Art and Mind

Arhat: Kanakabharadvaja  18th century    Tibet

In the next three posts, I will present the content of my talk at the
annual gathering of the
Northwest Dharma Association.
The evening of talks was entitled "The Arts as Buddhist Practice"

Only a teacup of the ocean of Buddhist art is here represented.

Liang kai  : Buddha descending the mountain

I am going to talk about the practice of contemporary painters making contemporary art 

as  a practice of spiritual insight.

While showing slides from the long history of such practices in Asia, 

and a few Modern paintings, I’ll introduce some principles of practice. (this post)

Then I’ll discuss a single work by a midcentury painter, (next post)

and close with some of my paintings  that 

demonstrate my basic approaches to painting. (3rd post)

 Hakuin : Mu

Traditional Buddhist art forms include contemplative practice.

Painting in the West has also included contemplations of the Mystery of Being,

but has more or less lost the quality of mystery

since the Renaissance with its preoccupation with surfaces and illusion.

It is sometimes hard these days to know what art is, 

and much of it can be confused with Popular Culture.

Art as a spiritual practice within the Western tradition is now riskier 

because the contemplative methods and the motivations are not clear.

They are not taught in art school. 

Mu Qi : swallow on a lotus pod

The Dharma is formless – like space. Without form it cannot be shown.  

"Form is the protagonist of space."   (quote from Eduardo Chillida)

 

The Dharma teaches that Formless Self is our very nature.

And yet, we spend our lives as a differentiated self,   full of form ;   full of space.

Fullness and emptiness.   

Without the cloud,   we cannot see the sky.

The moment you make a mark on a piece of paper, the universe is divided.

From No-thing to Some-thing. From that division, another follows and now a process of dynamic tension is in play between Form and Space ; cloud and sky ; tree and field ; mountain and valley ; song and thrush ; reason and intuition ; thought and mind-itself. 
When you make a shape or a line, do so with the space in mind. This is the key. 

Its natural and easy, as Shitou (the 8th century Chan master), explains in his Sandokai, :

“Like the front foot and back foot in walking” 

Tosa Mitsuyoshi : moonlight

Art begins just like this, with the longing to make the ineffable visible.

The creative activity of making a painting is addressed to the moment of its being looked at.

The creative activity of Buddhist practice is addressed to the moment of awakening.

And making a painting can be addressed to awakening, for artist and viewer.

Yu Chien : Clear Morning

If we work our art  convinced of a concrete intrinsic reality  

in our subject,   our materials,    and in our self,

then we  get more of the   limited mind  with which we began.

Claude Monet : Nympheas  (Water lilies)

If we practice simple mind from the outset, at least quiet mind but even better a glimmer of insight  that nothing exists as an intrinsic reality.

If we  “look at the mind that cannot be looked at,”

then,  in our activity of making something is the possibility of Awakening.

The Heart Sutra manifests in our hands, our materials, forms, and mind.

Art is mind revealing Mind.

Paul Klee : Ancient Harmony

In this way, Art practice flows out of formal meditation practice.

For an art to serve as an authentic Dharma practice, it helps if it’s grounded in

meditation, with the guidance of a qualified teacher.

Without this spacious basis,   the artist is bound to be working instead   from more distraction.

Antoni Tàpies : Ochre and Grey on Brown

Keep your formal meditation practice separate from your art practice.

Use meditation methods in your studio work,  

but perform your art as art,   and your meditation as meditation.

This important lesson was given me by   Lama Michael Conklin   and it freed up both practices.

Mu Xin : Half Thousand Li of the Ruo River

Both meditation and art can make use of ritual.

The forms of ritual have the effect of pulling our self-centeredness out of the activity.

The focus is on the forms, the technique, and the motif or subject.

  As Gustave Flaubert said :  “Reveal art; conceal the artist.”

Allow yourself to come to Zero –

When a carpenter sets a piece of wood to plumb,  he looks at the bubble on the level  
and his body, mind and the wood, in that brief moment, adjust to plumb.  

Simple and silent.

There is only plumb   -  and out of plumb.

Every carpenter does this throughout the day without fanfare. 

Begin your studio session like this.

You can also :  Bring to mind all beings  and the aspiration that your studio activity will benefit all beings. You need not be rational about this. Just bearing it in mind helps establish an altruistic motivation.

Then, enter the absorption of creative play.

You can take a moment at the end your session to dedicate the goodness of your work to the benefit of all beings. This helps to cut off clinging to your work. Success? Let it go. Failure? Let it go.

Vija Celmins : graphite drawing

This is the first of three installments. 

Next post : A Midcentury Painter

Note : What I have expressed here has formed in my mind over 40 years of painting, sitting and study. Some of the ideas may be familiar to you. In the last post (March 2, 2014) I included a bibliography, which is made up from books on my shelves. It's not at all exhaustive. I did not want to complicate the post with footnotes. Feel free to contact me about any of my comments. In this particular post, some ideas are paraphrased from writings of Ananda Coomaraswamy, John Berger, Michael Conklin, Donald Kuspit, Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, and from the artists shown.

The Arts as Buddhist Practice

The talks last night went very well.

Kim Swennes, a harpist, opera singer and thanatologist, played harp as we gathered in.

Jacqueline Mandell was MC - and she organized the event. She is a founding teacher of Samden Ling "A Sanctuary for Meditative Contemplation."

Tim Tapping, president of the Northwest Dharma Association talked about the organization, based in Seattle. The organization is unique in North America in its breadth of inclusion of all  lineages of Dharma practice.

My talk came first, and as mentioned in the last post amounted to an exposition on the role that Modern and Contemporary Artists have played and continue to play in giving form to the teachings. See below the bibliography on this subject.

Jan Waldman, a long time practitioner gave a talk on Chado, the Way of Tea. Jan was deeply trained in Japan and the US, and has taught and performed tea at Lewis and Clark College and elsewhere for decades.

Next was Prajwal Vajracharya, of Dance Mandal. Prajwal and his student gave a beautiful demonstration of Himalayan Buddhist ritual dance.

white tara by Sanje

Then came Sanje Elliott offering insight on Motivation in practice, both of Dharma practice and Art practice. Sanje is an accomplished Thangka painter and teaches thangka painting here in Portland. He demonstrated the initial drawing of a Buddha head following the traditional form built on a thigse or diagram. Kim accompanied on the harp as he drew.

Lisa Stanley is a teacher in the Shambhala tradition and a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She gave an interesting talk on Ikebana, including insights from Trungpa, who practiced in the Sogetsu school of Ikebana. This school is known as the non-conformist flower artist school. Some of their arrangements can be wild.

(My mother, Margaret Keenan (Gunn) Lacey, was a practitioner in this school. I watched her over the years become an artist. She knew every flowering bush or tree in her area. "Oh, Jeffrey! Let's go through the arboretum to see if that azalea is blooming!" She once had to be rescued by the fire department. At about 79 years old, she had climbed into an apple tree on the edge of the property. She fell and could not get up. She was over the berm from the parking lot of her condo, and no one could hear her cries over the noise of the street far below. But someone saw her from the other condos way across the street. He called the Fire Dept. and they came for her. They left flowering apple branches on her car. She later brought an apple pie down to the Station. Art requires great sacrifice and humility.)

Lastly, Kim Swennes, the harpist, talked about Thanatology, the self effacing practice of calming the dying through gentle (not vague!) music for their final transition from this life. This was a really fine talk, and pertinent for me as my dad just this week escaped the kiss of death. His time is near, but I will have a chance to see him one more time. Death is the ultimate meditation, according to the Buddha:

Of all footprints,
that of the elephant is supreme.
Of all mindfulness meditations,
that on death is supreme.
 (from Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, p. 26)

I will continue presenting out takes from my talk over the coming weeks. Here below is the bibliography for those who like to read up on these things.

 Tarawaya Sotatsu - Waves at Matsushima - 16th c

Bibliography – The Arts as Buddhist Practice

Abram, David. 1996. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a                     More than Human World. New York: Vintage Books, Random House.

Baas, Jacqueline. 2005. Smile of the Buddha: Eastern Philosophy and Western          Art from Monet to Today. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of          California Press.

Baas, Jacqueline and Mary Jane Jacob. 2004. Buddha Mind in Contemporary          Art. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Berger, John. 1986. The Sense of Sight. New York: Pantheon Books.

         2001. The Shape of a Pocket. New York: Vintage Books, Random House

         2007. Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and          Resistance.          New York: Pantheon Books.

Binyon, Laurence. 1911. The Flight of the Dragon: An Essay on the theory and          Practice of Art in China and Japan. London: John Murray

         1959.Painting in the Far East: An Introduction to the History of Pictorial Art

         in Asia Especially China and Japan. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.        

Catoir, Barbara. 1991. Conversations with Antoni Tàpies. Munich: Prestel-         Verlag.

Crane, George. 2000. Bones of the Master: A Journey to Secret Mongolia.

         New York: Bantam Books

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K.1956. Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art. First          published 1937 as Why Exhibit Works of Art? New York: Dover          Publications.

  

         1956. The Transformation of Nature in Art. First published 1934.

         New York: Dover Publications.

Dufwa, Jacques. 1981. Winds from the East: A Study of Manet, Degas, Monet          and Whistler 1856-86. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.

Ecke, Tseng Yu-ho. 1988. Wen Jen Hua: Chinese Literati Painting from the          Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Hutchinson. Honolulu: Honolulu          Academy of Arts.

         Some Elements of Modern Art in Classical Chinese Painting. Honolulu:          University of Hawai’i Press.

Fischer, Felice. 2003. Mountain Dreams: Contemporary Ceramics by Yoon          Kwang-cho. Philadelhia: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Heine, Stephen. 1997. The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of          Universal Peace. North Clarendon, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing.

Hinton, David. 2006. trans. The Selected Poems of Wang Wei. New York: New          Directions Books.

Hisamatsu, Shin’ichi. 1971. Gishin Tokiwa, trans. Zen and the Fine Arts. Tokyo: Kodansha International

Holmes, Stewart W. and Chimyo Horioka. 1973. Zen Art for Meditation.          Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co.

Klee, Paul. 1948. On Modern Art. Introduction by Herbert Read. London: Faber          and Faber.

La Plante, John D. 1992. Asian Art. 3^rd Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill

Larson, Kay. 2012. Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the          Inner Life of Artists. New York: The Penguin Press.

Linroth, Rob. 2004. Paradise and Plumage: Chinese Connections in Tibetan          Arhat Painting. New York: Rubin Museum of Art.

Lipsey, Roger. 1988. An Art of Our Own: The Spiritual in Twentieth Century Art.

         Boston & Shaftsbury: Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Little, Stephen. 1991. Visions of the Dharma: Japanese Buddhist Paintings and          Prints in the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of          Arts.

Loori, John Daido. 2005. The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating your Artistic Life.

         New York: Ballantine Books and Dharma Communications.

Maezumi, Hakuyu Taizan. Photographs by John Daido Loori. The Way of          Everyday Life: Zen Master Dogen’s Genjokoan with Commentary. Zen          Writing series; 5. 1978. Los Angeles: Center Publications.

Nakamura, Tanio. 1957. Sesshu Toyo. English text by Elise Grilli. Rutland,          Vermont: Charles          E. Tuttle Co.

Okakura, Kakuzo. 1956. The Book of Tea. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle          Co.

Pine, Red. 2000. The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. Port Townsend: Copper          Canyon Press.

Poshyananda, Apinan. 2003. Montien Boonma: Temple of the Mind. London:          Asia Society, Asian Ink.

Rose, Barbara Stella. 1975. Art as Art: The Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt.

         Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Sirén, Osvald. 1963. The Chinese on the Art of Painting. New York: Schocken

         Books.

Sullivan, Michael. 1979. Symbols of Eternity: The Art of Landscape Painting in          China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Suzuki, Shunryu. 1999. Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on          the Sandokai. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California          Press.

Trungpa, Chogyam. 1996. Dharma Art. Judith Lief, ed. Boston & London:          Shambhala.

Tseng Yu-ho. 1963. Some Contemporary Elements in Classical Chinese Art.          Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

van Briessen, Fritz. 1962. The Way of the Brush: Painting Techniques of China          and Japan. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co.

Watson, Burton. 1994. Selected Poems of Su Tung-p’o.  Port Townsend,          Washington: Copper Canyon Press.

Yanagi, Soetsu. 1972. The Unkown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty.

         Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Stone and Light - 2001

Art as Buddhist Practice

In a couple of weeks, on March 1, the Northwest Dharma Association will present 

The Arts as Buddhist Practice

 at the First Congregational Church 

1126 SW Park Ave

 Portland, Oregon 97206

Free to the Public

I will be one of six presenters at this gathering. My subject is the possibility of contemporary artists making studio art as an art practice of spiritual insight.

Preparing this slide lecture has required me to look again into my own art making process and to hone its description to 12 minutes. Here in the blog I can present some of the outtakes.

Before we explore Modern artists who shared this motivation, we can look at a few paintings from the long history of art as meditation in the monasteries and art studios of China and Japan of past centuries.

 Hong Ren 1610 - 1663

[He] protested the fall of the Ming dynasty by becoming a monk. Hong Ren's style has been said to "[represent] the world in a dematerialized, cleansed version ... revealing his personal peace through the liberating form of geometric abstraction."^{[2] (James Cahill)}

 Mi Yujen

Consider the possibility that thoughts and emotions are not mind, 

but only occur in the space of the mind. 

Things reveal space.

Thoughts reveal mind.

 Josetsu

If I remember rightly, this painting illustrates a Zen parable about

trying to catch a fish with a gourd.

Where is mind?

 Shuko

15th century priest and tea master.

First to introduce calligraphy in the tea ceremony.

What color is mind?

 Sesshu Toyo

16th century Japanese monk

Where is the end of mind?

 Liang Kai - 13th century

Buddha descending the mountain.

He's coming out from behind a rock or a large form.

Liang Kai's drawing makes even the rock seem translucent.

My mind is in this painting as I regard it.

Liang Kai's mind is also still here.

The paper maker is here, and the ink maker, and the inventors of the internet. Ben Franklin in a lighting storm and the developers of electronics, my second grade teacher who taught me to read. Everyone is here in this painting on this computer screen.

The Buddha is in it. Were his teaching not inspiring peace and happiness across 25 centuries, this artist and many others would not have been moved to paint of it, 

nor I to "read" it.

Mu Qi

Six Persimmons

A composition repeated in many books on design and composition.

Is there an allegory here, or just 6 persimmons?

Each object is arranged lightly, painted lightly,

and just so.

Art Work in 3 Dimensions

From time to time I make sculpture.
I've never shown it and have little of it left in my possession.

Santa Clara

H 35" x W 32" x D 9"

Erat Hora

H 20" x W 37" x D 26"

Erat Hora

"Thank you, whatever comes." And then she turned

And, as the ray of sun on hanging flowers

Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,

Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes

One hour was sunlit and the most high gods

May not make boast of any better thing

Than to have watched that hour as it passed.

   - Ezra Pound

Correction

the show referred to in the previous post, of 33 minutes ago, took place in

September 2011

oops.

Transition

In September of 2013, a show of my encaustic paintings opened at Augen Gallery. Each of the paintings was a view onto landscape: mountain ridges or shoreline. Some were based on personal experience of that landscape, honed out of furtive memory. Others were based on an idea of a landscape. One came about through a disinterested exploration of forms; only toward the end of the process did a vivid sense of a particular landscape memory take hold in my mind. In a later posting I will explore these processes.

They are made with encaustic medium, paper and ink collage, gold leaf.

 Aquellas Alturas             33” x 66”

 Cape Falcon            21” x 28”

 Incoming Tide             24” x 36”

 No More Struggle             50” x 50”

Ocean Side I            10-5/8” x 13”

Ocean Side II            11” x 14”

Pillar Rock                         21” x 28” 

Rain Beach                         8” x 43”

Rising and Falling            24” x 36”

Show Statement

know the silence of things,

and the radiance of things.


the light of space;


and the ringing quiet of space.



mind meets the world;


mind and hand and


materials make


color and form.


lake as it is.


rock as it is.


if you interpret

or
explain, you miss.



just look; be


in your body mind


eye and just be.