The Heart of Vision/Level Two

The Heart of Nalanda Miksang practice 

Pre-requisite:  Level One  - Looking and Seeing

The Heart of Vision or Level Two is the heart of Nalanda Miksang. It is our main exploration, where we do most of our practice, and where realization begins to fruit. In Level Two, we engage the visual world in an intimate and personal way, through the play of sense and sensibility, based on Chögyam Trunpga’s second level of perception.

This program explores many fields of perception, including (but not limited to) Ordinary/Personal World, Flowers and Weeds, Impressionism, People and Other Sentient Beings, Visual Haiku, Zen Aesthetics, and Metropolitan Beauty.

This program draws on the teachings in the book Heart of Photography.

“Entering the heart of perception, we begin to see that perception is more than simply registering the phenomenal world: seeing red as red. That is a basic and fundamental Level One connection. But red expresses itself many ways: blood red, sunset red, the red maple leaf of the Canadian flag, red rage, red roses, ketchup red, revolution red, valentine red . . . endless reds. We can also begin to understand that eye-to-eye communication of such simple but rich color is also heart-to-heart connection. This is more where we are entering into the heart of perception, or Level Two.

Being alive is more than colors as forms, and more like color as experience. Being alive is being connected with the phenomenal world. Being connected is just that: being in touch and being touched. It means something, and that it is meaningful. We are all alive, but we often don’t have the sense of being alive. This is what Nalanda Miksang offers—direct sensory contact with being alive, first at a basic eye level, and now at the heart level.” – from Heart of Photography