feel lucky and blessed. And still a little dazed and in shock.

- Blues, Blue, Belonging & Emptiness

2011-03-31T06:18:00.001-07:00

I still don’t know what it means to be a fan. I hold this season ticket for Birmingham City and I wear the blue and white and go along to the games follow with interest bits (not all!) of news about the team and club between matches and I have done so for many many years in my life. I seem to be passionate about the Blues.

Blue is such a significant colour for me. It works on such a deep level that I can’t quite fathom it. It is the colour of the sky, which in Buddhism is coincidental with emptiness (sunyata). When I was ordained the sadhana practice – the yiddam or figure I aspire to – I took was Akshobhya, the blue Buddha associated with the dawn, water, mirror like wisdom, solidity, imperturbability (the names means the imperturbable one) in his earth touching mudra reminding us of the that historical moment when Shakyamuni became Enlightened.

I enjoy being a fan and had the most delightful time last month when along with 32,000 Blues fans we witnessed the unusual event of our team winning a trophy against the mighty and mightily successful (over time) Arsenal. It was great day out and a lovely way to be one with a large gathering of diverse people. I celebrate that more than the differentiation with the opposition and their identity as ‘other’.

I think fandom is a practice. It involves observing my reactions and the speed at which they come up and then deciding what to do about them. Well, most of the time and increasingly that is the case. I am currently working on compassion for referees…

- Work: Still Not Finished

2011-03-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

Recently on the work front, I had the creative pleasure of working with Sonia Sabri and Company once again on their latest project Kathak Box which ran for three nights at the Midlands Art Centre recently. It was a diverse blend of dance - kathak, break dancing and hip-hop. Musically it was vocal - beatbox - whereby the human voice made the sounds of various instruments including the tabla. Parts of it were sung in Hindi followed by an English translation basically acknowledging differences within our current British culture but emphasising the common human threads that fundamentally conjoin us. (I felt it was like the last stage of the metta bhavana meditation in that respect.)

I also did a session with Rich Batsford, a musician fiend who has a new album out in the summer called Mindfulmess (his intentional typo I suppose!), following on the remarkable album Valentine Court which came out over a year ago. That was all electric piano, the new one includes his voice.

The variety of my work is what makes it unpredictable. Earlier this week I went to Rutland to take photographs at a school which specialises in catering for kids with autism. I say kids but next year they will go up to provision for up to 24 year olds. This was a really remarkable place in terms of what they do, the people who do it, the kids, the location, and the commitment, energy and feel good factor of the place. Much of which must be due to Marina Gough’s stewardship as head.

I am not done yet done with exploring the world and enjoying being in it with my camera. Not yet.

- With Loyalty To My Teachers

2011-03-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

That was a long full stop. More of a dash really since my last entry. These past five months have gone very quickly as I have flung myself into my Order life and begun to discover a little what it is to be an Order Member. On the outside, I have taken on teaching commitments at the Centre and in an outreach context not far from where I live. I also led my first retreat over the New Year. I have been to two National Order weekends and one Regional and I am in a chapter which meets weekly. On top of that I have been meeting up with more people. Plus, I did a talk to a few hundred people just after I was ordained. On the inside, I feel this is what I have been building up to and I am keen to do : get more involved, lead things, explore my name. It has been richly rewarding yet it can also all too easily mean that all the space in my life gets filled up and there is too much to do before I can get the chance to reflect and take stock of what is going on. I feel a solitary brewing up though this will have to wait until after I get back from India. I leave on my maiden voyage there on April 1^st and spend a week in the Bihar travelling round the Buddhist sights and ‘places in which the Bodhisattvas have been’. Then I go to the Punjab via Delhi. So many people think I am mad to go in April because of the heat. Some have even proffered further advice to do with mozzis and other beasties wee and bigger, water, diet, armed brigands and various scams. I am left in no doubt that this will be, at the very least, an adventure.

Since my ordination I have had three marvellous occasions to encounter Bhante Sangharakshita. The first was back in November when, at a fund raising event, I had the honour to read out four of his poems and sing with others four more poems poignantly and sensitively set to music by my friend Vipulakirti. Bhante was very appreciative of all our efforts. I also had just a couple of minutes with him last week when he came to the Buddhist centre to hear Vishvapani talk around his book about the life of the Buddha. However, I met up with him at length in January.

Something happens when I am in his presence. Erudite and precise as his writings are they are idiosyncratic and need the full engagement of my brain. When I am with him in person my heart, intuition and imagination gently slip into gear as well. I was wondering whether in trying to evoke this, his presence, whilst one is not in his company, is a bit like us practising our sadhana where we try to imagine a Buddha or a Bodhisattva and approach the qualities embodied in such figures to which we aspire. There is a pivotal paper published very recently by Subhuti around this theme following discussions with Bhante about sadhana and its significance along with the importance of (re-)imagining the historical Buddha. This paper has given rise to much discussion and debate within the Order, too.

In 2014 it will be 50 years since Richard Hoggart founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). I went there between 1975 and 1979 towards the end of Stuart Hall’s tenure. He is still to me the most gifted and able teacher I have encountered, both as a learner and a teacher, and as an observer in my job which has taken me into countless educational institutions over the last 24 years. He is also on my Refuge Tree in that I owe him such a debt of gratitude for contributing to my expansion and receptivity to ideas and differing points of view. That attitude permeated the place and built rather creatively upon the strong critical and classical education I formatively received at Durham. Stuart is in good company on my Refuge Tree along with St Francis, Shakespeare, as well as, more traditionally my two Preceptors, Bhante and his teachers, the Arahats, Bodhisattvas, archetypal Buddhas, Dharma teachings, devas and the three Buddhas of the past, present and future who figure most centrally. One of the four ordination vows I took was 'With loyalty to my teachers I accept this ordination', so it is quite natural and fitting that Stuart should be there, too.

I thought I might do a portraiture project of some of the influential thinkers and teachers who have passed through the portals of CCCS, with view to mounting an exhibition which celebrates this institution (which was closed down some 9 years ago). Richard Hoggart is too ill to be photographed, so naturally, I thought to start with Stuart who is in so many ways the most influential person to be associated with the Centre. I am doing the project with critical and sympathetic input and support of Roger Shannon, who like me, in the end took a non-academic route away from academia and we have drawn up a list of people whom we think I should photograph.

I was to be assisted further under the very capable tutelage of Michael Green who was one of the three full-time lecturers at the Centre when I was there - along with Stuart and Richard Johnson. Michael was there to the bitter end when it closed down in 2002. He was very keen on this project and full of advice unfortunately not all of it transmitted before his untimely death in December. He gave so much to so many and was sharp, witty, well-read and had, so it seemed, boundless energy. Naturally, I was going to photograph him but he only lived round the corner and I thought there was no rush. Perhaps rush is the wrong word. But we never know when our time has come. In a strange way I have felt uncannily closer to him since his death, partly because I have got to know his daughter Emily very well and her partner, Paul, as ell as Alison whom I already knew quite well. But also because with the family and Mark Erickson (one of the last in post to turn off the light) we are organising a memorial event for him later in the year.

- Introducing Mahasiddhi

2010-10-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Advent
Sangharakshita

I listened all day for the knock of the Stranger,
And I often looked out from the door.
The table was scrubbed, the brass shining,
And well swept the floor.

The shadows grew longer and longer,
In the grate the fire flickered and died.
`It's too late. He never will come now'
I said, and sighed.

I sat there musing and musing,
The spinning-wheel still at my side.
The moonlight came in through the window
White like a bride.

As the clock struck twelve I heard nothing
But felt He had come and stayed
Waiting outside. And I listened -
And I was afraid.

My ordination retreat took place within the context of a retreat concentrating on the mythic realm centring on the Refuge Tree – the visualisation meditation which builds up all aspects of Going For Refuge and which includes the Buddhas of past, present and future, the Boddhisattvas, the Arhants, Bhante’s (our teacher’s) teachers, the Dharma, the jinas (the five archetypal Buddhas) plus Vajrasattva, teachers of the past, the lotuses, the devas and the blue sky itself as well as oneself and all sentient beings, thus the whole cosmos across time. All this involves the encouragement and engagement of the imaginal. The imaginal, as the word implies, requires the imagination and is a completely different way of relating thought, emotion and intuition and melding them together. It is a spacious set of experiences where anything (and maybe everything!) can come up. And a fair amount did for me. I had a sense of presence for people not there or now dead. I felt like a huge space was opening up – well, it would have to be colossal in order to accommodate the Buddha! Furthermore, as I approached my private ordination and was doing the six element practice every day, there was definitely a sense of sloughing off an old (then current) version of ‘self’. This first week I spent going through a spectrum of emotions chiefly joy and fear, the fear as described in Bhante’s poem Advent.

My Private Ordination was magical. The private ordination is when you go alone to be ordained by one’s private preceptor, in my case, Vajragupta who gave the 10 precepts (instead of the 5 that are undertaken by a mitra), before whom I made 3 offerings of flower, candle and incense and where he witnessed me reciting the refuges and precepts. It is also the moment that I was given my new name along with the explanation of it. So I walked from the shrine room at Padmaloka along a candlelit walkway more like an airport runway to the kuta, the hut where I met with Vajragupta. At one point there is a choice of path. If I went to the right I could have pulled out and not gone with no hard feelings. But I stayed on course, one which I began nearly 6 years ago, but in many ways one I began 43 years ago. The symbolism and indeed reality of going it alone means that no one is forcing me, I am under no pressure and it is my choice. I go for ordination alone as I will die alone (thus linking with the 6 element practice). It also means that if no one else were to believe in the Buddha and Dharma I would go ahead and spread that word and set about building a sangha.

Inside the kuta, along with Vajragupta who was waiting for me were rupas of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas, and beautiful cloths and sparking gems as well as candles, flowers and incense. It was as if I had entered another world, and I had, one which had been partially created in the week prior in the prostration practice, 6 element practice and the pujas (ritual and devotion) which we had been doing. Thus it was in that place at that time at approximately 8.50 pm on Saturday 18 September Mahasiddhi was born.

My name means ‘Great Accomplishment or Success’. Vajragupta was much struck some years ago when on a day retreat on the worldly winds – pleasure – pain, loss – gain, fame – infamy, praise – blame, those kinds of oppositions which seem to determine our mood and sometimes a whole lot more besides – I said I was particularly buffeted about by the winds of Success and Failure. I have done a lot of things with my life. I guess we all have, but I have to admit that fear of failure and seeking success have been major drivers for me throughout my life. Briefly, having felt a failure at school, I started the world of work as a photographer when I was 15 before discovering the motivation to go grab some Promethean fire of education for myself, in part motivated by seeing the Sultanganj Buddha in Birmingham’s Museum and Art Gallery which in turn prompted me to read something on Buddhism. Then followed a long period of academic engagement before turning my attention to photography (originally as an academic interest) and spending over a decade as a sports photographer before drifting into other areas of photographic specialism. My new name has given me the opportunity to count my blessings and rejoice in them: my family and friendships chief among them.

But lest I should be tempted by the vanities (through the one half of praise and blame) to see myself in terms of great success, my name, most crucially for my practice, has a teaching or reminder in it, namely, to go beyond the samsaric world and seek the greater spiritual accomplishment of Equanimity way beyond the range of those worldly winds no matter how strong they blow and blast. I am beginning to see that my private Preceptor has given me a practice and a mandala that contains the whole of my life. Where I have been, who I have been and the potentiality of what or who I may become. It is also a very big coat that I love already enormously but it is way too big for me at the moment!

At the same time as being given my name, Vajragupta also gave me my sadhana practice: the Buddha – in my case – on whom I shall meditate for the rest of my life and seek to become. Yes it is a very big coat indeed. But I am so thrilled to be doing the Akshobhya practice, the practice of the blue Buddha to whom I have been drawn for so long already. So the period between ordinations was spent exploring these spaces even more: early days engaging with my sadhana, more 6 element practice and renunciation and shedding – or merely letting go.

The Public Ordination was a sheer delight. I was so much more nervous than I thought I’d be. Partly because with my family and friends (sangha and non-sangha) coming to witness my going for refuge and becoming part of the Triratna Buddhist Order and hearing my name for the time (because only Vajragupta and I knew it up till this point) I was concerned that all these parts of my life would come together. But I needn’t have worried. The whole retreat was about integration and this ceremonious celebration was the culmination. It was a sheer delight.

- Looking Forward to Ordination

2010-09-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

In a week’s time I shall be on my ordination retreat at Padmaloka, the men’s retreat centre (near Norwich) for the Triratna Buddhist Order. It is only a fortnight long but represents the last staging post of the past six years since I asked for ordination. In part the process involves a spiritual death of the old Roy and the birth of the new whoever. All being well – there is always the caution of non-certainty where ordination is concerned – I shall be privately ordained in two weeks time when my private preceptor, Vajragupta, gives me my new name and I undertake to follow 10 precepts instead of 5 I currently follow as a mitra, and make 4 vows. This part of the ceremony represents the fact that I alone go for refuge to the three jewels of the Buddha, the Dharma (the Buddha’s teaching and the path) and the Sangha (the spiritual community I combine with). In just under a week after that I will – all being well – be ordained publicly by Padmavajra. When Padmavajra ordains me and the other ordinand, he is standing in for Bhante, our teacher, Urgyen Sangharakshita, who in turn is standing for Buddha. This public ordination expresses the fact that I am joining the Triratna Buddhist Order. I have witnessed and photographed only one ordination before and it was a powerful experience for all present not just for the ordinand at the time. It all takes place within the highly appropriate context of a retreat which explores the mythic dimensions of going for refuge.

I have just come back from China where I visited a number of Buddhist temples. It was good preparation for my ordination to be on land where Buddhism has established such deep and sinuous roots. I saw monks and nuns and heard chanting and accumulated lots of images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Arahants and other significant icons such as the 4 Heavenly Kings. There were Chan versions, Tibetan and Theravadin styles. But all fingers seemed to be pointing at the same moon, the very same one which, hopefully, will be full for me on the 23^rd September.

- Penned Portraits: Homage à Penn

2010-06-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

I went to see the Irving Penn Portrait exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery recently and thought I had seen the death of digital. Crystal clean and sparkling crisp printing and developing reminding me of all the qualities of silver halide that I had so quickly forgotten. The acutance that gives the sharp edges, a good black and a controlled highlight but above all the confidence to print dark.

I love digi and all the immediacy that comes with it and the enormous possibilities it affords for post production – certainly more than that in the days of conventional silver halide. It is so much more easy to work on parts of an image in terms of colour balance, exposure and sharpening let alone greater transformations of the original. And yet in Penn’s portraits the simplicity of the black and white image handled the challenges of available light so well. That’s all he worked with. That and his rapport with the subjects. In the shadow area, there is quite often a hint of highlight, a glint in the eye of the sitter catching some other highlight reflected. And yet there is the full gamut of greys represented. What is dark is meant to be, much like in Rembrandt’s work nicely poised in A Night Watch where the light doesn’t fall you can’t make out so well the objects that miss the passing lamp. Penn seems to have mastered these dark arts early on in the ‘40s before emulsions got more sophisticated and printing papers yielded more gradation and subtlety. This early apprenticeship served him throughout his career where neither his technical understanding and mastery nor eye for a pose imposed or patiently staked out deserted him.

I could still buy film now and paper I guess and try and get my Leitz Focomat enlarger back from the then young student I donated it to (whom I suspect hasn’t used it – why would she?) but how long for. Plus any large images commissioned now are digitised and printed either by ink jet or etched by laser onto a silver halide paper such as does the Lambda printer. So maybe talk of digital death is somewhat exaggerated. The prints are great though. As are Don McCullin’s in his exhibition at the Imperial war Museum, Manchester, Shaped by War. But his is another story.

- Suvannavira: To Russia with Metta

2010-03-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the privilege of Suvannavira staying with me. He is a anagarika and as such lives a life of celibacy with no fixed abode, even though he occasionally participates in community living, and no career and very little in the way of goods and chattels. He is the embodiment of non-attachment and going forth. He is currently re-learning Russian which was his mother tongue but was lost when overlaid with English from the age of 4 when he came over to live in the UK. He intends to establish the teaching of the Buddha according to the interpretation and translation of Bhante Urgyen Sangharakshita. This project is a substantial undertaking, but if anyone can do it, Suvannavira can. He has been circulating friends and contacts with the details of the three Russian language websites so that they can be linked to, something which will increase their prominence and presence in web searches. So here is what he would like us to do if we are able.

The three sites are:

Russian fwbo.org http://russian.fwbo.org

Russian Wildmind http://russian.wildmind.org/

buddhayana.ru http://www.buddhayana.ru/

- this contains 4 books and the first year of the new Mitra study course.

However not many people access or look for these sites via search engines. What is needed are more links from other websites, so if you can add them to your website links page, this would help enormously.

Using ‘FWBO’ is becoming out of date as the new name change becomes widespread, and in due course it will be changed but for now, russian.fwbo.org http://russian.fwbo.org/ will be kept as it is.

Having websites in Russian visible with search engine will help Suvannavira greatly as he will imminently be living in Moscow and working for the Dharma there. ©www.roypeters.co.uk

- Some Dharma

2010-03-30T02:43:00.000-07:00

I have had some good contact and quite a bit of input from Varasahaya and Vipulakirti relating to my scribbling on dharmic and Dharmic which has occasioned further reflection on my part. I was aware that I hedged around attempting a definition of Dharma and perhaps I was not as precise as I should have been. The main point I’d like now to say about what I said there is that Wordsworth’s words could be said more accurately to express something of the spiritual experience rather than be taken to express something of the Dharma.

What I didn’t say and which I think Vipulakirti amply furnishes is that to be fully Dharmic all four Noble Truths have to be present:

the truth of suffering/unsatisfactoriness,

the truth of the causes of suffering/unsatisfactoriness,

the truth of the cessation of suffering/unsatisfactoriness (Nirvana) and

the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering/unsatisfactoriness.

Furthermore, Vipulakirti quoted an exchange between the Buddha and Mahaprajapati Gautami, which I find both useful and illuminating which goes something like this:

Lord, what is your teaching? There are so many different versions, so many interpretations. How are we to know what is the correct one? How are we to know what you really, truly taught? What is the criterion of your teaching, your Dharma?"

The Buddha's reply was quite unambiguous. He said,

Whatever conduces to purity, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to freedom, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to decrease of worldly gains and acquisitions, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to simplicity, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to contentment, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to individuality, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to energy, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to delight in good, that is my teaching.

- dharmic & Dharmic

2010-03-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

I frequently hear the use of the term ‘dharmic’. At least I talk a lot about certain things, events, occasions or possibilities as being ‘dharmic’. These may be poems, lines in poems, novels, bits of philosophy, films, or something from within the very fabric of life experience itself. Strictly speaking, dharmic should only be applied to what the Buddha said and taught and if it isn’t what the Buddha said and taught then it can’t be called Dharmic or emanating from the Dharma. Of course this canon might well extend to the great teachers including our own Sangharakshita. In that respect Dharmic becomes the adjective of Dharma. But I mainly use it – even when speaking – in the lower case. ‘dharmic’ in this sense relates to opportunities to perceive the Dharma in some way through a kind of portal which non-canonical non-Buddhist texts may point to or lead us towards.

Schopenhauer’s notion of causality, was succinctly expressed by A C Grayling on In Our Time, Radio 4 October 09, as ‘everything that is has to have been produced by a set of antecedent conditions’. This chimes in with pratitya samutpada or conditioned co-production.

So many of Wordsworth’s lines - especially some of those written above Tintern Abbey - talks about ‘the spirit that rolls through all things’ as in:

A motion and a spirit, that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 

And rolls through all things.

In this expression of something transcendental, he could be taking about Going For Refuge on a cosmic scale!

Predating the Buddha, Dharma for Hindus was synonymous with the eternal law of the cosmos, thus in Sanskrit that is one of its meanings. It connotes habit, law, social and moral duty and behaviour consistent with this ‘eternal’ law. For Buddhists, it becomes the truth of non-dualistic reality.

Art, culture, the arts, the whole aesthetic will can lead us toward the Dharma and articulate it for us. Of the Four Visions (old age, sickness, death and the monk on the road with a serene expression) maybe all four are present and well expressed for dharma wayfarers (dharmacharis and dharmacharinis) but the absence of the 4^th sight means that such insights can only remain dharmic as opposed to Dharmic. In La Robe et L’Échelle, Cabrel sings of ‘ces portes qui donnent vers le ciel’ – opportunities for us to pass trough certain thresholds to another space and order of being.

Maybe there are Dharmic possibilities in every moment but it is only by cultivating awareness, compassion and wisdom and practising ethics and, yes, making the most of dharmic opportunities that we go towards that ideal and line up our practice with our ideals.©www.roypeters.co.uk

- Michael Cole: Credit Due

2010-03-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

I used to be a sports photographer. In those days in order to ‘protect’ the profession you needed not only to be a member of the NUJ (which to qualify for this membership, you needed to prove that you earner over 70 odd per cent of your income form journalism) you also needed to join the PSPA, the Professional Sports Photographers’ Association, where you had to prove that 90 per cent of your income derived from sports photography. Once these criteria were met you could be sure that though we were wide-ranging in the kinds of work we did and markets we served, and certainly in terms of personality all human-kind was represented, we were nonetheless conjoined and initiated in similar arts and practices which meant that we actually had quite a bit in common. So there was that mixture of sharing similar tools and setting about similar tasks with the richness which came from the variety of personalities who were involved.

I don’t know how all this works or fits together today, but a leading luminary in the PSPA and an elder statesman in the sports photographic world, George Herringshaw seems to trying to pull together a notion of this brother-(and some sister-)hood. So many practitioners have come and gone over the decades and many more have retired, just as much as many newbies have entered the fray. Merely by sending out block emails to all current and past members, George has been keeping us up to date with some of the passing of past personnel and what has been going on for others.

It was in this spirit that I leapt at the idea of doing an interview with a very dear friend of mine and stalwart tennis photographer, Michael Cole, who had notched up his 40^th consecutive Wimbledon last year. Although Michael has been a constant on the tennis circuit over the years, not just at Wimbledon but also as a regular at the French Open, the US Open, the Lipton (now Sony Ericsson) Florida and the occasional Italian Open amongst others, many of the younger generation may not have clocked who he is and just what he has achieved. What a great excuse to pop down to Beckenham and spend some time with him, mess around with a camera body he adores and which I had never previously got on with - the Canon 5D - and take a snap of him with it. Here is the result of that encounter...

Last year Michael Cole notched up his 40th consecutive Wimbledon. In May he will add the French Open to that formidable achievement – and he doesn’t look a day over 41. He can also add 20 Miamis and 20 New Yorks to that tally too, but he is very much synonymous with Wimbledon an inherited trait from his dad Arthur who had been taking pictures there for some 40 years. On his first visit, he photographed the marathon match between Gozales and Pasarell. The general advice from his dad was merely to ‘look for anything unusual’ and to try to, “Get the player diving - going for the ball”. Apart from those pointers he left Michael to his own devices – basically just to get around the courts and get on with it. Now he has accumulated images of all the major – and quite a few of the minor - players and more than a fair share of the decisive moments across six decades if you include Arthur’s work.

Turning to equipment and stock over the years, in 1969 he used a Pentax SV with a manual shut down 135mm F2.8 Tamron lens. This was perfectly adequate at the time for volleys from the side of court. In the Gonzales-Pasarell match, for some reason, he ended up using a Rolleiflex - which he found awkward and clumsy for tennis - loaded with Agfapan 1000 because of the fading and appalling light.

The Pentax was replaced by a Nikon F with noisy motordrive attached. Michael still has a lot of his old cameras, including the Pentax and Nikon F. Being a bit of a sentimentalist he finds it difficult to part with certain things - this amazingly includes his old school blazer, cap and tie as well as a pair of swimming trunks - all from the 50's! He rates the legendary Nikon F as the toughest body of them all - built to last, he reckons. The 180mm F2.8 was predominantly used courtside as well as sometimes the Novoflex but he never really got to grips with that squeeze-trigger focussing. A while later, he acquired a 400mm F5.6 Nikkor lens - a slow lens but remembering he was shooting predominantly b&w at this time this wasn't too much of an issue. In those days he never used zoom lenses because they were 'soft' compared to primes. The Nikon F was superseded by the F2 to be followed by the F3 and the 400mm F5.6 was upgraded to the F3.5. 1991 saw Michael switching to Canon acquiring an EOS 1 with a 200mm F1.8 with both the 1.4x & 2x converters. Later he added a 500mm F4.5 which was his favourite lens for down-court and was razor sharp. He got Canon to change the polarity on his lenses because he had got so used to the Nikon direction. He still uses Canon lenses with reversed (Nikon) polarity today.

Stock wise, the benchmark was Kodachrome 64 because of its well established stability and reliability. He still has some dating back to the early 1950s. However, this is more than a difficult film emulsion to scan these days. Occasionally, he would also use High Speed Ektachrome which gave an overall 'blue' hue in overcast conditions and was also quite grainy but speed was of the essence in such conditions. The emergence of Kodachrome 200 was an interesting innovation with its tight sharp grain texture but somehow it lent itself more to available light portraits rather than to tennis. Kodak gave him several boxes of this to 'test drive' before it went into full production. He also experimented with GAF 500 which was even grainier.

The gear he currently uses for tennis runs to an EOS1D Mk 2 and a 5D along with a 15mm F2.8, a 24-70mm F2.8 zoom - his first ever zoom lens and only purchased a year ago he tells me! -the trusty old 200mm F1.8 and a 400mm F4.

Throughout his career, and it is by no means over yet, he has followed his dad’s early advice and sought out the unusual. In fact that is very much a hallmark of his work and approach. In 1994, Tennis Week magazine in New York voted him the Best Tennis Photographer in the World. Michael was humbled by this and was quick to point out that this was the opinion of one tennis magazine's findings. In the early ‘80s, he acknowledges a debt to Racquet magazine in New York and Tennis Revue in Germany both of whom enthusiastically gave him a platform for what he calls his ‘details photography’, often publishing his interpretations full-page over a number of years. This took him away from merely supplying backhands and forehands month in month out. Before 1979/80 how many other tennis photographers were taking these kind of shots on the tennis courts and getting them published regularly? Michael was a creative innovator and still has the appetite to continue that tradition.

As far as meeting client expectations is concerned, it has never been an issue for him: editors either liked or needed his pictures or they didn’t. Michael is of the opinion that every photographer has his own approach to a subject and to be influenced to stray from that path is not something he would contemplate.

In terms of the competitor environment over the years, it is certainly true that more competition means fewer opportunities to sell these specialised images but Michael reckons competition is healthy. In such a specialised market, he perceives that because of the deals being done, there is a significant number of great photos out there which never get to be published where they should be. Driven by cost, publishers seem to be in favour of all in deals at the best price rather than the quality of images supplied. Such deals, he feels, mean that really creative pictures are no longer sought after and published on merit.

When not photographing tennis Michael likes to get involved with photographing classic and sports cars which involves going to meetings and events such as Goodwood and Brands Hatch. E-type magazine regularly use his pictures on their covers. Recently, Michael did a feature on stripping the body of his own car, a specialised task away from photography which he undertook himself.

He also loves his stock photography too and has a good deal of travel photos in his collection. His images of Venice are quite stunning and have been widely used in travel magazines and in a series of greetings cards and even by the National Trust to promote music festivals in England.

He is not just first and foremost a photographer then a tennis or sports buff. He is entirely and exclusively a photographer, tennis happens to be both his canvass and palette. Had he not have turned up to Wimbledon all those years ago he would quite probably followed a fine art route having spent five years training at Beckenham School of Art and later at The Ravensbourne College of Art & Design.

What a loss this would have been to tennis photography and tennis photographers, because as anyone who knows him will agree, he is so easy to be around. Such talent with such modesty, too.

Desert Island Questions & Mikey’s Answers

Q: Favourite piece of kit of all time?

A: The Canon 5D is best digital body I've ever owned/used to date. The 500/4.5 was best long lens ever owned/used.

Q: Favourite tournament?

A: French Open. Love the ambience, the spectators, the fashion and the glamour and the late afternoon/early evening light - for those reasons it's the best Grand Slam for me.

Q: Favourite players to photograph?

A: Connors, Mac, Borg, Nastase spring to mind immediately because of the many pictures they "gave me". I'm almost grateful to them for being around competing when I was around working and I count myself lucky to have been on court to photograph them for so many years. Charismatic characters all of them.

Q: Favourite meal?

A: Scallops in their shells.

Q: Favourite drink?

A: Champagne but dry sparkling cider is a good substitute. The occasional Sussex real ale, too.

Q: Favourite music?

A: The Stones, Chuck Berry, Dylan (timeless - I get into Dylan every so often on a regular basis - love the lyrics and the monotony of the music - Gawd that dates me! Trad jazz and Chopin piano music too.

Q: Favourite movie?

A: Carve Her Name with Pride.

Q: Favourite photographer?

Ernst Haas. I'd never heard of him until I was on a Marlboro shoot in the mid 80's and one of the cowboys showed me one of his books and I was just totally inspired - the images excited me. I was and still am passionate about his work.

Q: Favourite comedy?

A: John Cleese especially in Fawlty Towers. John Shuttleworth, too, but that is almost documentary!

- Parinirvana Day 2010

2010-02-12T05:16:00.001-08:00

Talk given at Birmingham Buddhist Centre

I’m just going to share some reflections around death and becoming upon Parinirvana Day. Parinirvana literally means ‘liberation without remainder’ and refers to the Buddha’s physical death. Here, I am making a few connections which have evolved over time and which have begun to make sense to me, but they are neither polished nor finished. It’s a bit like an ad hoc bouquet of different flowers. Some of them may work well together others may clash in the context of the company they keep. So these are just a few ideas fuelled by feelings born out of experience.

In two days time my dad, Jim, will have been dead 28 years. He was just about the same age as I am now. I have lost other relatives and dear friends in that time (and before) but Dad’s loss was the most painful. He was an electrician, lived in a council flat and was proud of the fact that he had never read a book. Nonetheless, he supported me unreservedly through the annealing of adolescence, through my various changes in direction which saw me occupying spaces he had never dreamed of. Likewise, my brother, Stuart, nine years younger than me and so different, pursued yet other directions and Dad was even handed in his unconditional love of us both. Though I have long since let Dad go, I have recently been working through some unfinished business in my grief which came up following a retreat at Padmaloka two weeks ago.

Last June I lost a young friend, Anna, a close friend of my daughter Katie. She died after an eight month struggle against cancer at the age of 24. Anna was a beautiful girl, very talented especially musically playing cello and singing in choirs. She read geography and development studies at SOAS, loved Africa and volunteered her time helping refugees in this country. There was a documentary – Into That Good Night - just after Christmas on Channel 4 which featured her hospice, St Christopher’s, London. In the context of an art session exploring identity, she talked very movingly about her illness and its trajectory. Prompted by a question from another patient as to whether she could rationalise her predicament or make sense of it, she reflects beautifully and wisely:

This is my path, this is what has been given me and I just have to keep going. And for me a lot of it is [that] I put on a big brave face because I don’t want any sympathy from anyone. They haven’t done anything wrong to me there’s no reason for anyone to feel sorry for me. [...] For no explainable reason – this is what has been given to me. It makes you a lot more sensitive and aware of things than ever I would have been before and not in a big-headed way. I feel so much more aware of my own strengths. For me, a positive mental attitude is really the only way forward. You can’t think otherwise - because anybody who hasn’t even got cancer or an illness has a chance of dying as much as anyone else has.

Such wisdom, compassion and equanimity in such circumstances and in one so young.

I don't know what happens when people die

Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try,

It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear

That I can't sing -

I can't help listening

For A Dancer, Jackson Browne on Late For The Sky

Death is most people’s biggest fear. It is the greatest of unkowns when we shall die and what happens next. It is that country from whence no traveller has returned with or without an account or set of photos or film, so how can we ‘know’?

Even the Buddha would not be pressed on such matters. To the question

What happens to a Buddha after death?

he would not answer saying that it was undetermined – along with three other questions –

Is the universe finite?

Is the universe eternal?

Is the life force synonymous with the body?

Sangharakshita reminds us (A Survey of Buddhism, pp 100 – 102) that these are questions which are not susceptible to logic. The Buddha refused to answer because such ‘holy’ matters are not dependant on the truth or falsity of any of the four propositions. This does not mean to say that the Buddha did not know the answers, but it does mean they are not open to the discernments of the unenlightened mind.

We are thus encouraged to live with uncertainty regarding our own demise and that of our loved ones.

Yet if we can really start to see ourselves as processes rather than entities with more than a suggestion that we are somehow fixed, then what is it or who is it that dies? We are a conglomeration of cells constantly dying and renewing and becoming. We are composed of elements found outside of us: the earth, water, heat, air, the spaces we fleetingly occupy, our awareness – consciousness itself. All of which are found in other people, other creatures, the whole world around us - and beyond. Bill Bryson (in the modestly entitled A Short History of Nearly Everything) reminds us that we have billions of ‘adams’ - atoms – in each and every one of us that were in Shakespeare. And in everyone else I guess that means. Someone was telling me the other day that the air we are breathing today was breathed in China about 6 or 8 weeks ago – though I guess it depends which way the wind blows.

Even if the ego is somewhat resistant, I like the idea of processes and seeing myself – and others – in terms of component parts. It facilitates a letting go, some kind of renunciation, and easing of possessiveness in terms of me and mine. Which brings me to nearly the end of the puja and the Transference of merit and self-surrender.

Just as the earth and other elements

Are serviceable in many ways

To the infinite number of beings,

Inhabiting limitless space,

So may I become

That which maintains all beings

Situated throughout space,

So long as all have not attained

To peace

The spiritual well-spring which helps nurture and propel this letting go is sraddha. Not just in terms of faith but mainly in terms of trust. It literally refers to where you place your heart, what you put your heart upon. Whether in Pali, saddha, or Sanskrit sraddha, heart also includes mind.

To return to Jackson Browne:

Don't let the uncertainty turn you around

(The world keeps turning around and around)

Go on and make a joyful sound.

Which is precisely what Anna did.

- The eye of the tiger

2010-02-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

When I did a marketing course a little while ago, we were told that in a presentation about 93% of communication is non-verbal. People make certain judgments and inferences about you before you open your mouth and regardless what comes out of it irrespective of the slides you may have sweated over in your PowerPoint presentation. There is a fabled practice in the FWBO which I had heard much about but never actually done until last weekend. It is a communication exercise and it was set within the context of spiritual friendship on a retreat entitled ‘Entering the tiger’s cave’. The title refers to a Zen story where human footprints are said be seen leading into the cave but none do seem to come out.

A route into exploring certain aspects of this commitment was afforded through this communication exercise. You work in pairs, ideally with a partner whom you have never met before. The first part of the exercise involves looking in and around each other’s eyes. Then you break off before going back to repeat the exercise this time taking some awareness to being open and letting the other person in and really being willing to enter into this other person’s being. It is striking how much the superficiality of the first encounter is deepened by engagement with these possibilities in the second. Each mini session is about 3 minutes long.

Then one partner chooses a phrase to be repeated and the other partner affirms it by saying ‘Yes’. The phrases on offer (and it is part of the fable that they are usually these) were:

The cow is in the field

Do birds fly?

Water is wet

Flowers grow here

The sky is blue today

Each partner takes it in turn to utter the phrase and to make the affirmation. All the time you are still holding each other with the eyes.

Finally, the phrases are dropped and you go back to just sitting and staring into one another’s eyes.

What is extraordinary is that there is a real sense of knowing this erstwhile stranger that soon builds up as well as a sensitivity to the tone and cadence of the voice. Some affirmations are more gentle or more brusque than others despite the repetition. Something else is communicated beyond the words themselves. It is a stripping bare of communication. It feels as though you have entered the tiger’s cave because you have poured yourself into another being through the pupils and you have let another person in because you opened the door to your own being as wide as possible and you just don't know what will happen. Friendship is thus a risky business and we have to be prepared for anything and for surrendering ourselves completely.

- A step, a stone, a path and a couple of other things

2010-01-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

Les Eaux de Mars is an old Georges Moustaki song in the style of a lively bossa nova which starts with the line :

A step, a stone, a path which progresses.

Then goes on to make an arbitrary list of objects, states and attitudes. (The lyrics can be found at http://www.france-jeunes.net/paroles-georges.moustaki-les.eaux.de.mars-2501.htm)

Occasionally I have experimented with this idea photographically, of photographing objects in an uncontaminated way as far as that is possible, neither with the aim nor intention of producing aesthetically pleasing images so much as attempting to grind down the meaning and eliminate extraneous threads of connotation and detonation. Of course it is a vain endeavour because as soon as you commit to any representation or act of communication you effectively lose control of the meanings which may be mined from the utterance. Meaning is in the mind of the beholder. But at least you might be able to park the signifier just a little way off the lawn of Barthes’ notional idea of a degree zero. Odd perhaps for a Buddhist to chase after the integrity of any object being itself a set a processes arising upon conditions in a particular conjuncture at a particular time.

Reading Nagapriya’s book Visions of Mahayana Buddhism, I was very much struck by a quotation where he humself quotes Zhenzie Qingliao quoted in turn by McRae (a bit like opening up Russian dolls!) in Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism,

Without taking a step, you should constantly sit in your room and just forget about the teachings. Be like dried wood, or a stone, or a wall, or a piece of tile, or a pebble.

This is very much in line with the ‘if you see the Buddha on the road, shoot him’ and points towards the fact that the teachings are not the Dharma, practice is: they merely point to the Dharma. Here, nonetheless I stretch out towards a certain purity or integrity in these objects in my mind’s eye much as in the same way as I envisage the segment of tomato in Robbe-Grillet’s description (see the first blog entry October 2009).

- New Word New Way of Seeing – Bokeh in Prime Position

2009-11-26T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have recently been tempted away from the use of zoom lenses back to prime. For over a decade I have been happy with the zooms covering 16 – 200 mm in just three cylinders. When I did sports photography, I only ever had primes. Zooms were supposed to have got better, which they did, but recent experience has shown me that the difference is appreciable. Not only that, this crisper way of seeing has sharpened up my practice encouraging me to be less lazy and move about more. There are objective tests for lenses and they tell you quite a bit. What they are silent on is the feel of the lens. Not just in the hand, but the overall quality or qualities which the lens lends to every image.

Prime lenses can be much faster, wider, more available for less light. This alone makes looking through the camera a heightened experience. At wide aperture however, the depth of field is perilously narrow: it is so easy not to hit the spot even with autofocus target areas and motors or for the lens to be distracted by back focus or be drawn to a strong, contrasty pattern in clothing or background. Such lenses are appreciably brighter. In old money, back in the day of wet processing, one used to talk about acutance which I always understood as the apparent edge sharpness around a subject; something to do with the kind of contrast you got with a certain time/dilution and chemical adjustment. In other words, something you got out of the processing rather than the lens itself. With the lenses I have just got, this acutance seems to be imprinted their DNA. Then there is resolution something which wet processing also could also enhance but which mainly inheres in the quality of the lens: the ability to deliver objects in terms of the amount of detail transmitted. There is correction for chromatic aberration, too, which describes how a lens copes with colour. Newer to me was ‘coma’ which I take to refer to a lens’ tendency to distort light sources.

Newest of all however is the term ‘bokeh’ borrowed from the Japanese meaning ‘dizzy’ or ‘fizzy’. This applies especially to one of the new prime lenses which has an aperture of f1.2, ie which is very wide and fast. It refers to the quality of bur you get in out of focus areas especially in highlight areas. I kind of know what this means but it’s as if I have only really twigged it since I discovered the term. Actually though, whether the term works or not, something else is working for me at a more intuitive and subliminal level. Quite simply, I like the sharpness and shallowness of the lenses even if the successful shoot rate is lower at such apertures, because when it is right it is almost other dimensional. It’s as if the zone of focus, all the more narrow with a wide aperture lens used at a wide aperture, cuts the subject out with a scalpel, creating some sort of stand-alone sliver within the frame. I have just recently learned that the new Canon bodies are being used by professional video and film makers partly because of the tack-sharpness and narrowness of focus afforded by these still lenses used in conjunction with wide apertures (see http://theeoscars.com/5dblog for example. In the bouquet of bokeh, by way the examples above, it is in the eyelash and part of the glasses of one shot, the right pupil with its contact lens on another and the left eye particularly again in the other. (The eyes always have it for me: a strong tendency in my approach as well as a widespread phenomenon in our culture, it is deserving of a far deeper exploration, but at some other time!) What’s more, these lenses have enabled me to start to see in a different way and to find a new pleasure in creating images.©www.roypeters.co.uk

- Amid the wreck of is and was

2009-11-23T03:12:00.000-08:00

Whilst looking up a sporting moment on YouTube, I tripped upon a lovely short video from Cambridge Ideas, entitled Strange Seas of Thought, in which the presenter Ruth Abbott looks at the comparative production of the imagination in the arts as opposed to sciences via a consideration of Wordsworth’s notebooks (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2r5ewTqlwE). The strange seas of thought comes from a few lines in consideration of Newton’s statue in Trinity College in which Wordsworth muses at his

Voyaging through the strange seas of Thought, alone.

Along Ms Abbott’s short but intense journey in this piece, she refers to the phrase

Amid the wreck of is and was, things incomplete and purposes betrayed.

‘Betrayed’ is such a strong word. Regret turns to resentment. Who’s done the betraying? The rest of the expression is so matter of fact in comparison, merely identifying things as they are or as they come about. Life is like that. ‘I could have been a contender,’ says Brando, as Terry Malloy, in On The Waterfront .

As I look over my shoulder I can see the chair in which I meditate functional and comfortable enough, but it is empty and I have not been in it today nor for a few days. I’ve got excuses transparent as the air. Usually to do with busy-ness, breaks in routine. But I also know – and I don’t need to burrow very deep – that I have betrayed my purpose through a mixture of sloth and distraction, perhaps allowing myself to get too caught up in the moment of residing in some version of a devaloka. Am I a meditator whilst I am not actually doing it? When exactly does ‘is’ turn to ‘was’?

Such procrastinations can easily mask the fact that change is possible in every moment. The day is still young and so I may yet avoid trading places between a devaloka and Brando’s Palookaville. My inspiration will be Bhante serving so well as an example of how to occupy a chair.© www.roypeters.co.uk

- Technology and Wordsworth – Seeing through the dark

2009-11-08T09:36:00.001-08:00

If you calibrate a Mac display using the faculty of your eye, you begin with a screen shot, in System Preferences, which invites you to set the brightness at the point where, in true Goldilocks style, the oval centre within a black square is neither too light nor too dark. It is both a question of judgment and a leap of faith that the display has the technology to deliver what is assumed to be the correct level of brightness. I wonder what Vermeer might have made of this, for whom the dark shadowy areas from a distance appear to merge but close up they maintain their variegated differences. I have never seen anything approaching a good repro of Vermeer for this reason. The photographer always seems to expose with too much deference to the shadows thus rendering the overall feel too light, muddy, lacking mood and contrast. I am thinking of paintings such as The Letter, The Geographer, Lady with a Maid where there is a heavy use of dark shadow particularly on the edge or the side in a way that frames the subject.

Pursuing the Bahiya advice from the Lord Buddha (which turned to Insight for him on hearing it) if we move from ‘in the seen only the seen’ and ponder what do we actually see – a good and fruitful enough exercise at most times – then Wordsworth segues most powerfully from the recalled visual experience to the imagined in the episode from childhood recalled in The Prelude involving what is often referred to as ‘the stolen boat’. (I prefer ‘borrowed’ to ‘stolen’ because he was always going to return it. What else could he have done with it?)

At first he rows out into the dark lake as light is falling, gradually he becomes aware of a great mass which seems to pursue him. This ‘grim shape’

Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

For so it seemed, with purpose of its own

And measured motion like a living thing,

Strode after me.

He hurriedly replaces the boat to its original mooring and is left to ponder on the nature of this experience of something else beyond him, leading him to a sense of the transcendental and a ‘dim and undetermined sense of unknown modes of being’ where

There hung a darkness, call it solitude

Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes

Remained, no pleasant images of trees,

Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

But huge and mighty forms, that do not live

Like living men moved slowly through the mind

By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

I certainly don’t access this gateway through from the visual to the imaginal when I am calibrating my Mac display, but it does make me stop and ponder where else there might be portals. At the moment, such an illumined space, where brightness may be found in the dark, lies somewhere between what was gleaned on a recent retreat on the Sutra of Golden Light, led by Vedanya and Padmavajra, when we were all given a bunch of keys with which to open particular doorways into the sutra, and the excellent book by Nagapriya called Visions of Mahayana Buddhism which is full of maps and signposts of understanding.

- Not Selling any Alibis

2009-10-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time you dressed so fine 

You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you? 

The other night I met up with the first guy I met and the first friend I made when I first went to university. He became a TV reporter and front man and we naturally lost contact over the years. A couple of years ago he was thrust into the media spotlight because he had been found sleeping rough: the latest chapter in his demise through drink and debt. He was in many of the papers and indeed became the subject of a documentary called Saving Ed Mitchell. In this documentary we learn how drink had taken him over, lost him his job (and barred him from further similar employment), his marriage fell apart, the family house was repossessed, and his grown up kids were understandably devastated.

Nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street 

And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it 

We see him trudging along the stoney beach at Shoreham weighed down by a rucksack full of the burdens and necessities of his drunken existence. Then we see him, already full beyond excess, honking up, ill, yet making way for still more. The final shot is of him in front of the Priory taking his last swig before who knows what.

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose 

You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

Now, nearly two years on, Ed has turned his life around. He is well and truly sober and has just received his first pay cheque working for In Excess a drug and alcohol recovery organisation. A couple of things struck me about meeting Ed again. One was that after 36 years and leading completely separate lives (though we both have daughters of the same age born on the same day) the sparks of friendship very much flickered around us as we spoke, caught up and dug deep. The other one was the insight his experience had given him.

How does it feel 

To be without a home 

Like a complete unknown 

In this pride-less place, where he had hit rock bottom and not only lived the life of a homeless tramp but had this exposed and witnessed in the public limelight, he felt that there was nothing ‘lower’ to sink into. In part due to this public profile, he was presented with a generous benefactor who paid for him to go to the Priory and, if he was able to kick the habit successfully, he would be able to work again as a TV journalist for In Excess. This auspicious concatenation of events, coupled with a dimension of not wishing to fail in the eyes of many, was sufficient to lend him the support and give him the propulsion he needed to step into a new realm. Ed talks of how alcohol was added to everything he did until it just became everything he did. A beautiful sunset could not be appreciated as such, it had to be accompanied with a shot of something or other. Now he uses language which is congruent with acceptance, being in the moment, appreciating what is there, being more content. His was no religious conversion. Yet it was a complete spiritual overhaul. Whilst he respects the 12 steps and how they can help some to maintain a path of recovery, and whilst he can see how religion can become a raft for others, his route was different and somehow of his own concoction: in his own words, it had to be ‘-ism free'.

He recommends Viktor Frankl’s book recalling the latter’s experiences in a concentration camp. Some of Frankl’s aphorisms chime in with Buddhist thought such as the notion of the space between stimulus and response inside of which we are confronted with a choice, where we are empowered to act differently than the momentum of all the accumulated habits (samskaras) might lead us act. Here lies the possibility of change. I believe Frankl relates this space to growth and freedom. It seems somewhat akin to the space between craving and attachment (trsna and upadana) in the nidana chain. And it is in acting in this gap that Ed has found his freedom: freedom to do otherwise, freedom not to drink, freedom to grow into a new person into a new phase of life.

Through this new found sense of freedom, Ed feels less separate and more a part of the universe. ‘The Universe is consciousness turned into light turned into energy turned into matter and mass. That consciousness pours through us’, he concludes. Most eloquently, he talks of being made of similar stuff and moving to the music of it, as it flows through him. All of which has led him to the belief that the notion of an ‘I’ or ‘me’ is illusory. I may have been the one who studied Wordsworth at Durham, yet now this social scientist turned journalist is wandering into the domain of Tintern Abbey when he says that ‘we are not generators of consciousness but receivers of it’!

His is a journey of self-help in that his recovery doesn’t have a title or heading to subsume it under, but he would be the first to say that he couldn’t have done it alone. He has made some startling and life changing insights in his journey so far, but how many of us would want to change places to access such insights? How many of us would have been able to get into that gap and work with it and come out the other side?

You can see Ed’s current incarnation here: http://www.inexcess.tv/?p=7461

- A Note in Passing: Jack Jones

2009-10-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

The weight of this sad time we must obey;  

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.  

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young  

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

(Kent of Lear, final scene.)

Today saw the commemoration of the life of Jack Jones, trade union leader, who died earlier this year. It was a moving affair with tributes from all quarters of the labour movement world including Spain where he went to fight against Franco in the thirties. In this era of celebrity culture where a few moments of fame and notoriety are dangled on the same piece of coarse string in front of an ever increasing would-be constituency of keen takers who seek out the limelight just because it’s there, Jack Jones’ life and times are 96 years’ worth of reminder that becoming well-known may just be a by-product of having spent a life dedicated in the service of other people. At the core of Jack’s life was an unstinting mission to improve the lives of others. His socialist syndicalist beliefs were so deeply established that it was easy for him to follow them through with self-less acts and actions. What came easy to him, many of the rest us would find difficult to emulate. When he retired from the T&G he started the pensioners’ movement with the same amount of vigour and dedication and commitment. And success. He stood for far more than the wages and conditions side of trade unionism, important though those concerns are. Just today Tony Woodley, the current joint General Secretary, of Unite (the latest incarnation of the T&G) reminded us that this is part of his legacy when he said that what the union fights for now it isn’t just wages and conditions but for the happiness of its members. Sardhu to that! © www.roypeters.co.uk

- In the Scene only the Seen

2009-10-02T04:36:00.000-07:00

"An impeccably formed quarter of a tomato, cut out of the fruit by a gadget with such perfect symmetry. The peripheral flesh, homogenous and tight, in a beautiful chemical red, is of a consistent thickness between a strip of shiny skin and the bit where the pips are displayed: yellow, with a regular consistency, held in place by a thin layer of greenish jelly along the bulge where the heart is. The latter being of a gently attenuated granular pink, begins from a recess on the underside via a membrane of white veins from whence one extends out towards the pips – albeit in a slightly hesitant way. At the very top, a scarcely visible accident has occurred: one corner of skin, come unstuck from the flesh by one or two millimetres, imperceptibly juts out."

In Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1953 novel, Les Gommes, at one point he describes in wonderful detail, the segment of a tomato. It is so precise and exact yet it comes to stand generically as such for a quadrant of tomato. In the photographic equivalent or attempt at replicating the written into visual discourse, the representation remains singular and precise – even though we can’t eat either depiction and experience the experience of eating a tomato. I don’t know what surface R-G’s tomato wedge finds itself on but mine is clearly on a white plate. The photo is clearly a mise en scène – as no doubt is R-G’s description at that point in the novel. No matter how simple the shot is by shutting out whole battalions of signifiers, whole regiments are nonetheless there even in the so called neutral choice of background, as well as with whatever distortions and propensities the lens, ISO setting and aperture bring to it.

By attempting to limit and shut out certain other signifiers it’s as if we are trying to lead the viewer down an avenue of apparent simplicity where what is seen is just a tomato, a wedge, a quadrant of tomato. Yet in order to do that, at a fundamental level, we have presented not so much what is seen as what we (photographers) want to be seen as the seen. Clearly we do this all the time with more complex images. Take my picture of the rupa on my shrine. It is simple enough notwithstanding what it is of and what it represents with the addition of the two items I have added to it, a symbol of blue to remind me of Akshobya and a book at the Buddha’s feet to represent the Dharma. There is a plain background which I manufactured so as to further isolate the figure. Actually what I saw with my eyes is closer to what is apparent in the other shot – you may just make out my shrine in the top third of the picture, about a third in from the left. (Unconscious use of classic thirds maybe?)

I am not sure I want to start taking all my pictures in this way, somehow trying to replicate a seemingly haphazard way in the human eye scans and absorbs the visual environment, but it is somehow an encouragement to be simpler in approach and to try less yet at the same time to deepen our understanding of what is going on and what we bring to a picture. These are not neutral choices and they may be made through instinct and ignorance. As photographers we always bring certain elements to a visual situation and overlay it with choices and pre-conceptions. We rarely - if ever - just take things as they are. Even the simplest of pictures is highly pre-constructed.

The same could be said of mind. How often do we really see ‘things as they really are’? How often do we just see what our eyes show us, hear what our ears deliver, use our imagination not for mere fantasy but for access into the nature of reality instead of seeing what we hope, want, dread and fear to see, and hearing the unsaid and imposing so many narratives onto our experience like some over-worked Bollywood metteur en scène? © www.roypeters.co.uk