Duck/Rabbit in the Studio Part I
Remember that drawing of a duck, which is also a
rabbit? We can see one or the other, but not both at the same time because our
brain has been taught to organize information in a certain way. In our culture
it is hard to tolerate what we perceive as mutually exclusive. It makes you wonder how many rabbits are
concealed in our life by the ducks that we passionately define. As we
evolve, our ability to perceive and overcome old wiring grants us access to new
levels of consciousness enabling transcendence of old dichotomies To understand this Duck/Rabbit dichotomy I am reminded of the Zen koan study that I practiced in Japan. It is the experience of being asked to respond to a question that seemingly cannot be answered. In the contemplation of the question and in the intense milieu of the asking, a response can spontaneously arise naming a truth beyond Duck or Rabbit. Yet, you could say, their distinction is honored in the experience of accessing a whole.
There are ways to support this leap beyond the habitual separation and patterns of brain organization in the spiritual practice of the koan and more broadly in the practice of Direct Enlightenment. From a Western consciousness this leap is harder because we stand firmly on one or the other. In Japanese language, for example, dichotomies are more easily accommodated. Duck could also be Rabbit, and if that is true then it does not undermine the duckness of duck, nor the rabbitness of rabbit.
We tend to create an absolute which is not absolute. This week in an events publication (Good Times, Santa Cruz 1.18.17) there is an article about a local woman, who is the first in the nation to receive an intersex birth certificate. Kelly Keenan did not fit into the category of male or female when she was born. Unbeknownst to most of us, for decades doctors, as a matter of common practice, have been surgically forcing newborns into one of the only two available boxes, male or female, by altering their genitals. When Kelly was born her father would not allow the operation and now 50 years later she is recognized as being born intersex. We are not comfortable acknowledging possibilities outside the boxes we have set up. The space between male and female, which has apparently always been there, is now being voiced, and reflecting a much larger shift in our cultural and social beliefs. Increasingly, with the growing understanding and empathy from caregivers to honor their choice more young children are refusing the gender box that has been checked for them.
The space of duck/rabbit is beyond
language, but not beyond cognition. We recognize it in works of art because we
connect to the source of the work beyond the parts. In the studio it comes up
for me continually and allows me to go beyond checked ‘boxes’ that only
constrain our creative thought and perceptions but it requires vigilant attentiveness.
The arts provide
many examples of the exploration beyond binary choices that metaphorically fill
our days and nights. Think of John Cage’s concert of silence or the
Expressionists departure from academic painting of objects to the painting of
light. Then there is the leap to paintings of no recognizable object, or
abstract paintings of an inner world. In
the performing arts there is Samuel Beckett or other artistic movements that
barely fit in the category of fine art, but effectively change our
consciousness, like Pop-Art. The arts
know how to spin the card with the cage on one side and the bird on the other
to give us the image that is more than the two alone yet still allows for both
at the same time-creating something new.
The paradox of the koan, seemingly a nonsensical question,
primes the pump of a deeper truth beyond consensus reality. The question ‘what
is the sound of one hand clapping?’, is an ontological investigation. Practice
in the studio can also access meaning on various levels. We all have
experienced those paintings, pieces of music, literature, performances or
experiences in nature of the sound of one hand clapping. It is a direct insight
that has no words on which to hang the experience. Just as the occurrence of
the leap in koan study can be
nurtured, so can transcending the small rational mind in practice of art. The
arena of my life where access to truth beyond what seems to be categorically
oppositional is available.
