Try looking at yourself with a new set of eyes using this meditative practice from David Schiller’s See Your Way to Mindfulness.
A dozen, a hundred, a thousand selfies later, do you really know what you look like? Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso created the original selfies in searching and painfully honest self-portraits. So did Zen masters like Hakuin, capturing the great intensity of a teacher in his bold inky brush. Put aside for a moment what your face expresses about your personality. Can you describe the shape of your eyes, the width of your nostrils, the height of your forehead or arc of your mouth? You’ve seen your face your whole life. Now, really look at it. Not at a photo, but sitting for a good long time in front of a mirror. When the self-consciousness comes, try not to let it get the better of you. This is not about vanity. It’s an act of exploration—of real seeing.
Photo © David Schiller
About the Book:
Seeing, really seeing, is like meditation. In a world filled with distraction, seeing mindfully is a way to pay attention, to hit pause and find calm by focusing on what’s directly in front of us. See Your Way to Mindfulness is a gift book of inspiration and instruction to help readers open their eyes—and their “I’s.” Written by David Schiller, author of the national bestseller The Little Zen Companion, it’s a collection of quotes, prompts, exercises, meditations—married with photographs and drawings that bring the words to life.
The quotes are from artists, Buddhists, philosophers, poets, and more, all centered on the theme of how “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes” (Marcel Proust). The short, playful exercises and prompts—like Seeing in the Rain, Eye Spy with My Open I, Spend 30 Minutes Taking a Five-Minute Walk, Get Lost—are designed to disrupt routine and inspire readers to see for themselves. Some of the exercises involve drawing, writing, and taking photographs, opening a path to creativity as well as showing how to engage in the moment.
Think of it as the Zen of seeing—a new way to look at the world afresh and rediscover joy in the everyday.
Buy the Book
Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | Workman
No Comments