It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see  Henry David Thoreau

No one is actually able to look at anything, ever, that is in the past or the future. It is only possible to see something right here, right now, in the present moment. It is not possible in any other way, at any other time!

And yet we so often miss this opportunity to see what is present in plain sight and can seem to live our lives "seeing" only what is composed of mental images or thoughts about things. 

The art of deep, slow, appreciative looking, embedded within our ordinary daily round, is one of the rich practices of Mindfulness. The technique of really noticing what is present to our senses is a skill that enables us to come more fully into the present and to experience simple pleasures in this world that is always unfolding about us, moment by moment.

Students of mindful looking are here invited to contribute some of the deep seeing they have recorded with their cameras and share quotations that inform and support their ongoing mindfulness practice.

Click on a picture to see the photographer and any words that may have inspired them...

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful feature. It is Earth's eye, looking into which the beholder measures the depth of their own nature  Henry Thoreau

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water
​Loren Eiseley
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