A few more thoughts on all this.Unaccustomed as I am to brevity, I will try to be brief...
The OP appears to be trying to find himself through photography. This is a noble goal, and I for one encourage him to do so by whatever means he wants to pursue. To me, however, New Age yap yap presented as Buddhist mindfulness is not my way - it may suit him, in which case well and good. But not for me Different strokes for different folks, as they say.
I have been a lifelong student of Buddhism, Confucianism, Tao and other Asian philosophical faiths. I have to say I found little that is new in this site - quoting Buddhist gurus and personages is far from living and applying the philosophy in one's own life.
The quest for self-realisation is, I believe, has to be lived on one's own, without the need for preaching, 21st century pop philosophies or seminars. A personal example here. This year I've returned to my extensive archive of film images, and scanning the best of my work from the 1960s to date. I work backwards and am now doing 2006, a year I took off from my architectural practice (at great financial cost, but the freedom was all-encompassing) to explore Southeast Asia with a backpack, a Contax G1 and three lenses. From my scans, I'm discovering so many interesting notions - how many faults there were in my image-making at the time (initially annoying, now no longer a concern to me); how much I tended to photograph the same things, a notion I've explored over the last almost 16 years and am only now, in my 70s, starting to work out what motivated me to seek out and record images of these things; and how much the passing of time has changed me and my thinking, as well as my life.
A poster mentioned 'Tao Of Photography', - the Tom Andg book?? I have it in my library and while I initially found it somewhat too gear-entered for my taste, I do reread it every now and then. It more so than almost every other book (excepting the writing of Henri Cartier-Bresson, which may be opening yet another can of worms so I will say no more) has influenced my way of looking at my life, my world and the world in general, by way of my photography.
As much as I would like to relive that long ago experience of being free and easy, wandering to and fro at will and doing what I now realise I enjoy best in life, just moseying around and photographing the things I see, I'm now 16 years older, and those days are well and truly past for me. This more so than anything else in that time, has registered with me. I am still learning much about myself. I hope to do so for a good long while yet...
Okay. As a celebrated cartoon rabbit said, that's all, folks. As for brevity, well, ha!!
One other thing...
Miksang is the trademarked name for an approach to photography based on Buddhist mindfulness technique. ... there are a number of Miksang photography books authored by the instructors who are listed on the Miksang website available on Amazon which you can order and return if you don't find them interesting or helpful.
Gautama had some things to say about the 'commercialisation' of religion. This post, with all due respect, confirms that to me.
