Zentangle
This creative work was discovered by Rick & Maria and formalised in 2003 as Zentangle. This isn’t the only way to work on the thinking-will, but recommended as an excellent way to invoke feelings of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness and a rich immersion and easily being able to go into a flow state.
Zentangle method of drawing, means you;
- Relax – while drawing this art form
- Focus – helps to strengthen the ability to focus
- Expand your imagination – There is no large or grand design, you go with your intuition but hold your thinking-will (focus) while actually drawing it.
- Trust your creativity – Strengthens your intuition (Inner-Will Signal/Antenna)
- Become mindful – of this expression through art
- Respond confidently to errors and unexpected turn – errors are unknown in zentangle, i.e. any mis-stroke automatically forms or becomes a new design or gets absorbed into an older stroke without deletions, corrections or erasing. This is the most important aspect from a Zentangle connection with thinking-will as practiced in the boot camp, it’s allows room to make errors and then finding ways to correct them without blaming oneself (I’m bad at this, I don’t have artistic skills) or the environment (the pen slipped, someone disturbed me) and moves you towards solution-seeking, rather than fault-finding.
- Fun and healing as a creative expression
- Beautiful patterns – Helps us in becoming mindful or reflective in recognising patterns in our life, how we chose or make decisions, lifestyles patterns, habits patterns and so on.
Zentangle exercises from a will-perspective
- It can be fun approach
- Simple to learn
- Easy to draw
- There are no mistakes
- There need not be any pre-planned outcomes
- You trust your intuition to know what to do next
- Result are unexpected and beautiful
Key Point
You focus on each immediate stroke without worrying about what to do next or what the end result will be. Practice detachment of feelings and thoughts, since there is no grand design or objective.
You discover or you know what to do when the time comes to do it, little uncertainty handling practice.
Mandala art is something that started off as a spiritual symbol but as they blended with other cultures, “mandala” became a general term for geometrical patterns. They are mostly circular but can be of other various shapes, and they’re commonly used as drawing or colouring exercises meant for relaxation and/or concentration.
Mandala art although appears similar to Zentangle is a little more challenging, mentally tiring and less forgiving and needs to adhere to strict forms to make an expected outcome of sorts. Although, it’s still an excellent approach to work on thinking-will, especially for those who may be struggling with it or want to push their thinking-will limits.
Capt. Preetham Madhukar
Sources referred to write this article: