Practice sheet

Miksang, camera in hand

Take this with you. Read it once before you go out, then put it in your pocket.

Before you start

1. 1
   Make a container. Be available in it.Pick the edges: this field, this hour, this stretch of fence. Inside them, be as available as you can today.
2. 2
   Align yourself.Shen up to heaven, jing down to earth. Let water bring flow. Let fire bring clarity. Drop the chatter and let the mind settle.
3. 3
   Set your intention.Know exactly what it is. When you catch yourself drifting, see it and come back. Drifting isn't the failure. Not noticing is.

Up to here, you choose. From here on, it arrives or it doesn't. Stop interfering.

When it happens

1. 4
   Notice that you've stopped.You've already been stopped. Don't wait for it. Don't go looking. Sharp, vivid, then gladness. No sharpness and no gladness: it was a thought. Walk on.
2. 5
   Stabilise it.Don't name it. Steady the feeling until clarity settles on what you saw. Let the feeling open out.
3. 6
   Find where it starts and where it stops.Look in every direction. Let the frame show itself. Don't decide it.

Making it

1. 7
   Make the equivalent.Take what you saw, with hard edges. Don't wander off to make it nicer. Nicer is photography.
2. 8
   Present it.Look at it again. Does it still hold what stopped you? If yes, that's it. If not, discard it.