The practice of photographing impermanence

Today is Memorial Day, and since I have some extra free time today I decided to write a short post on the practice of photographing impermanence. To be clear, any of the five sense organs can be used to do this practice but since I mostly use photography as a tool to connect with Awareness, I figured it would be easier to explain how this practice should work.

Subject-Object Difference

As I explained in my previous blog posts, one of the key assumptions in most non-dual traditions is that the duality between us (subject) and the world that we experience (objects) is in fact not real. This separation is an artifact of us being self-aware. Being self-aware we can create mental images about ourselves in the past and future.

Awareness is always present

Awareness, which is the background of our experiences, is always present and is the foundation of all of our experiences, good and bad. It’s true nature is peace and happiness. This Awareness is self-aware, meaning it knows itself as itself and is also projects our experience of the world. A good analogy is a candle, the candle illuminates itself and also the objects around it. This Awareness is self-luminous and obvious, meaning you don’t need anyone to tell you that you exist. The fact that you are aware is obvious and does not need any external validation.

Key Step: Self-Reflexive Nature of Awareness

One of the key steps in this practice is when Awareness becomes aware of itself. Like I mentioned above, the candle illuminates itself and the objects around it. This self-recognition of Awareness as Awareness is a key step in many non-dual traditions.

The great Zen Master Dogen wrote in the Fukanzazengi:

“You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.”

The Dzogchen tradition has something along the same lines. I have paraphrased a discussion with my teacher that conveys the same point about recognition and practice. In Dozgchen, Rigpa is another name for Awareness.

Teacher: The Dzogchen position is neither of these. We cannot say that Rigpa in its present obscured state is operating as an omniscient awareness. Rigpa is obscured by fleeting stains, and automatically arising factors of confusion and bewilderment. Because of these factors , Rigpa does not recognize its own face and, consequently, it is not operational.

Therefore, Dzogchen emphasizes the importance of preliminary practices and strengthening the two awakening networks of positive force and deep awareness. The purpose however, is not for building up good qualities, but for eliminating obscurations that prevent Rigpa from recognizing its own face. The “face” of rigpa is characterized as Samantabhadra literally, all-excellent. Such recognition will not happen all by itself, without any causes.

Photographing Impermanence

Photographing impermanence is a great practice to connect to our inherent awareness that is always present. I would suggest the following steps to be mindful of as you practice photographing impermanence.

• Pick an object that you want to photograph. For simplicity, we will pick a flower.

• As you begin to photograph the flower, take a few deep breaths and relax your whole body.

• Feel your feet touching the ground, and feel your hands holding the camera or cell phone.

• Bring 100% of your attention to the flower. There should be no other object to focus on.

• At the moment when you click the photo, turn your attention back to you. The one who is photographing the flower ie. the subject.

• Your attention which is projected outwards to the flower, suddenly switches back towards you when you click the shutter.

This process obviously takes time to perfect but it is a great way to practice the movement of our mind from object to subject. This practice will help see how our mind constructs the reality that we live, and our multifaceted experiences in our daily lives. At some point, photography becomes superfluous and all of our senses become ways to practice connecting with this Awareness.

Another analogy would be thinking of an arrow and the nock. In this analogy, the arrow which is attention focused outwards to objects automatically implies that the nock is pointing towards the subject (You).