Meditation

Since I have started working on this series, meditation has become one of my top priorities. In the beginning, I never would have expected how much of an impact meditation would have on my life. It has become one of the main focuses in my body of work. A lot of the images depend on my meditating and connecting to the environments that I put myself in. Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, states that meditation is "the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well. Meditation is the road to enlightenment." Since starting this project, I fully believe in that statement. Putting myself out in nature, allowing myself quiet time to connect to the world around me has done me so much good. I think that's why I am able to capture the images I capture. I could just as easily employ the same methods of photography and capture images that look like crap without saying anything to the viewer when they look at them. I believe that letting myself go in the environment and learning how to appreciate my surroundings has made a big difference in the work I'm producing. Meditation "often involves invoking and cultivating a feeling or internal state" (wikipedia.org). When I am out photographing, I stop to meditate for awhile first. After a period of time I feel something within myself. Usually it's an overall calming feeling as well as a vast appreciation for everything around me. I see the world through new eyes and in a more positive light than ever before. It's this practice that is very beneficial to my work and to myself as a person in the long run.

Rinpoche, Sogyai, Patrick Gaffney, and Andrew Harvey. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. [San Francisco, Calif.]: Harper San Francisco, 1992. Print.