The Art of Solitude

There is something banal and everyday about solitude. Even in company we spend much of our time alone, absorbed in our innermost thoughts and feelings, quietly talking to ourselves. Whether we live in Manhattan or the middle of nowhere, this is our condition.

Being unable to control events, I control myself: I adjust myself to them if they do not adjust themselves to me.

That is why it is not enough to remove oneself from people, not enough to go somewhere else. We have to remove ourselves from the habits of the populace that are within us.

Nirvana is a negative capability. In letting go of—“negating”—reactivity, one discovers a greater capacity—“capability”—to respond to life. To experience nirvana is to experience freedom from those attachments and opinions that prevent your own imaginative response to the situations you face in life. Nirvana is not the end point of the path but its

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be for yourself.

The practice of Zen is about coming to terms with the question of who and what you are. Allow yourself to be a mystery for yourself rather than a set of more or less interesting facts.

Standing out in this way serves to affirm your existence (ex-[out] + sistere [stand]).

But for many it provides the time and space to develop the inner calm and autonomy needed to engage effectively and creatively with the world. Moments of quiet contemplation, whether before a work of art or while observing your breath, allow you to rethink what your life is about and reflect on what matters most for you.

he described how meditating on “the sensation of being in a body” became a tool he then transferred to making sculpture. He insists that his sculptures do not represent the body but reveal the space the body inhabits. Meditation would also have helped him remain still and calm enough while he had his own body cast for works such as Untitled (for Fr