The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (43 page)

We could execute a calligraphy for joining heaven and earth together. It might be a little calligraphy, quite a tiny one, maybe a very humble one. We begin in the west and go toward the east.

6. A
RT AND
S
OCIETY

“In dharma art, what we are trying to do is to tame our society, including ourselves.”

On a larger level, dharma art is connected with the idea of how to clean up setting-sun vision [the small world of aggression, passion, and ignorance] and transform it into what is known as Great Eastern Sun vision. That is our purpose altogether. The idea of Great Eastern Sun in this context has nothing to do with chauvinism or aggression. Ironically, the words that we have come up with to describe Great Eastern Sun—humbleness and genuineness—are the opposite of chauvinism and aggression. Other qualities associated with Great Eastern Sun are a sense of precision, warmth, kindness, and gentleness. Such humbleness, gentleness, kindness, and warmth are all very important for us as artists and as ordinary decent human beings.

Another term connected with dharma art is “positive arrogance.” From the dictionary’s point of view, positive arrogance sounds contradictory, but from an experiential point of view, there is a lot of room for positive arrogance. In fact, the whole heaven, earth, and man principle is a presentation of positive arrogance. At the beginning, we might not have any idea what we are going to execute on our drawing boards, our notepads, or on our canvases. We might feel lost. But something suddenly perks us up, which is positive arrogance. That arrogance has nothing to do with chauvinism. Chauvinism is one-sided: you support either this side or that side, this or that, me or them. With positive arrogance, chauvinism doesn’t come into the picture at all.

The basic vision is that we would like to organize and create a decent society. We could be slightly, positively arrogant by even saying “enlightened society.” Can we take that much arrogance? Shall we say it or not? We are not particularly afraid of saying enlightened society; at the same time, we do not want to offend any of you. You might think that enlightened society means something very haughty and unreasonable and aggressive. Obviously we have to go step by step in creating an enlightened society. We can’t approach it like putting up a tent on the spot, right away. Creating such a society will be a journey for each one of us, myself included. It will be a very slow journey, to begin with. The first part of the journey will be very, very slow, and it will be difficult to see the progress we are making. We might question whether we are making progress at all. But as we take this very slow journey, we begin to realize that progress is not a question anymore. We begin to see, “Ah, something’s taking place!” There is a flash of goodness taking place in our perspective. We begin to develop a wonderful sense of head and shoulders as we practice, as we become authentic artists. We begin to take pride in that. That pride could be connected with enlightenment.

We can make the journey. We do not fool ourselves with concepts and ideas. There is evidence for that in the past, and we can always refer back to the 2,500-year history of Buddhist success, Buddhist vision. Buddhist vision has always been built on this kind of slow journey, which finally makes sense and begins to create tremendous sparks, tremendous explosions, unexpectedly. Sometimes you might think that certain areas or corners are not worth investigating, and you just let them go. But suddenly, to your surprise, you begin to see that the very corner you have neglected has a spark, here and there, all the time. That spark is known as the spark of enlightened society.

I would like you to develop basic gentleness and kindness in yourselves as artists and in your audience, whoever they may be. To begin with, please don’t push your trips, and please be gentle to yourselves. Every calligraphy you have seen and all the explanations you have heard represent that vision of gentleness, which has several shades: gray gentleness, maybe silver gray; red gentleness, very red like an open wound; gray green gentleness, which complements the redness of the flash and the basic silver gray, and in turn the redness begins to shine through. Suppose you have an arrangement of colors which is basically silver gray, and you add some areas of green gray. It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But if you actually do that in a color arrangement, you will find that it produces a dynamic situation.

The four karmas are a very interesting point of reference. As you know, the shapes of the four karmas are connected with the colors blue, yellow, red, and green. If we simplify that color perspective by combining those four colors into two—the ideal, traditional result is lemon yellow and purple. Those two colors were the imperial colors in the courts of China, Japan, Korea, and India, and in the empire of Ashoka as well. The lemon yellow [number 116 in the PMS color chart used by designers] is traditionally a high-class yellow, connected with strength and the father, or king, principle. And the particular shade of purple [number 266 in the PMS color chart] is considered to be a high-class purple. It is the ultimate idea of the feminine, or queen, principle. When the masculine principle and the feminine principle are joined together, you have the complete accomplishment of all four karmas—pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and destroying. Everything is accomplished that way. You might wonder why and how everything is accomplished in that way. I don’t think I can actually give you any answer to that. Obviously I could cook up some scientific reasons, but I don’t think that is the point. The idea is that you should actually see those colors and put them together.

The whole purpose is to soothe aggression and passion and ignorance. Everybody wants to learn so much and wants to do their best. Such enthusiasm and exertion might be all right, but on the other hand, it could become a killer. If you relate with situations too intensely, you begin to lose the gentleness and genuineness which are the essence of art. In dharma art, what we are trying to do is to tame our society, including ourselves, if I may say so. We could be more decent and less experimental, in the sense that we don’t use a lot of aggressive ways to try to prove our theories. Instead, we learn to relax and settle down into our discipline, whatever we are doing—whether we are making films or riding horses, whether we are photographers, painters, musicians, land-scapers, or interior decorators. In this way of thinking, a linguist or scientist is also an artist. Scientific research is regarded as a work of art because scientific discipline also needs tremendous gentleness. Otherwise it becomes a way of experimenting with the universe, in which you cut everybody down and open their lungs and hearts on the clean carpet of your drawing room.

We have tremendous integrity and a scheme, if you like, to make our world and our understanding workable. The only thing we want to do is to invite human beings to take part in something very real and gentle and beautiful, all at the same time. There is often a problem with the traditional scientific or business mentality, because although it might suggest how to succeed, it lacks knowledge of how to make friends, or how to be warm. That becomes a tremendous obstacle. When we begin to realize how to become warm and to make friends with our world—when that kind of breakthrough takes place—then there is no problem at all in introducing buddhadharma into our art.

The essence of buddhadharma is compassion and kindness, one of the fundamental components of enlightened mind. Enlightened mind consists of
prajna
, or “discriminating awareness,” and karuna, or friendship and kindness. When there is both kindness and discriminating awareness, you have a complete outfit, so to speak. You have acquired a pair of spectacles with a good prescription and also clean. Then you can look through them at your world.

We have to be so genuine and gentle. Otherwise there is no way to work with the universe at all. You have a tremendous responsibility: the first is to yourself, to become gentle and genuine; the second is to work for others in that same way. It is very important to realize how powerful all of us are. What we are doing may seem insignificant, but this notion of dharma art will be like an atomic bomb you carry in your mind. You could play a tremendous role in developing peace throughout the world.

SELECTED CALLIGRAPHIES

Grant your blessings so that my mind may be one with the dharma.

Grant your blessings so that dharma may progress along the path.

Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify confusion.

Grant your blessings so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.

AH

“The Four Dharmas of Gampopa” is a traditional daily chant, evoking the heart of the spiritual path in a few pithy phrases.

No date, Karmê Chöling

Ink on paper, 30 × 20 in. (76 × 51 cm.)

Signed: Chökyi Gyatso

Evam seal

Collection of Karmê Chöling

“You take refuge in the Buddha not as a savior—not with the feeling that you have found something to make you secure—but as an example, as someone you can emulate. . . . Then you take refuge in the teachings of the Buddha—the dharma—as path. . . . Having taken refuge in the Buddha as an example and the dharma as path, you take refuge in the sangha as companionship. . . . The three jewels—the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha—become a part of your existence and you thrive on that, you work with that, you live on that.”
¹

1973, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Ink on paper, 18 × 12 in. (46 × 30 cm.)

Signed: Chögyam

No seal

Wedding gift

Collection of Mipham and Abbie Halpern

Hum

“In the boundless space of suchness,