What You See Is What You Are

Mel Sauerbeck’s “Views from the Pathless Path”

Fascinating Photographs of a Meditative Culture

By John Sorflaten

Published in The Iowa Source, Iowa's Enlightening Magazine, June 2007.

What could eating in a restaurant francais have to do with viewing pictures at an exhibition by Mel Sauerbeck?

Well, you’ve heard that “you become what you eat”. (My wife and I are eating seafood crepes (crepes maraichere) and Caesar salad—so this is an interesting proposition.)

Could it be that “you become what you see”?

I confess this idea plopped before my eyes in an article from Scientific American (Nov, 2006). The article points out how we “understand” other people.

For example, given that John sees Mary pick up a rose, the article says “John grasps Mary’s action because even as it is happening before his eyes, it is also happening, in effect, inside his head.” Whew. You become what you see.

How we become what we see

The authors describe experiments that demonstrate that you, I, and all of us have structures in our brains called “mirror neurons”. These mirror neurons let us comprehend actions we see without any need to “think” or “reason” about it.

That sounds like the learning method demonstrated in the The Matrix. Remember Neo learning how to Kung Fu his way through the bad guys? He just got a download of the Kung Fu routine directly into his brain. No thinking. No kidding.

Mirror neurons also help us perform recalled actions without thinking. Remember how you play bits of that piano or clarinet music you learned 20 years ago without any practice in between? Who’s working the machinery that plays that music? Well, that’s muscle memory guided by your mirror neurons.

All you need is love (and intention)

So what started this effortless muscle memory or the “understanding” of Mary’s action? Well, it doesn’t have to be an image or a thing you see. Guess what, it only needs your intention.

In fact, you can see a short movie—say a hand grasping a cup—and your motor neurons fire differently depending on the intention you attribute to the person grabbing the cup. Wow. Is this one of those instances where the observer influences the observed? Sounds like it to me.

Climbing the stairs for the experience

So now we’re looking at one of Mel Sauerbeck’s photos on the 2nd floor up above the ICON Gallery. You get there by climbing the stairs right inside the entrance to the 21st Century Book Store off the square on Broadway and Main St.

Speaking of stairs, this is one of Mel’s favorite pictures. Mel told me “this hopefully conveys the feeling of the difficulty and confusion of what some see as the “path” being long and confusing but, the smile on the monks face tells another story entirely.”

So, that gives us Mel’s intention. What was your experience? (Wait, don’t think, just be.)

Pictures taking pictures?

I asked Mel another question: “Is there a difference in your picture-taking when the picture takes the picture compared to when you take the picture?”

Mel said, “Almost always I find my best photos are when I am able to get out of the way of what is being presented to me. Anticipating the flow of things can be an important part of being in the moment.”

So, what’s Mel’s intention? Sounds like his intention is to “let it be” (thank you, John Lennon). And flow is, well, flow.

Which takes us to the title of Mel’s exhibit: “Views from the pathless path”. Let’s see if this gives a clue to what Mel’s instincts or wordless intention might have been when he pressed the button on his camera.

The “pathless path” and your mirror neurons

Mel told me that his exhibit is “about the ancient tradition found in most cultures of "seekers of the ultimate truth" and there being no actual path, nowhere to go really but within. As I myself have traveled this "path" these are some of the images or views along the way. If I am successful I hope the viewers, the audience, will begin to appreciate the underlying feeling of the place seen through my eyes.”

Does this sound like you’re going to get your mirror neurons massaged if you see the exhibit? Sounds like that to me.

I like the stairs picture too. The stairs go up and up…and up and up…..and up and up….until I forget about thinking up…but something in me keeps going up. And, then, of course, the monks smile reminds me that he probably experienced the same thing.

Is this direct communication of an intention from the monk to me? Could be.

Buddha, bodhi, and your emotional body

Another of Mel’s favorites is the shot of the tree growing up out of an ancient stone-walled entrance at Angkor Wat. He said it conveys the age-old story of the “path”.

I confess that my mirror neurons fibrillate along similar lines. I can’t help but think “Buddha” and “bodhi tree”….But then focusing on the entrance takes my mind off the words and into the point through the tree into the distant horizon.

I forget the details and fall into a pleasant state of confidence that all’s right in the world. It’s a bit like the serenity conveyed by that smiling monk next to the steps.

Now, I look at my Scientific American article again, and read that our mirror neurons let us directly map other people’s emotions into our own experience and thus reproduce that emotion in ourselves.

Two for one at the exhibit

Hey, this means we’re getting “two for one” at Mel’s exhibit. First, we’re getting the monk demonstrating with his smile the pathless path. And second, we’re getting Mel’s special experience of the “pathless path” when the picture takes the picture.

Visiting SE Asia this way sure beats watching C.S.I or Bay Watch.

Mel set up 30+ of these pictures so you can have your own personal experience of SE Asia and the pathless path that permeates that region. The pictures come in many sizes including bigger and BIG. He took the pictures towards the end of 2004 during his six month trek through Thailand, Cambodia, Lao and Myanmar (formerly Burma). What a trip.

Getting mystical now

Hey, here’s the picture I like. Black and white newsprint resolution just barely does it justice. You have to see the big color photo in person to get the effect of evanescent peaks melting into the atmosphere.

Words fail and the experience of that path (what path?) melts into the evanescent observer (what observer?). The picture sees the picture just like the picture took the picture.

Mel’s an interesting guy, too. He graduated from MUM in 1985 with an MBA. But he went to work as an earth-spanning photographer working for Time Warner on magazine projects for Time, Life, People, Sports illustration, Fortune and Money. Twice he received Time’s Award for Excellence.

Back to the future

In 1991, Mel went independent starting his own NavaSwan Images (see www.navaswan.com) with representation by Getty Images, the largest photo agency in the world. Mel’s work covers travel, nature, beauty, fashion, editorial, lifestyle, fine art, and commercial photography. He has covered kings and presidents in their palaces, models on the catwalk, and as we see today, monks along mountain paths and children in remote villages.

See Mel on elephant. See Mel ride.

Even here in Fairifield, Iowa, Mel often works with local models on his assignments or to assist them in building portfolios. (Are you game to ask Mel about your own potential?)

The real stuffings of fame

Lest you wonder about Mel’s show-biz rapport, in 1992 he photographed the Beatle’s fab George Harrison at one of his last concerts in London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Hey, at the 2nd Woodstock Music Festival, in ’94, Mel went back stage, then on stage and finally into the crowd, wading through mud to capture images that appeared in numerous mags and posters.

Occasionally, Mel takes on students who have demonstrated their talent and ability to learn from a master.

I learned a thing or two about the pathless path, looking at Mel’s pics, just mirroring my happy Self amidst Mel’s images. Indeed, when traveling empathically with Mel’s picture of SE Asia, I am what I see, and I see what I am. Sure beats C.S.I and Bay Watch. (I think I said that once before.)

Being there without going there

Check out Views from the Pathless Path starting 1 June, 2007 with the 1st Fridays Fairfield Art Walk. Mel’s show runs until around the end of July. You can purchase pictures you like at around a reasonable $400.

And remember the stairs. You know, the stairs inside the doorway to the 21st Century Book Store—the stairs on the corner of Main St. and Broadway, just off the square.

Those special stairs.

Yes, those.
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About the writer:
John Sorflaten has a photo background himself, graduating from the Cinema program at the University of Southern California just one year behind George Lucas. John produced and directed documentaries for a while, then dropped it all to pursue the pathless path of Transcendental Meditation in Fairfield. John and his wife Theresa started their non-profit Institute for Developing Enlightened Arts and Sciences (IDEAS) to promote work like Mel’s for the reasons written in the article.

If these ideas interest you, contact John and Theresa:

Let us know your interests. Meanwhile, Mel took this nice picture of John last summer.