Asemic Glyphology: neologism — the study and practice of asemic glyphs.

A visual meditation on the nature of meaning and the liberation from meaning.

Meaning is an add-on. A bit of superfluous fluff that gets in the way of authentic experience. It is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts, an echo, an apparition dancing in the vivid space of naked awareness. It blinds us to the natural beauty and goodness of our world.

The abstract paintings in this series is meant to help us to break free from the prison of conceptual reality and dance freely among the beautiful apparitions of spontaneous, pure presence; leaving no trace — like the imprint of a bird in the sky.

To make or contemplate abstract art with mindful presence is a kind of basic training. It teaches us to to see the magnificence of our ordinary, everyday world. It helps us see behind the veil of the incessant storyline that is continually looping through our consciousness and to see the majesty of pure perception.

Everything is abstract if you know how to look. All the many things that we see in everyday life are like the children’s game of finding lions, tigers and other imaginary things in the fleeting shapes and patterns formed by the clouds in the sky. Our perceptions tell us that the phenomena of everyday life are solid and permanent. Just like the clouds in the sky, though, they are fluid with only arbitrary boundaries and are constantly being blown apart by the winds of time. When we purify our perceptions of the habit of solidifying patterns, all the multitude of things shine as luminous, pure appearance — as truth and beauty.

As you contemplate the images in this series, observe how your mind looks for familiar objects and meaning in the abstract patterns. Let go of this tendency and simply commune with the image. Allow it to draw you in. Lose yourself in the colours, patterns and forms. Allow the true meaning of the image to reveal itself. The meaning that represents nothing other than itself.

In your everyday life, experiment with this process. For example, if you are looking at a tree, notice how you have separated it from its environment as if it were an independent object. Contemplate the fact that in reality the tree is actually interdependent with its environment. It depends on the air to breath, it depends on the nutrients in the soil, it depends on the sunlight and — very important — it depends on your awareness of it.

Contemplate the fact that, in reality, there is no separation at all. The separation is just an illusion generated by your own mind.

Commune with the tree — really commune with it. Allow yourself, the tree and your environment to dissolve into the single entity which, in reality, is what you are.

Then the true meaning will reveal itself. Allow the natural joy of simply being to infuse the whole space — you, the tree and the environment all together. Then you will find the miracle of authentic, pure presence.