I always knew meditation was the key. Not in a floaty, incense-and-silence kind of way — more like a gut feeling that this was how I’d untangle the anxiety that had been knotting up my insides since my twenties. I tried. Honestly, I did. Books, classes, … all of them promised peace.
But mostly I just sat there wondering if I was doing it wrong.
Then I met Lamrim. And suddenly, it was like someone switched the lights on. The teachings were clear, logical, gently profound — and even made me laugh. I stopped trying to “empty my mind” and started learning how to understand it. That’s when something in me changed. I’d come home.
By 32, I was ordained by my teacher Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and given the name Kelsang Samsang — fortunate good heart.
Ordination names are given so you can realise your potential. When someone calls my name it’s a reminder of how my spiritual guide sees me, I try to live up to it, fail spectacularly, and then try again. It’s both a blessing and a lifelong practice.
People imagine that a spiritual life means walking around in a bubble of calm. In truth, it’s more like walking a dog of your own mind in a field of rabbits — it pulls, it barks, wants to run off, its totally distracted, creating anxiety and stress. But slowly, through practice, you stop yelling at the dog, blaming the dog, and thinking its useless. You learn to train it to stop thinking RABBITS, RABBITS, RABBITS and focus on the walk so you can enjoy it together.
This is how I teach. We make a mess. We get quiet. We laugh a lot. We hit a wall (usually halfway through a drawing or painting, occasionally with a loud sigh). Then something shifts. A total immersion in doing arises and for a while distractions of life subside. That moment of concentration, when you’re totally in the doing — that’s the gold.
It’s not about transcendence. It’s about not chasing expectations or being pulled away by our inner critic. Being absorbed in creating is letting the moment be the teacher.
Recognising that even when it all goes wrong — especially when it goes wrong — there’s a chance to open up instead of shutting down.
Art has taught me to stay. Stay with the uncomfortable moments of
making mistakes, without them I would miss the joy of learning.
And spiritual practice has taught me the same.
So yes, I’m trying to walk the walk — of love, of compassion, of making peace with difficult people – I mean difficult paintings 😉. And if I’m honest, it’s not always a walk. It’s a bit more like trying to run on a giant bouncy pillow. Inevitably you are going to bounce and fall over but you can have fun trying. I think that’s the point.