In every drawing I do, I try to embody steady concentration. I try to remain conscious of each individual stroke of the pen, by maintaining present moment awareness. My anchor, or object of concentration, is the breath. If I am breathing, I’m alive. It’s something I can always come back to, as way to return to the present moment. Thoughts take me out of present moment awareness. Meditation is the practice of returning to the present moment. Coming back to right here, right now, over and over. It has been the most beneficial pursuit of my life.As artists, many of us have had experiences where we are working on a piece for a long time, and after a while, we realize we were on auto-pilot. It’s the realization that we weren’t really conscious during the process. Sometimes I get lost in idle thought and don’t pay attention. I think of that as being distracted, or lost. Other times, I get in the creative flow and work from a place free from thought, free from conceptualizing. That’s the observational position I like to work from. It’s as if I’m watching the drawing happen, not consciously making it happen, even though my senses are acutely concentrated on the pen moving ink across the paper.I think “reality” is that which is already here, but free from our concepts about it. As artists we can experience that state of ultimate reality, or freedom, while art making. I believe we can all learn a lot from this practice, so I offer these words of encouragement.