Author: katzlator

My writing, photography, consulting and workshops aim to inspire engagement with resources for wellbeing.

Creative Tea and Dialogue with Art, Music, and Spoken Reactions

Creative T&D
Creative dialogue during tea and dialogue (photo by Jeff Klein)

Lidia Kenig-Scher painted while Jim Flavin played various instruments. Here, Jim improvises on the didgeridoo while singing bowls respond sympathetically.

In April and May of 2019, four of us worked on a project to capture footage of a creative variation of tea and dialogue while a painting emerged in response to our topic, “the unending sea of blessings” (a Japanese scroll saying). Besides contemplation of this topic, we were supported by Gregory Kramer’s Insight Dialogue guidelines – Pause, Relax, Open, Attune to Emergence (previously Trust Emergence), Listen Deeply and Speak the Truth. The video at the link below provides an idea of what occurred over three sessions that included spoken reactions and discussion:

Creative tea and dialogue video

After we shared tea in her living room, Lidia Kenig-Scher worked on the painting in her studio as Jim Flavin played a variety of instruments in the next room and videographer, Jeff Klein, captured the action. The materials, tools, and physical effort gave a grounded, down to earth quality to this multimedia dialogue. The video shows how the rhythms and the feeling of the music influenced Lidia’s brush strokes. Jim mentioned feeling connected to the painting process even though he could not see the painting as it evolved.

The tea we drank at the start of the second session had four ingredients. Since there were also four of us, that seemed a great metaphor for our communal awareness that retained what we each contributed to the blend.

We experienced a particularly vivid example of the stages described by Mitchell Kossak in Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy: Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy where periods of seeking safety and risk taking ultimately result in an experience of the universal. Some time ago, Lidia had put up a quote about the wisdom of trusting emergence rather than forcing things on her studio wall. Jeff trained his camera on that quote and his comment about how well that quote expressed what happened the previous day is included in the video soundtrack.

After the doubt and empathic support, followed by effortless expansive flow, the completion of the painting recognized by a hug, felt particularly powerful. That hug also perfectly symbolizes the closeness the practice supports. I could not help but be grateful that we had captured all of it on video.

The plan was to display the painting in my tea hut (see below) for a later tea and spoken dialogue session.

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I am glad we discussed our common belief that creativity is not just for professional artists. Nor is it just for the young. Contrary to what younger people might believe, older adults can actually experience reduced anxiety and increased life satisfaction; they may no longer care as much about what others think about them, bringing a new and most welcome sense of freedom that supports creativity. In fact older adults bring a number of gifts to tea and dialogue practice. Creative tea and dialogue is certainly not just for professionals as is clear from this joyous example of collaborative storytelling with musical emphasis.

I am most grateful for the generosity of these talented artists:

Jim Flavin is a musician and certified practitioner and teacher of Jikiden Reiki. He collects percussion instruments from all over the world and shares them with others in the drum circles he leads. His work as a contractor provides many opportunities for the practical application of mindfulness. He believes in spreading unconditional love through expressing respect, kindness and honesty in all relationships.

Lidia Kenig-Scher is an award-winning mixed media artist and transformational catalyst. Her intuitively conceived works are installed in the interiors of successful homeowners and entrepreneurs, many of whom claim that the art emits a vibration capable of positively affecting their lives and the spaces where the art is installed. This highly decorated interior designer and Feng Shui master also teaches people to “paint from the heart,” a meditation-based technique grounded in more than 40 years of Buddhist practices and intense spiritual work. Lidia notes that her artworks invite personal growth because she too starts by opening her heart and trusting her brush to paint the truth.

Jeffrey Klein is a bilingual videographer with a 25-year career in multi-media production in Japan and the United States including podcasts and videos intended for retail, business, entertainment and educational contexts. Samples of his work are available at his website.

What it Means to Have Faith in The Unending Sea of Blessings

A video of how this painting on the theme of  “The Unending Sea of Blessings,” by Lidia Kenig-Scher* was created is available here.

The Sea of Unending Blessings SMALLPhoto of Lidia’s painting by Jean Abate, Framing & Fine Art Reproduction Specialist, Northeast Digital Imaging, Salem, NH

According to William Scott Wilson in The One Taste of Truth: Zen and the Art of Drinking Tea, page 135:

“The Unending Sea of Blessings

This phrase from the Kannon-kyo is the summation of the life, free of obstructions, that we can have if we put faith in the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.

If, in a lawsuit, you stand before a magistrate,
Or are in dread and fear on the battlefield,
Think upon the power of Avalokitesvara,
And all the myriads of enemies and their hostilities will retreat and disperse.
The wonderful sound, the Perceiver of the World’s Sounds,
Brahma’s sound, the sound of the tidal sea
Surpasses the sounds of the world
And for this reason, should be constantly kept in mind,
Thought by thought, never giving rise to doubts.
Perceiver of the World’s Sounds, pure wisdom:
When in pain, suffering, or close to death,
He is able to provide a foothold and support,
Provided with all merit and virtue;
His compassionate eyes never leave sentient beings:
An unending sea of blessings.
For this reason, you should bow with deepest respect.

It is also a recognition that despite all our grousing and discontent, we are already fully blessed. To truly understand this, however, we must get past our egocentric selves. Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, enjoins us to act not in response to our own pain and suffering, but to that of all other sentient beings. This Bodhisattva is often depicted with a thousand eyes with which to see suffering the world over, and a thousand arms with which to act for its cessation.

In some understandings of Buddhism, all Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and attendant gods are reflections of our own potentialities. In this way, Avalokitesvara is the Unending Sea of Blessings, and we ourselves are Avalokitesvara, and are ourselves the source of unending blessings.”

*Lidia Kenig-Scher is an award-winning mixed media artist and transformational catalyst. Her intuitively conceived works are installed in the interiors of successful homeowners and entrepreneurs, many of whom claim that the art emits a vibration capable of positively affecting their lives and the spaces where the art is installed. This highly decorated interior designer and Feng Shui master also teaches people to “paint from the heart,” a meditation-based technique grounded in more than 40 years of Buddhist practices and intense spiritual work. Lidia notes that her artworks invite personal growth because she too starts by opening her heart and trusting her brush to paint the truth.

Hidden Gifts of Aging

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Buddhist teachings tell a story that the Buddha encountered “divine messengers” that changed his destiny. At 29, he left protected life in the palace and encountered old age, illness and death for the first time. Like young Prince Siddhartha, we may be out of touch with these realities, preferring to imagine we will live forever. But these messengers can shock us into seeing a path beyond the superficial and beyond our heedless reactivity to the 10,000 sorrows and 10,000 joys of life.

We face many of the same challenges that humans have always faced although history and culture have shaped how we think about aging in modern times.

In these times of existential threats, we can define anyone different from us as dangerous. Those who remind us of our own death can certainly pose a threat. For that reason, older adults may define themselves as “not old,” and take extreme measures to act and appear young. And many of them complain of feeling invisible – not seeing older adults is another way to deny old age, illness and death.

I recently heard a moving story about a dying woman who said that she gets to choose love over fear in every moment. That statement resounds with importance. We are all aging, if not actively dying, and if this dying woman found she had a choice, perhaps we can too.

I invite you to consider that there are hidden gifts that can come with aging. Although elders have reason to anticipate more limitations and suffering, and see their older friends and family suffering, in wealthier countries they tend to report experiencing greater happiness than when they were younger. What is going on here?

I began to sense that aging can bring real gifts during six-week tea and dialogue workshops I offered older adults during my internship in Lesley University’s Mindfulness Studies program. These elders were so open and direct, so supportive, so eager to really listen, and quite creative. They were also so appreciative of each other and what they had to offer each other that it turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Farmer and Farmer note that conversational skills may actually improve with age – older adults tell narratives that others judge to be more interesting than those told by younger people. Pipher found that older adults tend to value honesty. In his TED talk on “The Neuroscience of Social Intelligence” Bill von Hippel mentions that older adults may not censor themselves about what might be considered socially inappropriate topics. While this might be considered a liability in some situations, speaking the vulnerable truth provides access to our fundamental interconnection. According to the Committee on Future Directions for Cognitive Research on Aging, elders appear to be particularly sensitive to emotional aspects of situations, including interpersonal ramifications of problems (Stern & Cartensen, 2000, p. 31).

In Older and Wiser: Classical Buddhist Teachings on Aging, Sickness and Death, Soeng, Ambrosia, & Olendzki provide commentary on several Buddhist teachings related to equanimity noting that older adults may live more in the moment and may have learned the futility of wasting time and energy in overreacting. Aronson cites evidence that contrary to what younger adults might believe and fear, elders can actually experience reduced anxiety and increased life satisfaction. She notes older adults may no longer care what others think about them, bringing a new and most welcome sense of freedom.

With age can come enhanced wisdom and compassion – less judgment, less denial of reality, more appreciation for every precious moment and more choosing love over fear. Sharing tea with a sensitive, caring and wise elder (who may very well be an excellent story teller) even online  seems like a very good idea in these challenging times.

Gathering for Tea

Tea plant

The Camellia sinensis plant is used to make tea all around the world. Perhaps that is not surprising given tea’s many significant health benefits. Research has also found that drinking tea can elevate mood, support focus.

We do not simply drink tea, we create art and rituals around it. And they can be quite stunning. Watch this short slow motion video of portions of a Japanese tea ceremony by videographer Jeffrey Klein.

An elevated mood and greater ability to sustain focus would likely amplify the benefits that connecting provides for our social species. With both tea and social connection supporting wellbeing along with the enhanced creativity that tea makes possible, it is no wonder that sharing tea became a focus for special equipment and gatherings all around the world…

United Kingdom,
Japan,
China,
Taiwan,
Korea,
Senegal,
Vietnam,
Colonial America

And drinking tea quite informally is always an option. But while some of tea’s benefits can be had by drinking it alone at your computer, why not enhance those benefits even further by offering to get tea for others or by inviting others to take a break to share tea with you? It is always tea time somewhere.

Beware False Refuges

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While we can find and create true refuges for ourselves, we need to be very careful about clinging to what is NOT ACTUALLY TRUE. Our minds not only are subject to negativity bias that has us paying attention to what stands out as potentially threatening (whether it is or not), but we also seek out those who confirm our biases, in a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. When times are difficult, the desire for the truth to be other than it is can have us preferring our wishful thinking and finding in it a false refuge.

This can have us out of touch with reality in distorting cubes that reflect back our false assumptions. These may feel like refuges. But being in such a false refuge is dangerous as reality has a way of finding us anyway, and we may spread false assumptions causing further harm. Not only that, but clinging to false refuges can keep us from true refuges that can provide badly needed support. Compassion requires we be careful for the sake of others’ wellbeing as well as our own.

Mindful bloggers can speak up for the truth and work at questioning and checking out what they think is true. Curiosity matters. Testing assumptions matters. Science matters. We need to keep questioning whether what we are being fed is the truth. The worst case is no longer caring and that way lies manipulation by evil doers and chaos. Mindfulness matters. Even if we can never know the absolute truth, we can take steps to avoid getting lost and trapped in fantasy that is actually a form of hopelessness.

This radio episode, talks about how mindless bloggers can contribute to a very dangerous trend to spread misinformation:

“The misinformation virus

Discovery
In this online age, the internet is a global megaphone, billions of messages amplified and shared, even when they’re false. Fake science spreads faster than the truth ever could, unhindered by national boundaries. Mainstream scientists are struggling to respond. The science journalist and writer, Angela Saini, is fascinated by how bad ideas spread and in this programme she investigates the very real impact of online scientific misinformation. From the dangerous anti-vaccination campaigns to those who deny the reality of climate change, she assesses the scale and extent of the threat we face. And she discovers the sinister world of deliberate disinformation where an army of bots and trolls work to sow dissent and confusion in the online space.
Producer: Fiona Hill”

Just off the Road

Unlike many waterfalls, this place of water flowing over granite ledges is visible from the road with convenient parking spaces just off New Hampshire Route 16B. The dramatic tumbled ledges of Jackson Falls have been sculpted in places. It is worth following how the water flows over them, or just sitting and taking it all in. After many visits, I realized there is an entrance to a trail lower down that provides a different view of the falls as seen in the photos below.

That the United States still has many such places of wild beauty seems particularly poignant to me. Those who find this stream do not seem out of place enjoying nature rather than our unfortunately common practice of destroying natural beauty in the process of shaping it to our will.

Jackson Falls

Painters at Jackson Falls

Jackson Falls - org & grn

Couple at Jackson Falls

Beauty & Imperfection

With its seeming love for the one-of-a-kind and constant change, the natural world can be quite worthy of our detailed inspection. Even an oddly unique, or broken and incomplete natural object can be so beautiful it can take our breath away. So can an ordinary vista or an object that has been eroded by time. There is a story about Sen no Rikyu, a famous Japanese tea ceremony master – he approved the shaking of a few leaves onto the moss after a tea garden was cleaned a bit too perfectly. Leaving a few fallen leaves on the moss points to the wonder and mystery of reality as it really is.

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We care about others’ approval because we need others in order to survive, and that can have us wanting to be perfect. But perfection in the abstract is a rather odd concept when you think about it. Toward what end? According to what standards does it operate, anyway? What matters to one person may not matter at all to another and different cultures value different things.

I have found that people actually love it when we can accept ourselves, imperfections and all, and when we are open about feeling vulnerable at times. Those who can accept their own imperfections tend to have an easier time accepting them in others which can be a great relief given how much we tend to fear being negatively judged.

Japanese tea ceremony teaches many lessons through the actions involved in sharing tea while engaging with various objects. Take, for example, the beautiful tactile tea bowl below that was made by my Japanese tea ceremony teacher, Giselle Maya.  While it is misshapen and has imperfections in its glaze that resulted from a collaboration with the kiln fire, irregularities and burnishing from age add depth to its beauty, something that we can learn to appreciate in each other as well as in tea bowls, even mended ones.

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The subtle and hard to define Japanese concept of “wabi sabi” embraces imperfection. It recognizes that since everything is constantly changing, perfection is impossible, except, perhaps, in perfect moments as Beth Kempton notes along with examples in her Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life.

I find that looking for a beauty that embraces imperfection can provide great solace. At times we can even catch others and ourselves in the act of being beautiful. And seeing the light shining through that deeper beauty can connect us to all that is.

Below are examples of what might be considered imperfect beauty that called out to me. I recommend the wonderful adventure of finding your own examples.

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Suggesting Water

The first photo shows an arrangement in my garden designed to evoke a falling down structure I encountered as a child camping in New Hampshire. This “well” was originally constructed in the White Mountains by pioneer Dolly Copp to capture stream water which was piped downhill to her home.

When I returned to the site in New Hampshire in 2012, it was still a place where fireflies gathered in the evening, but all indication of a manmade structure was gone (second photo below).

Rock Arngmt - Version 2

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I noticed right away that there was what looked like a dry stream running along the back of my yard:

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During a trip to Japan, I noticed this superb dry stream where Somehow the flat plate-like rocks in the stream bed suggest rushing splashing rapids and more. The way the rocks are set feels inevitable, yet not immune to the forces of time. This gift by a true master reminds us that we have access to where transience meets eternity, even as we ourselves change.

Superb Dry River copy

Just for fun, here is an actual stream in a place that should by rights be dry:

Dale Rd stream - 2016-05-31 at 06-40-20

Viewing Stones

Many viewing stones are completely natural. Some are cut to have a flat base that fits into a carved wooden stand. Viewing stones may suggest a mountain rising above the clouds, a waterfall, or even human figures and animals. Stones with interesting surface patterns are also collected. All are valued for their ability to evoke a response in the viewer, rather than for being literally like what they may resemble.

A tiny metal animal or human figure is sometimes added to bring out the mood of a particular stone. Larger viewing stones are sometimes displayed outside in gardens. A number displayed together on a stand can make for a most interesting “conversation” among the varied shapes, colors, and textures.

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Insight Dialogue

09 Sept ME

Most of us have experienced relaxed conversations that just seem to flow, perhaps in a setting where nature is on view like the one in the photo or around the kitchen table. Peace descends and we feel whole and seen.

Often, we are distracted or caught up in immediate concerns.  We lose track of that potential to warmly connect and relate. Avoiding cycling on issues that concern us can be difficult enough when we are on our own. Maintaining calm awareness while interacting with others can be particularly challenging.

Insight Dialogue practice provides support to bring tranquil awareness to the interpersonal domain. First one person speaks what is arising in the moment on a designated topic while the other listens silently without commenting and then the roles are reversed. There may be an additional timed period with no separate speaker and no separate listener. Pausing allows time to discern what would be beneficial to say as well as time to deeply take that in and gain new understanding from what is shared.

Insight Dialogue’s guidelines create the safety needed for evolving trust and authentic sharing from the heart: Pause, Relax, Open, Attune to Emergence, Listen Deeply and Speak the Truth. It becomes clear we are all vulnerable and that we also have great power to support each other just by how we listen.

This video of Phyllis Hicks facilitating an Insight Dialogue practice shows this supportive energy. You can see the openness, authenticity and caring connection in the responsive body language of the participants. More of Jeff Klein’s sensitive videography can be seen at his website.

Gregory Kramer developed Insight Dialogue. His website, InsightDialogue.org, includes information on each of the Insight Dialogue guidelines as well as opportunities to experience it for yourself.

The Insight Dialogue guidelines honor dignity; attentive listening meets disclosure for all participants. That makes it easier to truly show up and pay attention to what is said including by oneself. Participants are better able to perceive the preciousness of our sensitivity to each other and learn how to bring greater compassion and creativity to all interaction.

Because of the vulnerable investigation of experience, difficult emotions may arise at times. David Treleaven provides guidance for recognizing and addressing adverse reactions that can arise with any form of mindfulness practice.

In my experience, most of those who try Insight Dialogue appreciate the careful attending that goes well beyond the rushed and distracted quality of much everyday interaction. With practice, I found I could bring that same supportive energy to any conversation, and that brought a whole new ease and joy to my life.