Miksang Photography: Opening the Good Eye

Miksang is a Tibetan word that menas “good eye.” It is a new practice of contemplative photography developed by Canadian Michael Wood,and based on the ancient traditional practice of insight meditation. The practice is taught through a series of photographic assignments and visual exercises designed to synchronize the eye and mind so the experience of seeing is undistracted and fully present - awake. Seeing in this way, perception is precise and direct, free of visual prejudice and the baggage of habitual likes and dislikes, associations, and memories, all of which obscure clear sight.

Michael Wood is the developer and principle teacher of Miksang Contemplative Photography, which he has presented for 19 years in Canada and the US. A long-time practitioner of insight meditation, as taught by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Michael graduated from the Sheridan College School of Visual Arts in 1970, majoring in portraiture and fine art photography. He has worked as a free-lance photographer for The Toronto Star, and Toronto Sun, and has won five Kodak Awards of Merit as well as a Canadian Magazine Photography Award. he has had fifteen gallery exhibitions of his work, and has published his ideas on contemplative photography in Photo Life Magazine.