Beauty, vibrancy and wisdom
Contemplative Arts
The Contemplative Arts bring beauty, aliveness and wisdom into our lives and our environment. They can help us to appreciate our world as it is and to experience it more directly and vividly. This “direct perception” and spontaneous creativity is accessible to everyone. We can tap into aspects of awareness that we often disregard or ignore in our daily lives.
All arts can incorporate a contemplative approach, including design, music, dance and poetry.
Bringing Flowers to Life
Ikebana
Ikebana is a meditative way to develop mindfulness and elegance. For this reason, the process of flower arranging is just as important as the result. As with the other traditional contemplative arts, the mind-set is the deciding factor.
More about Ikebana
Excerpt from a text by Chögyam Trungpa
It seems that the whole principle is based on creating space, and at the same time the arrangement can be bold and eye-catching. So you shouldn’t be too timid, nor too fascinated by the beauty in the branch.
This particular style of flower arranging, Ikebana, comes from the Sogetso school. The Japanese Sogetso school not only emphasizes the importance of arranging flowers, but also of forming and creating an environment out of many things.
My meeting with my teacher in England came as an incredible shock and surprise, namely that Ikebana offers such a new dimension of reality. The first time I saw a flower arrangement, I was amazed at the dignity and reality that could be expressed through this particular arrangement. There is beauty and cruelty. Perhaps there is an invitation, a temptation, and in fact the whole thing is like the Buddhist teachings. It is therefore not just a work of art. It is a manifestation of reality that presents itself in a simple yet very spacious form. Ikebana practice teaches how to approach your life. It requires a lot of mindfulness, non-aggression and no stress.
Discipline
If you don’t have any discipline in your state of mind, then you create confusion rather than order. This doesn’t necessarily mean that people who study Ikebana have to sit and meditate. But they could use meditation principles in their practice and in their work. When you do that, you start to notice chaos, boredom, inadequacy, and everything else. Then you start to develop a sense of humour.
Every arrangement must have a victorious quality, a spacious quality. And the flowers, if I may say so, should not stare at you, but should be arranged as they have grown.
Contemplative Photography
Miksang
Miksang means “good eye”. Through the practice of clear seeing into what is fundamentally there, the magic and freshness of everyday life becomes (re)present.
More about Miksang
The spirit of Miksang is to capture the “magic of everyday life” with the camera, in other words to take photos without preconceived ideas, without the desire for a “good” photo and thereby to see clearly, appreciate the unique moment and record it.
This contemplative approach to photography is based on the teachings of Shambhala and Dharma Art by the meditation master, artist and scholar Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, especially his teachings on the art of perception.
Strengthening Awareness of Space
Mudra Space Awareness
Mudra Space Awareness was developed by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche based on his own training in Tibetan dancing.
It is a method for harmonizing body, speech and consciousness so that true presence can be developed. Through working with postures, sounds and movement, we learn to be fearless and to communicate genuinely
Our perception of the space around us is influenced by our imagination. If the space around us seems inviting and benevolent, we are more likely to relax. If the space seems unwelcoming and threatening, we tense up.
More about Mudra Space Awareness
Mudra Spatial Awareness is a method for harmonizing body, feeling and consciousness in space. We develop trust in being fearless and fully present in every – really every – situation. The practice consists of unique exercises in different postures, with sensory perception, language and movement.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche developed Mudra Space Awareness as a contemplative practice for the Mudra Theatre group at Naropa Institute in Boulder. The exercises are based on Trungpa Rinpoche’s training in Tibetan monastic dance. The basic idea is that theater and everyday life are no different from each other. Whatever role one may be playing, there is always the possibility to expand one’s precision and openness.
The very first thing we need to realize is that we are trapped in our thoughts. This is by no means easy – after all, we have an extremely complicated life. We are busy trying to be better. We want to get rid of blockages from the past in order to express our true selves. We are busy eating well, drinking well, working hard, working a lot, busy, busy, busy. To become aware of the space, we have to pay attention to what and who we are.
Five Buddha Families, Five Wisdom Energies
Maitri Space Awareness
The 5 ‘Buddha Families’ offer an unusual approach to understanding personalities and their environment. Each of these families or energies represents a different aspect of our original clear consciousness.
These energies are experienced through working with certain postures and colours. We become aware of the full range of all five energies, and no longer identify only with our habitual patterns of behavior, which unnecessarily limit our relationship with ourselves and our environment. Instead, we expand our perception, learn to understand ourselves and others better, and deal with situations more openly.
More about Maitri Space Awareness
Mindfulness of what is happening to us in the present moment and meditation play a key role in this practice. We learn to gently open ourselves to our experience and to unconditionally accept what we are in the moment: Maitri, unconditional kindness, arises in us when we learn to relax into the play of our energies and to experience every situation as a challenge.
Maitri Space Awareness was developed jointly by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. It is offered as training in contemplative psychotherapy and art, as well as for deepening meditation practice, and is suitable for beginners and advanced students.
Together We Thrive
We offer meditators in the South-West of the UK opportunities to learn, grow, and connect.
There are further opportunities available at the London Shambhala Centre and further afield in Shambhala Europe.