Painting and meditation.

Portugal The Montado painting Cork Oak trees meditation
watercolour on paper

This is one of my favourite great compassion mantras. I hum it to calm the chattering of my mind before I start work on a painting. The painting above Ani Choyangs you tube video was painted outdoors in a grove of cork oaks. I made the work a couple of years ago sat  in the heat and dust of central Portugal near Montimor O Novo...painting here in the Montado of  Portugal always brought to my mind a picture of a meditating Shakyamuni sheltering beneath a tree. The arrangement of man and nature co existence and important.

Its more difficult to get to the same meditative equipoise and understanding when the ice droplets of sleet  blown up fom the Irish Sea scratch across my face. None the less its well worth the attempt  at a breathing excersise done successfully it can warm the body and quieten the mind