Mindfulness With the Brush

 

"Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how ending become beginnings"

Tao Te Ching

As we go through our day, we experience life through memories and anticipations, through judgements and analysis. Life does not happen in the past or the future, it is happening every moment, all the time. The art of living fully is the ability of being aware of  life's passing nature ...to live life mindfully.

There are many practices that develop people's ability to live each moment as it arises, and to experience life from one moment to another such as meditation, Tai Chi, creating... to name a few. The idea is to use those tools and apply them in our daily life.

Here is a description of how I help my students to understand mindfulness through Oriental Brush Painting. I start the class with a meditation, where I lead the students to feel and connect with their body and most importantly, the centre ( Dan Tien in Chinese, Hara in Japanese), observe/feel the whole body from there, just like a spider in the centre of it's web. From there also feel the hand that is holding the brush, then the brush and eventually achieve the sensation of the  tip of the brush in that core.... then the process begins...

Learning to be mindful will help us to truly see, feel and rediscover the world around us and most importantly, to connect with ourselves.