As I learn more and more about mind-body activities like Tai Chi and experience some of their tremendous benefits, it is becoming clearer that an active intellectual mind requires some form of balancing practice in order to function at the highest level. Tai Chi is one of those mind-body activities, but many advanced Tai Chi practitioners also undertake a meditative practice. A meditative practice seems a requirement to get past a certain level of growth.

Unfortunately, sitting in a full-lotus position for hours upon hours isn’t for everyone. That’s where other alternatives come into play. Realistic drawing or painting is one of them, and with each session, not only can you settle the mind, but you also have something to hang on the wall.

Cultivating the Right Side of the Brain

Meditation is mostly about increasing activity in the right side of the brain, so that the logical mind does not overwhelm us on a daily basis. It helps settle the mind, soothe or even silence the endless inner chatter, and it gives us the ability to cope better with day to day activities. It is also about learning to refocus the mind on the subject of meditation, either an object, a mantra or the breath.

By forcing the eye to remain focused on the details of the activity, realistic drawing or painting focuses the mind almost like meditation. You need to focus on either the subject or your work, you need to study details with your eyes, and you need to coordinate your hand movements with the details you have observed. All those tasks are very complicated to achieve unless you forget about everything else: you can’t think about the future, the past, or even the present. And in doing so, you also relax from the inner chatter of the mind. Once you become more skilled, you calm down whenever you pick up the pencil or paintbrush. You look forward to having your next session. Once you’re done, you can pat yourself on the back because, with practice, your drawing skills improve and become more and more realistic.

It sounds just like meditation, doesn’t it? And you don’t even need to sit like a yogi. Though, truth be told, keeping your back straight is good for your neck. Everyone should keep it as straight as possible, even when drawing.

Let’s Draw!

Perhaps now I’m not as surprised about the fact that Leonardo da Vinci, possibly the most versatile genius in history, was also a painter. In drawing and painting, he observed reality, paid attention to it, and helped his mind achieve balance. And that balance allowed him to achieve incredible and incomparable feats that pushed knowledge forward in many fields at once. He was a war engineer, a botanist, he studied anatomy in such detail that few doctors of his time would be able to understand the human body better than he did. It’s funny that realistic painting is never encouraged in most STEM or humanities degrees. We focus on narrow specialization, not broad knowledge. The Renaissance personality is dead. And perhaps by killing it, we are also renouncing the endless posibilities of nurturing other multi-talented minds.

In any case, resenting the workings of the world will not change it. What anyone can do right now is to check out a book titled “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” by Betty Edwards. This book teaches the absolute novice how to draw realistically, even if they have never picked up a pencil after leaving grade school. It is an excellent starting point, and also a great inspiration.

Who knows? Learning to draw might activate your mind too, just like it did with da Vinci. Or just like it does with some of the very advanced meditators who perform seemingly impossible tasks.