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The Miksang Introduction Module

Your introduction in 3 or 4 days - Discovering your personal magic of everyday beauty & improving your pictures

Meditation in Action

Align your heart & mind with visual exercises and photographic assignments

Photographic Art

Always successful pictures, with and without much photography experience

Mindful in Action

Learn how to be in the here and now with looking, seeing and photographing

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Relaxation

Learn to open your heart and calm your busy mind with open-minded looking and fresh seeing. Discover how seeing from the heart is the way in to deep relaxation.

Looking & Seeing

Looking and seeing always takes place in the NOW. Not later or soon. And only in the now you experience joyful direct vivid perceptions. In the here and now.

Focus Now

From inner stillness you focus and from still focus you strengthen calmness. Focus with gentleness towards yourself, others and everything around you.

Fresh Eyes

Looking without mental filters, with zero photographic ambition and seeing with fresh eyes is how you discover the everyday beauty that is always and already present.

Slowing Down

Slowing down starts with coming to a full stop. You stop searching for pictures and practice uninhibited looking. Before you take a picture you allow your perception fully in.

Poetic Pictures

Easily improve your pictures with the Miksang method. In a practical manner with mindful photography. In now-time & no-time you learn genuine poetic photography ;-)

As designed by Hèlen Vink

How do you bring more stillness and beauty into your life with creative photographic expression?

I have designed the 3-day Miksang Introduction Module in a way so you easily get introduced to the ins & outs of Miksang Photography and experience a full Miksang experience over the course of 3 days.

In 2006 I was introduced into Miksang Photography, in Cologne where I coordinated the first Miksang workshop in Europe. At that time I didn't really know what Miksang was up until the introductory talk: I immediately understood the accessibility of this young artistic discipline based on the Buddhist mindfulness approach and the principles of Dharma Art teachings about the process of perception and spirituality within the creative process. This encounter was a fusion of my experiences of photographic art and mindfulness-meditation. Instantly it gave me a sense of calm and relaxation about my creative purpose. It opened the richness of ordinary beauty in my daily life. Inspired I followed all Miksang classes in the US and Canada and subsequently brought Miksang Photography to the Netherlands.

From that moment on I designed the Miksang Photography Training Program

Today, my Miksang Photography Training Program in the Miksang Academy has been followed by more than 330 students and many regularly follow the live and online Masterclasses.

Your introduction to Miksang Photography

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€ 599,-

€ 490 | Now with Early Bird discount: €440

3-day Miksang Retreat |Dates TBA

Start your Miksang Photography experience with this 3-day Miksang Retreat. Experience yourself how Miksang Photography changes your unique looking, seeing and outlook on life itself. Wake up to the delight of your everyday world with visual exercises and playful photographic assignments. Discover the beauty of the ordinary world with an open heart, a calm mind and awake eyes aligned. Learn how to photograph in a simplified manner with your camera and the Miksang principles.

Step-by-step you will be introduced to the Miksang basics and the process of perception, the dynamics of looking and seeing, and seeing from the heart. From the open space within you set out each day practically with a new photographic Miksang assignment. Experience how photography, uninhibited seeing, fresh seeing and mindfulness-meditation-in-action fuses elegantly while providing a doorway to improve your pictures. With talks, Q&A, examples, exercises, photographic assignments and each day ends with the image review.

Pre-requisite: online talk

• Location in Europe: TBA

• Program price is exclusive accommodation, meals and travel

Yes, I'm looking forward to join

Slowing down & learning pure photography

Over the course of the four days I learned to slow down and walk with an open mind, discovering and noticing what strikes me visually. And then photographing this as pure as possible, filling the whole frame. Peaceful and just lovely.

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Yvonne van Sprang

Seeing from my heart

Again, as it turns out, it starts and ends with yourself. I rediscovered my peacefulness and was touched by everything that is already present around me. My enthusiasm to photograph the simplicity of beauty has returned and even deepened. Great set up of the daily classes, study material and online talks. I enjoyed the immersion and time for reflection. Four days in a row may seem like a long time, but it immediately set me right on track.

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Conny van Ryn

I feel touched...

I tremendously enjoyed our days together in the Miksang training. Coming to a full stop and standing still for a flash of perception, expressing what has stopped me, so many beautiful images around us, Hèlen's view of Miksang, and the many rounds of the exercise 'human camera'...

Caroline

The Miksang Program

Miksang 1 - Day 1

Your introduction to the Miksang basics: what is looking and how do I look? what is seeing and what do I see? how do I recognize seeing from the heart ?

With grounding exercises and visual exercises you align your eyes, mind and heart; settling into a still mind, open heart and awake eyes. You will experience the difference between seeing from your heart and thinking about what you see. Your lightning-fast thinking is - often unconsciously - destructive to real connection, and now you discover the gaps in which you are able to connect directly and genuinely.

From the open space within yourself you set out with the 1st Miksang photo assignment. You will learn to photograph from your heart with a practical intention. Ascending from a busy head, into your heart with fresh eyes and your camera as a medium to express.

Miksang 1 - Day 2

Now that you have experienced the joy of seeing from the heart and the simplicity of mindful photography, you are able to more consciously let go of what you (already) know about it is that you see, or what you want to photograph. You will land further in to the not-knowing, your intuitive knowing. In the Buddhist teachings this is the real knowing; knowing from inner source, which you feel in your heart as a bodily sensation. In this spacious and sometimes uncomfortable space of not-knowing, free of reference, you relax. The emphasis is on being with what you see directly and unexpectedly, what resonates and recognizing 'fresh'.

On this 2nd day you will shift from thinking to feeling what you see. Also, likely you will now encounter obstacles; like seeing too much, or not enough, photographing too quick, too thoughtful or shying away. The exercises easily transmute obstacles, and in a playful more precise manner and very practical with a new Miksang photo assignment.

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Miksang 1 - Day 3

What is Miksang photographing with the Miksang method? How do you do that with more precision and calm mind and with gentle confidence?

Step-by-step you dissolve the veil between 'this' & 'that', between 'I' and 'everything around me'. Feeling more appreciating for things as they are. We will explore the Miksang Method in-depth.

This is a day of slowing down in looking, seeing and photographing. Letting fully in what resonates and taking your time to look, see and take a picture with THE 5+1 helpful steps.

Corona proof

Miksang Photography is Corona-proof partly because we are outside most of the day. The morning program takes place in the training room in the chateau: the 1.5 meters is guaranteed and all necessary measures are taken.

For risk reduction, there is an air purifier with a HEPA filter, VC lamp and ionizer (ozone-free).

If the COVID-19 guidelines change and the training cannot continue, you will receive your money back and we will plan a place for you at the next Miksang Photography program.

Sometimes a training is able to completely change the way you experience and perceive things. The introduction 'Seeing from your heart' is such a training that more than fulfills its promise. Hèlen Vink expertly guides you through the basics of the `Miksang process. During the training I learned to really see the world around me in a different way. There is now more room for wonder, creativity and inspiration…

As a photographer just starting out, it was also a very good introduction to photography and the possibilities of my camera. It is now a few months after training and I still regularly go out to do miksang photography. I am very happy with the photos I took and that leaves me wanting more…

Remy van Gelder - Mindfulness trainer | www.praesence.nl/mindful-fotografie