Day III Moments and Visual Haiku: moments and people

On the third and last day of this workshop our teacher explained that there are three similarities between miksang (photography) and haiku (poetry):
1. Subtle resonance. We come to a more subtle layer in ourselves, our heart resonates with something and our heart becomes also more subtle. Subtiety and heart level are inextricably linked with each other.

2. Immens directness. On the second day during writing a haiku we worked with senses which experience direct perceptions. Miksang is also about sense perceptions, the contact with your own body: what do you feel, smell or hear?

3. Looking and seeing. Looking is considered a skill aspect: we are looking all day around, looking is a means. In Miksang contemplative photography we are training ourselves in looking in a more open-minded and unbiased way which will lead to seeing (wisdom aspect). Seeing is an experience, which is also imbedded in our language: "I'll believe it when I see it." Insight and heart connection are also part of seeing. A haiku is also about insight, experience and heart connection.

The morning of the third day we started walking a block around our teacher's apartment with the same assignment as yesterday: perceiving moments with leaves on sidewalks for just about half an hour. The assignment for the whole morning was perceiving moments with people. It can be quite daunting to do that in the wild, so we started practicing on each other. First as a group and later in pairs.

Above is an impression what it looks like when we were photographing each other. The pictures of the hands are taking when we were split up in twos.

Marielle's hands

Annette's hands

After lunch when we were a bit more comfortable with this field, we spread out either photographing moments with leaves or people.

kite surfer and friend

As I wrote before I am still not in my comfort zone photographing people, especially in the streets. Also, jumping in front of someone with your camera is so not Miksang. I need to feel comfortable looking at people without them thinking I want something of them and secondly still make contact with them from my side to establish that heart connection, that little jump of my heart when I see something that takes my breath away even for a tiny little bit.

footstep filled with sea foam

I am afraid it didn't really happen with me, photographing people, but I did see some other moments. You meet moments or you don't and I sort of didn't that afternoon.

How about you, do see moments during your day?