The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (38 page)

When we begin to perceive the phenomenal world with that sense of basic goodness, peace, and beauty, conflict begins to subside and we start to perceive our world clearly and thoroughly. There are no questions, no obstacles. As anxiety subsides, sense perceptions become workable because they are no longer distorted by any neurosis. With that understanding, meditation practice becomes very powerful. Through the practice of meditation, we can relate with our thoughts, our mind, and our breath, and begin to discover the clarity of our sense perceptions and our thinking process. The ground of the true artist includes peace and coolness, as well as unconditional beauty. It is free from neurosis. That ground enables us to become dharmic people.

From that ground, based on the practice of meditation, we could branch out further and experience ourselves as what we are and who we are altogether. Sitting practice is a way of discovering ourselves. This particular approach is not necessarily my own invention. It is compatible with Christianity and other mystical traditions. The Quakers and Shakers developed traditions of suddenly rousing themselves in a particular moment to connect themselves with God. When they are roused, they lose their reference point altogether, they become nontheistic on the spot. Because of that, they are regarded as good Christians! The same thing could apply to Judaism and to the Islamic tradition. [In such mystical traditions] when there is the highest moment of turn-on, your mind is open, on the spot. There is nothing happening, therefore everything happens. In the afterthought we try to resume being ourselves, being such-and-such, which becomes very embarrassing and problematic, like the cat who shits on the ground and covers it up with dirt.

When we begin to realize that the principle of dharma exists within us, the heat of neurosis is cooled and pure insight takes place. Because restfulness exists beyond the neurosis, we begin to feel good about the whole thing. We could safely say that the principle of art is related with that idea of trust and relaxation. Such trust in ourselves comes from realizing that we do not have to sacrifice ourselves to neurosis. And relaxation can happen because such trust has become a part of our existence. Therefore we feel we can afford to open our eyes and all our sense perceptions fully.

When relaxation develops in us, through letting go of neurosis and experienceing some sense of space and cool fresh air around us, we begin to feel good about ourselves. We feel that our existence is worthwhile. In turn we feel that our communication with others could also be worthwhile and pure and good. On the whole we begin to feel that we are not cheating anybody; we are not making anything up on the spot. We begin to feel that we are fully genuine. From that point of view, one of the basic principles of a work of art is the absence of lying. Genuine art tells the truth.

In this regard, poetic license is dubious. Stretching your logic to the extreme and supporting others or yourself through indulgence of any kind, or because you are good and popular and technically right, does not apply to dharma art at all. Everything has to be done with genuineness, as it actually is, in the name of basic beauty and basic goodness. Whenever no basic goodness or basic beauty is expressed, what you do is neurotic and destructive. You must not destroy people with your art through poetic license.

Some artists feel they have the right to create neurosis in their artwork in the name of art. Lots of people have done just that, and they have succeeded because when you attach yourself to other people’s neurosis, you are bound to be successful. Cultivating other people’s sanity is obviously more difficult. Nonetheless, you cannot jump the gun and latch on to the easy way out for the sake of making lots of money or becoming a big name. There has to be the basic integrity of maintaining our human society in a state of sanity. That is and should be the only way to work with art. The purpose of a work of art is bodhisattva action. This means that your production, manifestation, demonstration, and performance should be geared toward waking people up from their neurosis.

Being an “artist” is not an occupation, it is your life, your whole being. From the time you wake up in the morning, when the buzzer in your clock rings to get you up, until you go to bed, every perception you experience is an expression of vision—the light coming through your window, the hot-water kettle boiling to make tea, the sizzling of the bacon on the stove, the way your children get up with a yawn and your wife comes down in her dressing gown into the kitchen. If you limit that by saying “I am an artist,” that is terrible. It is showing disrespect for your discipline. We could safely say that there is no such thing as an artist, or art-ism, at all. There is just art—dharma art, hopefully.

My first important project here is to let everybody know that dharma art means not creating further pollution in society; dharma art means creating greater vision and greater sanity. This is a very important point. I would like to repeat it again and again and again so that we have an idea of what direction we are going in. I am not here to present a Buddhist gimmick, so that you can give your artwork a further twist, saying that you have studied with a Buddhist teacher and taken part in the Buddhist world. Instead, what we are trying to do is to be very genuine and benevolent and basic, so that we do not create passion, aggression, and ignorance in ourselves or in our audience. That is a very important point, and I would be completely appalled if we achieved the opposite result. I would commit seppuku on the spot.

2. C
REATION

“Being an artist is not an occupation; it is your life, your whole being.”

The principle of heaven, earth, and man seems to be basic to a work of art. Although this principle has the ring of visual art, it also could be applied to auditory art such as poetry or music, as well as to physical or three-dimensional art. The principle of heaven, earth, and man applies to calligraphy, painting, interior decoration, building a city, creating heaven and earth, designing an airplane or an ocean liner, organizing the dishwashing by choosing which dish to wash first, or vacuuming the floor. All of those works of art are included completely in the principle of heaven, earth, and man.

The heaven, earth, and man principle comes from the Chinese tradition, and it was developed further in Japan. Currently the phrase “heaven, earth, and man” is very much connected with the tradition of ikebana, or Japanese flower arranging, but we should not restrict it to that. If you study the architectural vision of a place such as Nalanda University in India, or if you visit Bodhgaya, with its stupa and its compound, or the Buddhist and Hindu temple structures of Indonesia, you see that they are all founded on the heaven, earth, and man principle. This principle is also seen in the interior decor of temples built in medieval times and occupied by a group of practitioners: monks, deities, lay students, and their teacher. The principle of heaven, earth, and man is also reflected in the makeup of the imperial courts of China, Japan, and Korea, and in their official hierarchy, which included an emperor, empress, ministers, subjects, and so forth. In horseback riding, the rider, the horse, and his performance are connected with the heaven, earth, and man principle, which also applies to archery and swordsmanship. Anything we do, traditionally speaking, whether it is Occidental or Oriental, contains the basic principle of heaven, earth, and man. At this point we are talking about the heaven, earth, and man principle from the artist’s point of view rather than the audience’s.

In the concept of heaven, earth, and man, the first aspect is heaven. The heaven principle is connected with nonthought, or vision. The idea of heaven is like being provided with a big canvas, with all the oil paints, and a good brush. You have an easel in front of you, and you have your smock on, ready to paint. At that point you become frightened, you want to chicken out, and you do not know what to do. You might think, “Maybe I should skip the whole thing, have a few more coffees or something.” You might have blank sheets of paper and a pen sitting on your desk, and you are about to write poetry. You begin to pick up your pen with a deep sigh—you have nothing to say. You pick up your instrument and do not know what note to play. That first space is heaven, and it is the best one. It is not regarded as regression, particularly; it is just basic space in which you have no idea what
it
is going to do or what
you
are going to do about it or put into it. This initial fear of inadequacy may be regarded as heaven, basic space, complete space. Such fear of knowledge is not all that big a fear, but a gap in space that allows you to step back. It is one’s first insight, a kind of positive bewilderment.

Then, as you look at your canvas or your notepad, you come up with a first thought of some kind, which you timidly try out. You begin to mix your paints with your brush, or to scribble timidly on your notepad. The slogan “First thought is best thought!” is an expression of that second principle, which is earth.

The third principle is called man. The man principle confirms the original panic of the heaven principle and the “first thought best thought” of the earth principle put together. You begin to realize that you have something concrete to present. At that point there is a sense of joy and a slight smile at the corners of your mouth, a slight sense of humor. You can actually say something about what you are trying to create. That is the third principle, man.

So we have heaven, earth, and man. To have all three principles, first you have to have the sky; then you have to have earth to complement the sky; and having sky and earth already, you have to have somebody to occupy that space, which is man. It is like creation, or genesis. This principle of heaven, earth, and man is connected with the ideal form of a work of art, although it includes much more than that. And, to review, all of what we have discussed so far is based on the ground of health, on the idea of complete coolness, and a general sense of sanity.

3. P
ERCEPTION

“There is such a thing as unconditional expression that does not come from self or other. It manifests out of nowhere like mushrooms in a meadow, like hailstones, like thundershowers.”

Having discussed the heaven, earth, and man principle in connection with the process of perception in
creating
a work of art, we could discuss what takes place in the individual who
witnesses
a work of art. First we discussed the perception and now we are discussing the perceiver, in that order. By perceiver we mean somebody who witnesses art—or, in fact, witnesses anything. As we discussed yesterday, the process of perception is connected with one’s state of mind, the general artistic environment, and the concept of art which has been formed.

In the ordinary nondharmic world, people judge a work of art by the fame and glory of the artist and by what it costs to buy it. Suppose Picasso made a little scratch in the corner of a paper and signed his name underneath—that paper would sell for a lot of money. As artists, you may think that this is the right approach, but it remains very mysterious why, when that same little scratch could have been made by anybody else, you still regard it as a great work of art because it sells for a million dollars. There is a lot of gullibility of that type, particularly in America.

We are also bound by the scientific approach of too many facts and figures. If you teach art in a college, you might be appreciated more for having your facts and figures lined up than for having artistic talent, beyond the neurotic level. This is like saying theologians should know how many hours Jesus Christ prayed in his lifetime. If they can come up with the statistics, we regard them as great teachers of theology. We find that same problem in many artistic disciplines. Ikebana, or Japanese flower arrangements, are now being measured scientifically to determine which angles are best for arranging branches. The person who puts the branches in the frog, or kenzan, at the correct angles is regarded as the best flower arranger. Everything has been computerized. In archery, you look through a sight on your bow so that you can shoot precisely, as though you had a gun rather than a bow and an arrow.

We lose a tremendous amount of spontaneity through relying too much on calculation and scientific artistry, computerized knowledge. Obviously, there is room for some of that: the power and the precision of a work of art can be scientifically measured. But from the practitioner’s point of view, the whole thing can be so watered down by that approach that human beings aren’t even needed. Robots might produce the best works of art, because robots are better able to be programmed than human beings, who sometimes are not very yielding and who carry their own individualism. A work of art has to be both spontaneous and accurate. Because of your spontaneity, therefore, you could be accurate. The overly scientific approach of having accuracy first and then some kind of programmed spontaneity is problematic. It could lead to the destruction of art.

In order to understand the perceiver or witnesser of art, it is important to discuss perception in general, the way we perceive things based on the principles of
seeing
and
looking.
From the nontheistic point of view of the buddhadharma, we could safely say that first we
look
and then we
see.
Whether we are executing a work of art or witnessing one, first we
look
and then we
see.

From the theistic point of view, it may be said that first we
see
and then we
look,
which is an interesting reversal, or double take. The problem with that approach is that when we
see,
we are also trying to
look,
and we have no idea what we are trying to look at. If we look everywhere, we may come up with a good answer—but it is quite likely that we will come up with no answer. We are confused because we first saw something and then we tried to look at it, which is like trying to catch a fish with our bare hands. It is a very slippery situation, trying to catch the phenomenal world in that way. The phenomenal world is not all that pliable. Each time we try to grasp it, we lose it, and sometimes we miss altogether. We might be trying to hold on to the wrong end of the stick. It’s very funny, but it’s very sad, too.