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The Buddhisms and art
Simonthepilgrim
Veteran
The poet William Carlos Williams once wrote: “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there.”
("Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" 1955)
He also said, somewhere, that there are some things which can only be said in a poem.
The various incarnations of Buddhism have, like the Christianities and Islam, been either the source or the subject of all the arts. And, in each different manifestation, iconographies change, so that Chinese Buddhist painting and poetry differ markedly from, say, the Japanese or the Thai, whilst retain degrees of recognisability.
These long traditions persist and are deep in our psyches, viz. the reaction to the destruction of the Buddha statues by the Taliban. This was seen as an act of vandalism, whereas pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein was cheered. Art is a symbol of deeply-held beliefs and, as with all symbols, is multiulayered.
Shelly told us that poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of the world". Great teachers eve today, like Thich Nhat Hanh or Thomas Merton, give us remarkable poetry and I would suggest that we cannot fully understand what they are trying to teach unless we take their art into account as well.
One reason that I post these few thoughts is that much of the discussion here on Buddhist topics is pretty 'dry', sutra-based. The myths, legends, stories, etc. are often dismissed because they take us 'beyond'. Yet these are precisely the ways in which most us have met Buddhism for the first time and are the day-to-day experience of those born and living in Buddhist cultures.
The Buddhisms have produced stunning and inspiring works of art and music, some quite alien to the Western experience. They open new doors to our awareness and deserve to be celebrated.
("Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" 1955)
He also said, somewhere, that there are some things which can only be said in a poem.
The various incarnations of Buddhism have, like the Christianities and Islam, been either the source or the subject of all the arts. And, in each different manifestation, iconographies change, so that Chinese Buddhist painting and poetry differ markedly from, say, the Japanese or the Thai, whilst retain degrees of recognisability.
These long traditions persist and are deep in our psyches, viz. the reaction to the destruction of the Buddha statues by the Taliban. This was seen as an act of vandalism, whereas pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein was cheered. Art is a symbol of deeply-held beliefs and, as with all symbols, is multiulayered.
Shelly told us that poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of the world". Great teachers eve today, like Thich Nhat Hanh or Thomas Merton, give us remarkable poetry and I would suggest that we cannot fully understand what they are trying to teach unless we take their art into account as well.
One reason that I post these few thoughts is that much of the discussion here on Buddhist topics is pretty 'dry', sutra-based. The myths, legends, stories, etc. are often dismissed because they take us 'beyond'. Yet these are precisely the ways in which most us have met Buddhism for the first time and are the day-to-day experience of those born and living in Buddhist cultures.
The Buddhisms have produced stunning and inspiring works of art and music, some quite alien to the Western experience. They open new doors to our awareness and deserve to be celebrated.
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Comments
Palzang
This. Sutras I find hard going because they don't "speak" to me on the level of experience. They seem so dry and "to the point" compared to poetry which talk about the expereince of beauty or loss, which is more like what we know.
Sutras always seem to me like they could be bullet pointed. Like a list.
I maybe off on something that is totally irrelevent though.