Peace , Pain and Bliss.....

What a powerful piece of sculpture. The serenity of the expression is an incredible artistic achievement rendered in stone.

I was watching a documentary about the life of Buddha the other night. I have been preoccupied with transience, endings and letting go throughout much of my life. I have been saying "in this very moment, right now " several times on my posts on Facebook.

So, it came as some surprise to me that Buddha was preoccupied with life's pain, change and ultimately death. Nirvana lies in this very fleeting moment, " in this very moment, right now",  not in anything permanent. It is in the acceptance of that, that ones mind is free. We are constantly changing never quite the same from one moment to the next. The 'self' comes and goes. It is not fixed. We are joy, sadness, hope, despair, hate and love, life and ultimately death. We are all these things. Compassion is derived from understanding transience, flow, as everything flows together and is therefore connected. 

Since all human life, all of life in fact, experiences pain that is where we connect as one. In that connection resides our bliss too. Yet, culturally we avoid pain and do not embrace it. We are all one in that paradigm. If our bliss is in the transitory then we cannot embrace bliss because we run from the transitory. We avoid and fear change, it is painful. But, all life is connected to it. Therefore, we are closed to life's bliss. It is not about Disney's idea of bliss or Hollywood's which is a 'utopia' where no one ages.

We are like water Buddha said.Water in a glass, a river, a lake, the sea , in mist, in the clouds as rain, in a river, in a glass. Constantly transforming, but always the same. Perhaps, that is why I love the sea. It is a portrait of us.

If Nirvana is in the quality of this moment then pay attention to this moment is the advise.What is in it ?.What do you truthfully think or feel?. Can you speak it no matter what people think?. It is your truth after all not mine. So why hide?. Fear?.Of what?.


I was drawn to these themes at eighteen years old, not by Buddhism, but by the German novelist  Herman Hesse who explored these ideas particularly in his novel 'Narcissus and Goldmund'. He writes:
 " ..whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potential; there is no perfection for us, no complete being. But, wherever we go, from potential in deed, from possibility to realization we participate in true being, become by a degree more similar to the perfect Divine".  


"Be your own light", people say that often, but what exactly does it mean?. I think you have to be true to your self to do that and not worry about fitting in to some group identity. That might help.


If death and life are inseparable, that our life is fragile and subject to change then , according to Buddha, we need to smile at the uncertain in life and come to terms with this reality, or we are in trouble. 


I think I left England  in search of answers to these questions Herman Hesse's novel posed. I did not really know it would be a spiritual journey until the recent news from home regarding the health of my father. This news brought me full circle to the idea of life's transcience, death and its beauty. 

Buddhism I discovered is not about being fabulous it is about being ordinary. It reminds me to be humble. It reminds me not to want to be anything but my ordinary self . To do that without the props of material wealth to bolster some sense of an egoic self. This stuff does not matter and I have always walked away from it. But, I accept that is how many perceive others value to them and of  themselves.


I write about change on this blog in many of it's guises. I guess this quiet weekend, being alone, has really been a spiritual retreat. What took me by surprise, while watching the documentary, was that Buddha's preoccupation has in fact always been mine. Change is painful, we age,we die . We fear it, but that makes life painful. So, let go, love change and endings instead. Perhaps, am steering a new course toward Buddhism without knowing it?. Am open, life is about change and letting go after all.


Peace....and that might change too..:)




Painting by Gerhard Richter- German Artist

A Very Pragmatic Emperor of Fashion....

"If things used to be better you might as well give up", Karl Lagerfeld said. It is perhaps a very Germanic way of putting it, and that amuses me. I love his matter of fact delivery. I also agree with  that statement.

I have an enormous respect for his prodigious talent. He is creative director of Chanel, Fendi, and Lagerfeld. He is an artist. He photographs all the campaigns for Fendi and Chanel. He designs all the runway shows, and or inspires the theme. He reads copiously, and is very cultured on many topics beyond the world of fashion. His look is now iconic, and that is good for the business of branding and establishing a place in history. The white hair in a pony tail, the dark glasses and the ubiquitous fan.

I was showing my students a documentary about him and what he said I found amusing and yet true. Fashion is many things to many people. It appears at times to be very superficial. It is by its nature transient. It is not art. But, how he defines it is also a philosophy of life. One which I understand because life itself is reflected in what we create.

This is not meant to be a critique of his work. I was wondering what to write about him. Fashion is about change. To be successful in it you must let go and move on, as he says. And, that job requirement merges with life. So, I decided to quote him below and let him speak for himself.

" Fashion is ephemeral, dangerous and unfair."

" I love change, am attached to nothing."

" I like today and perhaps a little future, the past is really something I'm not interested in. So, as far as I'm concerned, I like only the past of things and people I don't know. When I know, I don't care because I know how it was."

"Beauty is also submitted to the taste of time, so a beautiful woman from the Belle Epoch is not exactly the perfect beauty of today, so beauty is something that changes in time."

" What I hate most in life are people who are not really the peach of the day, but who want to be young and sexy. You can fool nobody. There is a moment when you have to accept that something else is young and fresher and hotter. Life is not a beauty contest."

On disrespecting Chanel? Karl said to my amusement," Respect is not creative... Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore... and then you get something out of her."

On Homosexuality?, " When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said ..and this is a hundred years ago in Germany and she was very open minded. " It's like hair color .It's nothing. Some people like blond and some have dark hair.It's not a subject". This was a very healthy attitude."

Karl Lagerfeld is an Emperor of an elite, status orientated world and having mastered it, this is what he said of it, " You are admired by people, then they forget you".

And for one surrounded by adoring fans he said, "Solitude is a victory."

His words struck me as true. Life is about change and letting go. This man has been given much that in our culture we admire. But, I love the frank honesty and the very down to earth way with which he speaks certain truths that we often disguise, because we cannot face them.

I have written much about change in other blogs. Fashion demands an acceptance of it, that is the nature of that beast. That is not superficial, since most people cannot let go, fear change and delude themselves that something is good, when it is dead. It sounds harsh to say, but life, like fashion, is not always fair. I also love his statement that people will forget you.We do so much to be accepted and often compromise who we really are in its pursuit. If after all the fame and glory this man has received he can see how hollow that pursuit is then there is an opportunity not to chase false Gods. Think about wearing labels, What do the say about us ?. What does it say about you?. Does it matter?. Do you like someone more because they can afford them?.

I admired him because he is the Emperor of labels, of creating status and in the middle of all the fame he seems to know this truth. It is nothing and it is obsolete. Hence, his victory is solitude. He embraces that he will be forgotten and that to me is real. A very stylish man.

Peace.