Readers of Antiquity

Awareness practice is not just sitting meditation or meditation in action alone. It is a unique training practice in how to behave as an inspired human being. That is what is meant by being an artist.

According to the book Dharma Art, there is no room for ego or self in the work of an artist. It explains how the study of Buddhism and meditation can allow art to flow naturally, instead of aggressively, from the hand of an artist. It was written by Chogyam Trungpa and published by Shambhala Press, 1996.

Dharma means 'norm' or 'truth.' It means a lot of things, but in the context of art, it refers to "the state before you lay your hand on your brush, your clay, your canvass--- very basic, peaceful, and cool, free from neurosis."

Art refers to all the activities of our life, including any artistic disciplines that we practice. It is not an occupation; it is our whole being. If you are a musician, you are a musician always, not just while you are playing your instrument. Your awareness of sound and silence is a twenty-four-hour practice. It applies to the way your knife clinks in a restaurant, the way the car door closes, the way somebody sneezes.

According to Buddhism, art is something produced by a student rather than by an isolated person. Art is produced by a student with an interest not only in his own creation, but in the basic necessity of expression---that is, what needs to be shown to others. Beyond that, the Buddhist approach to art is anti-garbage. You don't keep churning out scruffy things; they go into the garbage and are burned.

When we talk about art, we are talking about a form of some kind that we could work on. So it is like the practice of meditation. But what is that form, and how does meditation go along with it? The obvious answer according to the Buddha is that form doesn't actually exist, and dharma also doesn't exist; therefore, form and dharma could mix together. In order to do that, we need a lot of meditative discipline. Absolutely nobody can become a good craftsman or a good artist without relating to the practice of meditation.

By meditation I mean shamatha-vipashyana practice, not hunting peacefully in the jungle with your rifle or fishing peacefully, sitting beside the lake with your fishing rod. I'm talking about the sitting practice of meditation. Nobody can create a perfect work of art or understand a perfect work of art without understanding the practice of meditation. For instance, Beethoven, El Greco, or my most favorite person in music, Mozart---I think they all sat. They actually sat in the sense that their minds became blank before they did what they were doing. Otherwise, they couldn't possibly do it. Just coming out of the market and plopping down at the dining-room table and writing a play---that's impossible. Some kind of mind-less-ness in the Buddhist sense has to take place.

From that basic ground, the sense of being, openness, or is-ness begins to develop. Is-ness might be a better word than being, because there is something happening. In the Buddhist tradition, that is called awareness. Is-ness is all-pervasive. There is no separation between the medium and you. We are here, we are actually here! That kind of awareness is very important. We are here, nowhere else. Since we are here, why not be here?

In terms of art, if you do art, you just do it. There's no problem, and there's no challenge either. Nobody is trying to compete against anything. You are not trying to become the master of the world. You are just trying to be yourself and express yourself in a very, very simple, meditative, and non-aggressive Buddhist way. And as you meditate more and you work on your art more, the boundary between meditation and the practice of art, between openness and action, becomes fuzzy.

The Buddhist way of approaching art is non-aggressive. Aggressiveness brings competitiveness, money concerns, comparison, frustration, excitement, all kinds of things. No aggression brings joy, openness, dance. You can look at things, you can experience things, you can feel things, you can touch things, and that's fantastic. There is a real sense of real richness taking place from that perspective of non-aggression, non-possessiveness.

The important point is to begin with a blank sheet of paper in front of you. That is, you are willing to open, willing to let go. The Buddhist approach to art is not so much learning the tricks of the five Buddha families, but having a sense of openness and perspective. Artistic talent and the concept of visual space is already available to you. You don't need to cultivate it, and you don't need to make up something without any context. It happens naturally and very simply. According to the tantric Buddhist approach, we don't relate with art purely as aesthetics, but we approach artistic talent and perception simply, as natural phenomena.

It's a question of paying more attention to the space that exists around us. In doing so, we develop a sense of confidence: that space exists in front of our eyes and that it is not demanding anything. It's a free world, a truly free world. Obviously, in handling our life, question and hesitations come up constantly. They are like the blank sheet of paper, the canvas. Out of those hesitations, we begin to make a move. We may begin to create a painting or a picture out of that. We are constantly creating and recreating; each moment we are shifting from the previously created picture to creating the next picture. That has something to do with confidence. You have to be extremely sensitive and awake. That is the closest word I can think of : Awake. Some kind of deliberateness is also necessary. But deliberateness does not mean trying to insert your personal ego; it is purely experiential and inspirational.