This last lesson is kind of a relief for me because I have not been 100% engrossed in the class for maybe multiple reasons, but I wanted to give it a chance and maybe it provided more than one thoughtful blog post! My notes for this will be the same as the others. But first, her leading quote, from Buddha of course . . .
Do not believe in something just because you have heard it.
Do not believe in something just because many people say it or it is rumored.
Do not believe in something just because it is written in your religious scriptures.
Do not believe in something simply because of the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions merely because they have been passed down through generations.
Instead, after observation and analysis, when you find something that agrees with
reason and leads to the good and benefit of one and all,
then accept it and live by it.
~Buddha
A 9 Minute Audio Recording Lecture on “YOUR MINDFUL PHOTOGRAPHY JOURNAL”
She briefly summarized the aspects of mindfulness discussed in this class and explained that there is no artist/photographer introduced in this last class because you the student are now the artist. Since we have supposedly been writing a journal of the class activities and ideas, she encouraged us to continue this journal as a companion to our mindful photography, recording something about each meaningful photo and what it meant to me personally.
Her last “homework” assignment other than continuing the journal is to pick our 5 favorite photos used for this class and add each to the journal again with a thoughtful title, explanation, meaningful quote, or short poem like a Haiku to describe the image.
My Responses to the Assignments:
- “My Journal” for nature photography is MY BLOG! I have always considered it “mindful” of both nature and the humans who read it, but will hopefully have a refreshed concept of mindfulness in my nature photography and what is presented in the blog, which is mostly daily, though no longer forced to be daily with occasional breaks in blogging which is simply needed sometime to maintain my mindfulness! 🙂
- My Five Photos with Meaningful Title, Quote or Poem is now my assignment for the coming two nights away at Xandari Nature Resort and I will probably incorporate them into my already planned magazine-styled report on my “XANDARI Aventura en la Naturaleza, Mayo 2026.” This unique place lends itself to this kind of mindful photography. And yes, I hope to do more of my books in Spanish now. 🙂
- My Earlier Nature Mindfulness Using HAIKU
- A photo book of Haiku Poems: Costa Rica Haiku, (linked) with a free preview online!
- A photo gallery of Haiku Poems: HAIKU Nature Poems (linked).
Recommended music: Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For?
-o-
What you heard today:
Giulio Tononi and the Integrated Information Theory
This neuroscientist argues that consciousness oscillates between doing and being. We live trapped in doing, and forget that stopping is also being alive.
Discover the Integrated Information Theory
Bashō, the Wandering Poet of the 17th Century
Master of haiku, Bashō captured the unrepeatable moment with simple words. His poems are pure contemplation:
Old pond…
A frog plunges in
Sound of water
A brief history of haiku and Bashō
Nagarjuna and the Four Immeasurables
Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity: four qualities that transform both mind and heart. Their practice, both in meditation and in daily life, cultivates deep well-being.
Introductory article on the Four Immeasurables
(In Spanish, you can translate it into your language using your browser settings)
That is why I must return
to so many places yet to come
to meet myself again
and examine myself without end,
with no witness but the moon
and then whistle with joy
stepping on stones and clods of earth,
with no other task but to exist,
with no other family but the road.
Pablo Neruda
Fin del mundo (El viento)
(End of the World.The Wind)
Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity. Joy is in the plenitude of reality.
The desire for light produces light, there is true desire when there is effort of attention.
It is really the light that is desired when any other mobile is absent.
Although the efforts of attention were for years apparently sterile,
one day, a light exactly proportional to those efforts will flood the soul.
Each effort adds a little more gold to a treasure that nothing in the world can subtract
Simone Weil
Leçons de philosophie
¡Pura Vida!
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