5 Ways Meditation is Like a Monet Painting

When I meditate, I have a lot of profound thoughts. I ponder deep questions like, “Do I follow too many people on Twitter?”

One time, as I sat watching my breath, I thought, “meditation kind of reminds me of Monet’s paintings of the cathedral in Rouen.” {I know I’m not the ONLY one who’s had that thought while meditating… right?}

I have stood in front of those Monet paintings at the Orsay Museum many times. On this occasion, as my mind settled into silence, it wandered back to Paris and something clicked: I had a new way to explain how meditation transforms how we view our selves and our world.

1. Impressionable Moments in Time

Today we love the Impressionists — Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas. It’s hard to find an office building, dentist’s waiting area, or suburban living room that doesn’t have a soothing image of water lilies or irises or ballerinas to calm its occupants.

But in the late nineteenth century, the Impressionists were rebels. Their first exhibition in Paris in the 1870s was held in the “Salon of the Rejects” because they refused to conform to the standard subjects and techniques of the French Academy. They painted with bright colors! They didn’t mix their paint! They painted landscapes, for crying out loud!

In fact, the label “Impressionism” was coined as a derogatory term, because these paintings, in the words of one critic, had no meaning: they were “just a bunch of impressions.”

But that was exactly the point! An impressionist painting captures a momentary, transient now on the canvas — the shadows, the light, the wind, the leaves. A moment later, everything will look different. But this is what it looks like NOW.

And at its most simple, meditation is our awareness of now.  The next moment will be different. What fleeting impressions — feelings, sensations, thoughts — are here right NOW?

2. The Nature of Impermanence

As we ponder the NOW, we come face to face with impermanence. In twenty (or even five!) minutes of meditation, we may experience calm, boredom, elation, irritation, sleepiness, alertness, happiness, and sadness. Nothing lasts. Everything is always shifting.

Monet was fascinated by change. One of his most famous series of paintings, and the one that inspired my epiphany, is a series of over 30 depictions of the cathedral in Rouen. These paintings illustrate how a seemingly permanent and stable object — the cathedral — appears completely different, depending on the lighting, atmospheric conditions, and time of day.

In this series, the subject of the painting really isn’t the cathedral — it is light itself. The building is simply there for the light to momentarily rest on. The cathedral is the anchor.

Same cathedral, different time, different lighting, different weather.

Same you*, different time, different emotions, different weather. In meditation, you let your body, or breath, be the anchor for everything to momentarily rest on. You watch the various moods, sensations, and thoughts pass through. You witness impermanence.

{* See #4…}

3. From Sensation to Perception (and back!)

Though artists since the Renaissance attempted to faithfully reproduce reality, it’s often said that they painted not only what the eye saw, but what the mind knew to be there as well.

The Impressionists abandoned that approach. Monet said, “Impressionism is only direct sensation.” The artist should simply paint what he sees. Art historian Wendy Beckett {a.k.a. Sister Wendy} states that Monet “really saw,” portraying things we often miss, like “the color of snow, the color of shadows, the color of water.”

We look at the sky and we perceive it as blue, because we “know” skies are blue. But this perception happens in the mind. Sensation — in this case, seeing — happens with the eyes. If we really saw the sky, we’d notice a lot more than “blue.”

Truly seeing means taking in the sensory information before the brain has a chance to process it and create an interpretation, which may or may not correspond with reality.

In meditation, we come to realize the ways in which our minds do this ALL THE TIME. We take in a limited amount of outside stimuli and, because we like narrative and coherence and explanation, our monkey mind takes over and tells a story about what’s happening.

These stories can cause a lot of unnecessary suffering, because they’re usually wrong, or at least incomplete.

For example, the first time my principal observed me during my first year of teaching, he scribbled furiously for an hour with {what I assumed to be} a perpetual scowl on his face. “He hates this lesson,” I told myself. “This lesson sucks. It’s terrible. I suck. I’m a horrible teacher and I am going to lose my job.” Not surprisingly, the rest of my day did not go very well as I continued to tell myself this story.

When I met with my principal a few days later, I received a glowing evaluation. Sure, there were some things to work on, but he had lots of positive feedback. Turns out, he just takes lots of detailed notes during observations. He concentrates on what’s happening {which on his face looks like a frown.}

How much happier would we be if we observed the world as Monet did, taking time to linger in sensation rather than getting lost in perceptions and stories? 

4. I Think, Therefore, I Am… Not?

The Impressionists used small strokes of unmixed paint to create vibrant colors and a sense of movement in their works. From far away, a Monet landscape looks like what we might see in reality — shimmering leaves, blurred outlines of shadows or clouds — but when we get close it indeed looks like “a big old mess.”

The Buddha taught much the same thing about the self. From far away, before we’ve examined it, it looks like a coherent, solid, permanent entity. But once we look carefully, we see that the being we take to be “self” is simply a collection of elements — body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness (knowing). All of which are, of course, constantly changing and shifting.

This non-self doctrine of Buddhism sometimes freaks people out {right now you might be yelling in Cartesian rage, I THINK, THEREFORE, I AM!!!}

Don’t freak out. Obviously you have a body and you act and you think and you exist. This is simply about not attaching and clinging to the “you.” It’s about dropping the identification with the “I” in “I think, I’m sad, I suck….”

Buddhist practitioner and teacher Joseph Goldstein writes, “One of the most freeing insights of meditation practice is realizing that the only power thoughts have is the power we give them.” We don’t have to identify with our thoughts or emotions or pain and think they are “us.” They’re just there, and pretty soon, they won’t be.

Remember that scene in the museum from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when Cameron stares and stares at the painting until it dissolves? {Yes, I know the painting is a Seurat, and he was a post-Impressionist, not an Impressionist, but the analogy still works.}

Cameron has a moment of insight while looking at the image. Maybe this is what allowed him to eventually separate himself from his anxiety — it wasn’t him. It dissolved. Just watch…

5. Appreciation Takes Time

A contemporary news story reported that the first Impressionist exhibit in 1874 so upset and disturbed one attendee that he ran from the building and tried to eat his arm. Critics said the works could hardly be termed “art.” And then about 130 years later, a Monet water lilies painting sold for over $80 million.

It takes time to accept new ideas and practices. If you’re just beginning your meditation practice, give yourself time. Many readers have told me that they gave up meditation because “nothing happened.” Or they thought they were “doing it wrong.” Meditation can bring us profound insights, but it can take time and persistence.

That’s why we call it a practice. In fact, we could even call it an art.

At least, that’s the impression that I get.

*****

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Sarah Rudell Beach

Executive Director at Brilliant Mindfulness

Sarah is a writer, teacher, and mother. At Left Brain Buddha, she writes about her journey to live and parent mindfully, joyfully, and thought-fully in her left-brain analytical life. When not working, she enjoys dancing, reading, and hanging out with her little Buddhas.

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