The Arts and Meditation

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(16) The ARTS, Art-Making & Meditation

The ARTS, SPRITUALITY & MEDITATION

• ART :: it's Ancient 'Relationship' with Meditation

• The Benefits to art-maker's mindfulness & awareness.

• NO 'BELIEFS' - just watching, witnessing, just observing.

Reality without 'beliefs', without 'faith-in', without buying-in.

• Silly ZEN Story about "The Purpose of Meditation"

• “ARTIVIST” Film Festival, first international film festival

recognizing socially conscious filmmakers & causes.

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“Meditation ...a doorway to

the significantly

deep unconscious.”

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Meditation and the Art-maker

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a few words about The Arts and it's 'relationship' with Meditation

The ARTS, SPRITUALITY & MEDITATION
An ancient highly productive partnership that's
been going on in all world cultures for millennia –
so we're not going into humanity’s amazing story here,

spanning all cultures world-wide ! A Mindful Meditative Artful Sacredness.

The ARTs always were of 'SPIRIT', a human’s higher-expression of "The Sacred".

The Applied Arts richly emerging from Tao & Buddhist Zen Mindfulness Practice

in ancient & modern Japan took form over many centuries & dynasties, for instance:

Bonsai miniature potted tree-art, Butoh modern motivations for 'conceptual' dance,

performance or movement, Geisha mindful gesture, Haiku poetry, Zen gardens,

Healing & Shaman ritual, Ikebana flower arranging, Manga comic book art & Anime

animated film, Nanga formal painting, Negative Space-use in art, Masks, Dance

and Noh Theater classic musical drama, Raku pottery & painted lacquerware, Temple

and Religious Icon craft and ceremony, Samurai Bushido ethics and Sword-making,

Tantric Erotic Art to the graceful noble Tea Ceremony, Temple Chanting and Sacred

Music, Zenga ink calligraphy and Sumi-e brush painting.

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Art-making, art-viewing or art-experiencing

are inherently 'contemplative' activities . . .

that naturally benefit from meditation ~

Meditation strengthens the art maker's mindfulness and awareness.

Meditation enhances the creative and viewing processes in specific ways –

it helps to synchronize mind and body, right and left hemispheres of the brain,

and our intuitive and intellectual abilities. The mindfulness & awareness practices

found in meditation develop our perception so that we may see and experience things

as they truly are. This leads us to genuine spontaneity and pure, un-selfconscious, full

expression. A 'creative process' based in the practice of meditation dissolves creative

blockages, reveals the source of creativity, leading to clear perception.

In the 'experiencing-process', meditation develops intuition, our pure felt-sense, sharpens

our native intelligence and can lead us towards an experience of the aesthetically profound

or sublime – where our felt & thought senses come together – to further awaken the 'creative'

and the 'viewing' processes.

~ Steven Saitzyk - Professor, Humanities & Sciences, Art Center College of Design – Los Angeles

and International Director of Shambhala Art

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we currently have a few artists of different mediums

sitting mindful awareness-meditation with us now.
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The Practice of MEDITATION:

The Benefits ? – enhances & strengthens

the art-maker's mindfulness & awareness.

“Meditation ...a doorway to

the significantly

deep unconscious.”

“Before meditation, before I used to ‘sit’ regularly

like I do now – I used to be only semi-conscious

and impulsively leap at the first images n’ things

that arose in my mind, and at what soon became

so banal - but I’d already started on it, or often

got way into it. But now I simply meditate and wait.

Sometimes I can wait quite awhile quite patiently.

I’ve simply learned to quietly wait by training myself.

That’s all, just that. I’m training myself in stillness.

And in the stillness the deeper regions of my mind

slowly unfold - and I only observe, not reacting,

not seizing on anything, not grasping. Just

witnessing and waiting. I see so much now.” ~ J.L.

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Thru a willing, consistent meditation practice -

gradually & naturally you expand & deepen

an authentic, attentive, open, clear, uncluttered,

wide, roomy, calm spacious field of awareness -
less & less disturbed by ongoing, shallow, chaotic,
obsessively running mental-images & commentary -
a panoramic field - toned, strengthened & stabilized
with a naturalistic meditation practice-approach ~ art

uncompromised with 'religion' or prescribed methods -
so you can have it readily available to you personally -
effortlessly, open, spontaneous & without efforting ....
Ah, then there's lots n' lots of vivid, deep, rich room
for true creative manifestation to naturally arise
in that much more silent, more user-friendly field
of e x p a n d e d awareness that's now all yours.
Just learn to begin to sit still sans ego. Simplistic?

Of course it is. It's just that you're not 'simple' yet !

Ahh, but soon... your subtle depths are calling...

~ Akasa Levi

BTW, Some really good ancient Buddhist Art ~

http://www.buddhanet.net/gallery.htm

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"If one's thoughts towards 'spirituality'

were of the same passionate intensity

as those of a couple falling in 'love' –

one would become a Buddha right now,

in this very body, in this very life."

~ from The Love Poems of the Sixth Dalai Lama ( 1703 AD )

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“ART” is what You call 'That'.

What I call 'That' - is just That.

~ William Eggleston, photographer

Since all things are essentially naked,

clear and free from obscurations –

at least from their side, of course . . . .

There is nothing to 'attain' or 'realize'.

The 'Everyday Practice' of a practical

'Everyday Enlightenment' is simply

to 'd e v e l o p' into all situations,

and all emotions, and to all people –

as they simply come to you . . .

experiencing everything totally

without reservations and blockages -

so that one never withdraws, or aloof,

or centralizes back onto oneself.

~ Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

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The ARTS, SPRITUALITY & MEDITATION: The Benefits –
Meditation strengthens the art-maker's mindfulness & awareness.

No "Beliefs" – A Core Understanding of Buddhism"

No 'beliefs': just watching, witnessing, perceiving, just noticing,

just investigating, just observing, observing, observing, observing'

– with absolute 'bare attentiveness' – just seeing, hearing, feeling –

without 'beliefs', without 'faith-in', without buying-in. Holy Indifferent.

No demand. No identifying with it. See it clearly, maybe leave it entirely alone.

Not psychologizing about it, not rationalizing, reasoning, justifying, not storytelling.

Not dismissing, not banishing, not fixing it, not meddling. Just observing, observing.

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A Silly Solipsistic Zen Story about

the ‘Real Purpose’ of Meditation Training?

Taken from true facts, as the story so goes, Bhante Sudu Hom'dru,

was an American Buddhist monk who grew up on a small chicken farm near Woodstock, NY.

Now barefoot, painfully, mindfully walking the narrow ridges of hot sun-baked clay crossing a

dry rice paddy field near Bodhgaya, North India, mid 1970’s – with his noble Samurai-blooded

Japanese Zen monk-teacher Shibuya Sensei. Once a teenager questing through an Elvis 50’s,

this delusively-romantic, magical-thinking American always wanted his very own Zen teacher-

friend ever since finding alternatives in ‘Jazz’, finding Jack Kerouac’s 'Beat' open On The Road,

and especially late night radio-listening to early Jean Shepard dramatically invoke the mystical

Fu Manchu or intone a good Haiku - circa 1958 - when ‘hip’ was shared among the very sparse

few who knew. This funny, yet indignant Jewish ‘young soul’ evolved into this really ‘old soul’

robed sanyassi that partially ‘awakened’ himself way outside a parched desert village in India.

It was high-noon in ‘search of secret India’ – so he gave up looking to Hesse’s Siddhartha for

guidance or Gurdjieff’s elusive Meetings With Remakable Men to lead him forward - and thus

became a monk himself – and he ironically found an ‘identity’ to finish-up all identity-seeking –

that Long Last Role of the Lone Monk – And it was still so bloody hot. Foolish barefoot yogi !

This novice, this overheated new monk had a Question: This monk always had a question.

Like a persistent child. Yet, it is so sad so many of us loose that quality early on in life. ‘Answers’

offered don’t seem to ultimately do it for us, nor permanently resolve anything & we stop ‘asking’.

Many of the monk's questions usually began with the same lead-in: "What is the 'purpose' of . .

this or that or such n' such"? This monk was still involved with ‘reasons’ & ‘purposes’ to things

or ideas. Lots of ‘content’, still little wisdom-‘context’. He hadn’t re-discovered his ‘wonder’ yet.

Except he did begin to see that it all is an unconsciously performed stage ‘magic show’ for him

to 'observe' everyday ‘illusions’ – just our fumbling attempts at some self-conscious Human Hocus

Pokus – manifesting here alongside Nature’s Grand Guileless Illusions. This monk knew he was

fragile, still fascinated by a tempting-performance. He asked Questions to sizably reduce his options.

“Oh, I've seen that – another ‘Repeat’ on TV t’nite”. Wisdom thins out repeat shows. Less to cling to.

"Sensei?" he asked him e.nun.ci.a.ting in slow, simple words because Sensei’s English

at the time was not too good. "What is the purpose of Zen-training?" Sensei responded warp

speed in his Asian-accented English – "To become aseempahton." Well, not getting the word

quite discernable at all - the young monk asked once again, "Sensei? – What is the real purpose

of Zen-training?" So Shibuya Sensei patiently repeated again & again, till the word finally punched

itself through – the esoterically mysterious word WAS now finally, clearly comprehendible at last –

"Ahh ~ Purpose of Zen training is to become a-seem-pah-ton – a-seem-pah-ton - and he wiggled

his wagging fingers wildly in the air for the briefest moment – then tapped his fingers on the young

monk's smooth-shaven monk-head. "Seem-pah-ton" – "The Purpose of Zen training is to become

a Simpleton". They both had a good chuckle. They then continued to walk on in silence. The monk

thought about how having a simpleton’s empty-head could allow room for more Space and Peace

to be in his simplifying mind – BE his mind ! So he could see better with it - make wiser, kinder

choices with it - and now 'know' simple happiness. He then stubbed his toe on a clump of clay.

"F#@k" –– But no Katsu shout of Satori today! ~ Bhante Sudu Hom'dru ( 1975 )

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“ARTIVIST” ( Activist-Artists )

is the first International Film Festival dedicated

to addressing Human Rights, Children's Advocacy, Animal Rights and

Environmental Preservation. Its mission is to strengthen the voice and visibility

of international ‘Activist-Artists’ - "Artivists" - raising a vocal public awareness

for social global humanitarian causes.

Past & present honorees include Activist-Artists who are quite renown activist-actors

and celebrity activists: this is another new film-festival - and seems to be a good one.

see http://www.artivists.org ~or~ http://artivists.org/Artivist_Film_Festival.php

The Festival’s supporters include Hollywood’s most concerned. The Artivist Awards

also pay tribute to highly regarded international organizations. Please visit their site.

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Aesthetic & Artist & Activist & Ascetic & Altruist

all in a very special relationship with the world around them

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