PAYSON IN HIS STUDIO OR SOME REFLECTIONS ON ART

Someone other than me, for a change. Here's Payson with some of his recent work. I'll tell you what art does -- it blurs the line between reality and 'art.' When I look at his art I am reminded of the various stages in the journey of our stream; and when I look at our stream, I see it through the eyes of his work. They reflect each other. Art enhances life the way life is the source of art.

THE ULTIMATE IS HAVING NO THOUGHTS

This is what meditation helps us do. Yesterday I experienced a brief moment -- well, perhaps about 10 minutes or so -- of this state. I'll tell you why it's important to experience it:  most of our lives are spent yo-yoing between hope and despair, elation at 'success' and dejection at rejection; we are blinded by the state we are in, one or other pole of the duality that is life. This holy space unites us in silence -- it is the temple where both are one.

I have seized this space with both hands. It is more precious to me now than anything else. I have a name for it: God, featureless, imageless, void. It is a very portable space, this vastness unbounded by this or that, and I can take it with me where ever I go. All I have to do is remember it and it is there, in all its presence, this precious, precious quietude.

DIANA NYAD : SOME MORE ABOUT HOW FAILURES CAN BE THE LADDER TO SUCESS.

You've probably all heard about her by now, the 64 year old woman who swam from Cuba to Florida, a distance of 110 miles, without a shark cage. The article in our Indian paper said "Nyad's success was built on her failures." She had attempted this several times before. On reaching her destination she had three messages:

1. we should never, ever give up.
2. you never are too old to chase your dreams
3. it looks like a solitary sport but it takes a team

LOVING YOURSELF BY THINKING THE RIGHT THOUGHTS

And here I come to the most important aspect of loving ourselves. Nurturing and listening to our bodies, lovingly applying balm to sore joints, etc, is very important, but more important is learning, or teaching ourselves, to think well. I think all of you know what I mean. There are thoughts that hurt and thought that soothe. Learning first to watch them, then weeding out the ones that hurt -- it takes a lot of practice and a huge amount of vigilance. This has to be a daily, hourly, minutely, practice.

LOVING YOURSELF THROUGH FAILURE

Is very hard to do. Generally, when we are 'rejected' and we 'fail,' the first person we beat up on is ourselves: you're not good enough, you don't have what it takes, you're stupid and worthless, etc, etc. This can get so serious that you can take your life over it. We read about it in the papers daily, especially in India: students who didn't pass, farmers who couldn't repay their debts, etc. I have personal knowledge with Donald. A month before he killed himself he had applied for and failed to get a teaching job.

Two days ago when we opened up the same bottle of wine to celebrate failure, Payson's toast was: He's to not giving ourselves a hard time. I might add the following: here's to counting our blessings, here's to counting our successes, here's to seeing the bigger picture, or rather . . . to framing our failures and successes with Death.

THE HOLY GRAIL OF FAILURE

I’ll tell you why I consider failure ‘holy.’ Believe me, it hurts like hell. “Rejected” and “dejected” come from the same root: something thrown back at us, something that makes us lie down, give up. I had the wind taken out of me for two days.  “Failure” casts its pall on your whole life, making you feel smaller than you when you see yourself in the black mirror of its dark light. We feel we alone suffer so while the rest of the world and the people in it are joyously ‘successful,’ which, of course, is not true in the least. Life puts such demands and pressures on those of us who are ambitious in any sphere – and most of us are: if it’s not in this or that field, we are ambitious enough to want peace and contentment. 

At the very least, failure, if we don’t let it grind us down – and we mustn’t! Mustn’t! – can strengthen us to bear more, to accept our destinies, and to carry on. For carrying on is what it's all about. 

so like they say, keep on trucking . . . 

CELEBRATING FAILURE

This has been a difficult week for both Payson and me. Disappointments and so-called ‘bad’ phases have a way of clustering together and happening all at once. Payson had some ‘surus’ (Yiddish word for trouble in the mind) this week, related to relationships and projects falling apart; I had a rejection for my most recent book from a publisher I was hoping would publish it. We were both quite quiet at dinner, when we both hit on the idea of opening a bottle of wine. After we had poured it into our goblets and clunked them together, P said, ‘Here’s to . . .’ and I said, ‘failure! That way we’ll have more to celebrate!’