“Art as Meditation – The Stillpoint”
John Diamond, M.D.
Extract from the book
Stillpoints: An Introductory Guide to Haiku Painting
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The stillpoint is the moment when you sit perfectly quietly having completed the drawing, the haiku drawing—at peace, in harmony, your life in perfect resolution. You are totally in the moment with no past, not even the immediate past of when you made the drawing, of when it was made through you. And with no future. You, the drawing and the world, are Now. You know the Perfection in your creation, in yourself, in everyone.
It is not you, you realize, who created the drawing, your haiku, but the Muse, the Perfection inside you—the Creativity that you allowed to well up and to spring forth onto the page. All you did was to aspire, surrendering your old self to allow your new Higher Self to come through onto the page.
You know now the beauty, the Godliness, that is within you, that is within everyone. You now see the perfection that is all—everyone, everything. And you know now how to invoke It.
You feel the Love in you; you feel loved by your Muse. This is Belovedness, and you feel this and give it to the world: life as a song of love for the Love. You are loved; you are Beloved, through this invocation of the Buddha-nature within. You have entered the land of Belovedness.
All this you now realize, you now Know in your heart in this moment of Being, in this stillpoint. You can create as many of these as you choose and learn to see them everywhere around you. This is the Numinous—the vision of Perfection, of Godliness. This is your being filled with the sense of a supernatural presence, your being spiritually elevated and sublime.
The Numinous is everywhere, and you can learn to see It everywhere—a life of infinite stillpoints. You gaze at what you have enabled your Muse to manifest before you on the page, and Her creation is epiphanic—a manifestation of the Divine, of the Divinity that is within you, that is you.
