John McQuade and Maxine Sidran are teaching Miksang contemplative photography classes this fall at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto.

To find out more, visit St. Mike’s Continuing Education website.

From the course calendar:

Miksang (a Tibetan word that translates as “good eye”) is a contemplative art developed from the teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. The goal is simply to experience the world before distinctions like “beautiful,” or “ugly,” “worthy” or “unworthy” get in the way; to see and appreciate the nature of things as they are and express it without interpretation. The approach develops a calm, centered state of mind while shooting. Miksang is not an attempt at self-expression. It is, in fact, a letting go of “self.” When you give up confronting the world like a big game hunter out to bag a good image, the world calls out to be seen. The openness and awareness that Miksang develops carry over into those times when you’re without a camera. As a result, you’re more present to everything in your life and able to see the inherent beauty in all aspects of the world. A digital camera is required for this course.

Toronto photographer Maxine Sidran - a teacher in the Miksang Society of Contemplative Photography - is featured in a recent Shambhala Times interview, I am Miksang.

Maxine recounts how she first learned about Miksang:

I first saw the word Miksang on a calendar at the Toronto Shambhala Center. My response was to the word that followed it: photography. I have practiced photography my entire adult life, and the fact that it had showed up at a meditation center was exciting.

Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as “good eye.” The Miksang Society of Contemplative Photography offers a number of programs in Toronto. As a contemplative school of photography, it joins photography together with the discipline of meditation and the Dharma Art teachings of the meditation master and scholar Chögyam Trungpa.

This spring, the Miksang Society is offering two courses at the Toronto Shambhala Centre: Looking and Seeing: An Introduction to Contemplative Photography on Saturday May 9 and Ordinary Magic and the Way of Seeing on Saturday and Sunday June 13 and 14.

Be sure to check out Maxine’s Flickr website.