When I first saw Alex Pansier’s photograph Patterns in The Guardian’s coverage of Bird Photographer of the Year, my eyes kept looking for somewhere to settle. One bird would draw my attention, then another.
Patterns © Alex Pansier
Gazing at Patterns, yet seeing none, brought to mind five questions used by teachers to turn attention towards the mind itself:
Does the mind come from anywhere?
Does the mind stay anywhere?
Does the mind go anywhere?
Does the mind have any shape or colour?
Does the mind have any size or dimension?
Five Questions about the Mind, James Low, Eifel, 2019
James Low says these questions are not problems to solve or trick questions. They invite us to look directly at mind itself. Ken McLeod often suggests substituting the word experience for mind (for example, in the audioclip below), and I've found that very helpful.
From 37 Practices in Four Parts, 8, Ken McLeod
The point of the five questions is not to work out an answer. The questions provoke us to look. Before encountering these questions, I'd never really inquired into the nature of my experience. Suddenly it dawned on me that experience is strangely mysterious, consisting of evanescent sensations, thoughts, and feelings. But what are these? Words fail.
And when a teacher asks, “Who experiences this?” the looking goes deeper and feels even more mysterious. I cannot find anyone, yet awareness is present. When I look for its shape, colour, location or boundary, I find nothing definite or tangible. Yet experience is happening. Knowing is present. And the more I look, the less I can say about where experience, knowing, or awarenes begins or ends, comes from or goes.
Alex’s photograph brought these questions back to me. Attention keeps choosing a focus, one bird, then another. The frame of the photograph supplies a boundary. Yet, when I look at the awareness experiencing the image, I find neither centre nor edge.
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