The Practice of Contemplative Photography

We may express Tao in many ways. The book, The Practice of Contemplative Photography opens with a quote from Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing: "The inexpressible is the only thing that is worthwhile expressing."

Michael Wood

Andy Karr and Michael Wood are photographers, Buddhists and authors of this new book on how to see the world. They offer some ideas about the difference between perception and conception--two ways of interacting with the world that may have some relevance for practitioners of Tai Chi and students of the Tao.

BuddhistGeeks.com offers an audio interview with Karr and a full transcript. Here's a sample that explains perception and conception.

"One very simple metaphor for these two different modes is the relationship of a map to a landscape. A map is a like a concept of that landscape. It simplifies and abstract qualities of that landscape.
So if you want to know how to get from one town to another, where to turn left, where to turn right, a map will be really useful. At the same time, the map doesn’t show you the actual quality of what that journey is going to be like. It will not give you any of the color or texture of actually making that journey. So our thoughts about things are abstractions and they map certain qualities of the world but they don’t capture those qualities. They don’t convey those qualities in a way that perception does.
So we certainly need both. We need to be able to navigate our world but we also need to be able to experience it fully, so that’s really where that distinction comes in. The biggest challenge for us is not to give up thinking or give up conceiving of things because often we blend the two together and think I’m seeing someone who is this kind of person or that kind of person. And we think that we can see that but of course you can only see visual things. You can’t see psychological things.
So, we mixed the two together and then we’re really confused about how to relate to that person because we think that our thoughts about them are the actual person."

Here is a gallery of Andy Karr's work.