What do we pay attention to, what do we look for? It sounds like such an innocent question, yet it is a reflection of who we are, and how we have been shaped.

I went to a Matisse exhibition when I was in London recently. What struck me was a comment the artist made as an older man, with only fourteen years of life left to him, that it was only now that he had tolearnthow to ’ see’. And this seeing would take him on a totally other path, and would revolutionize what was considered art.

Of course artists, poets and mystics have always been involved in a kind of stripping of the layers, cleaning the windscreens of perception, of dust. Whatever we spend time thinking about and how we have chosen to live are what we will become. And this in turn will alsoshapeour seeing/ hearing/feeling.

Matisse would learn to see each object and give it its life.

As I live my life right now, Im away from the familiar, live and pray in a bedroom, I havefew props, and no buddies.I am interested tosee what this does to me. Can Istay open and flexible, change my moods,dothings because I always have? When it comes to prayer, do I begin, doI start with those so familiar processes andwhatwill happenthen?

I hear the same thingsgoing onin my mind, and often the familiarinstructions from the outside are the same. But acting on instructions is not the pointas theyare meant only to guide and focus the intelligence and spirit. But subtly we can be seduced into thinking thatthese instructions, this knowledge, arethe thing itself.

I sit at dinner parties and conversation is about things, but rarely are our fine gifts of intelligence given any room to develop anddiscern. We become governed by our world of thoughts and rarely do weactuallyget the chance to lookat the thinker of the thoughts.

Of course this is what starting to contemplate is about. Yet the mind is very interested in what it has thought before, what it already knows andit is rarely interested in what it doesn’t know. It will be interested in unknown facts to increase the stockpile of facts, because this can appear as intelligence (aren’t we often impressed by people whoknow a lot about everything!). But are we really curious about entering into the wordless world?

Not having a formula to controlour movementsat this time puts us at risk aswe grope blindly. We often need to invite silence to hear what is initially wordless. Our darker places inside emerge: fear of the unknown, risk of being wrong, seen as lacking. Yet all of these qualities keep us on the wheel that spins faster and faster as we seek to be in control.

Like Matisse, I think we aredeveloping ourselves to become sensitive, to see from our own experience? But thefirst thingis to know that we will needcourage anda kind of solidarity with ourselves. Matisse would live his whole life outside of what was acknowledged as “good art”, yet now people will queue for months to taste and see this freedom.

The trickto finding a way forwardisto recognizethat we are the only ones who can do this, there is no formula,the only pointer isthat othershave set this course and have done it before us.Usually people we admire canshow us how.ButI often wonder if we wantitenough for ourselves, I mean the deeper desires, those that will really satisfy us. We may not at thetime beappreciatedby ourfellow travellers, but it will certainly bring aliveness and creativity.

The last part ofMatisses statement isthat in truly learning to see, we learn to love. That sounds like a good outcome.