Suñña @ BRAG - 2020

Through practicing, teaching, and communicating mindfulness, my understanding of the Pali word Suñña continues to deepen. It is often translated to mean ‘nothingness’ or ‘emptiness’, however, Suñña means the potential of all things; that all things are ever-changing and ever-unfolding. In the practice of mindfulness we don’t attempt to negate consciousness. Rather, we are attempting to bring about a state of full awareness of one’s own mind, body, and environment: to remember Suñña. Through this understanding we move towards calm, peaceful, and responsive action.

 From ash comes soil; from soil comes a tree; from a tree comes a book; from a book comes an idea; from an idea comes an action; from an action comes peace… Or more ash.

In art we are the creators of worlds. When I look through the camera lens I reach into a universe of potential meanings, and name the beings and feelings that announce themselves there. However, Suñña reveals that the fruits of these worlds are transient, without any being or meaning in themselves. There is a conflict, a resistance involved between the personal labour of my art practice and the embodied practice of mindfulness: my attachment to these artworks and the world in which they are produced precludes their remaining nameless.

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