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Post by jhananda on Dec 28, 2010 17:56:08 GMT -5
Hello friends, Don and I have posted a lot of comment on Contemplative and Ecstatic Art on the recovery thread, so I thought it would be better if we moved any further discussion of the mystics in the arts here.
Love to all, Jeffrey
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Post by jhananda on Jan 1, 2011 15:13:02 GMT -5
Back to the issue of art and audience, I was just reading the profile of someone I knew long ago, who now writes about himself as one of Canada's 'leading composers'. The pictures and awards, the self promotion, it just turns my guts inside, I can't picture myself so blatantly self promoting, it hurts, it feels dishonest, even when I consider myself a better composer than he! Relative notions, he is not bad, but what you said about the act of making art, as an activity, is highly personal, but then when it enters a community of other art works, it takes on a life of its own, it makes different statements for different people, and it is this sense of dialogue that I believe is what is connected to the issue of 'recognition' in my own view. Creating art, is like coming into dialogue with ourselves, and then that work enters into other forms of dialogue as it is heard a 'co-created' with other 'listener's' experience of that work. Why do people need to be 'a leading artist' of a country, I don't see him that way, who does he think he is fooling? Leading who? Leading what? Like the pied piper leading us all astray. Or like you mentioned Jeffrey, that only a true mystic can bring another to mysticism, all others, the self-proclaimed 'leaders' do nothing but deceive themselves and others while receiving the grants and awards, recognition, and the sense of 'full-filling' a career path? These are the fake priests, the ones who have not yet seen through there own delusion. I read interviews with him, and come away with nothing, a description of his current big 'opera' project, garbage. I could go on but will pause here... Happy new year to all, best, Don Well, there are a lot of self-serving people in the world. Some of them are Buddhist priests, and some of them megalomaniacs, and some of them are artists. In any of these cases a rigorous contemplative, who is intent upon enlightenment in this very lifetime can only do his or her best to get out of their way, survive, and get enlightened. The rest is gravy. As an artist I am well-aware that most of the "famous artists" of the 20th century were made famous so that art investors could improve their art investment. The skill of the artist had nothing at all to do with it. Best, Jeffrey
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Post by jhananda on Jan 10, 2011 9:25:55 GMT -5
Jeffrey, were we ever non-dual? It seems an interesting point in regard to the the music, how music seems to have evolved with the idea of a separation between the music and the listener, creating a space 'between' them. Or perhaps this is related to the rise of music as a commodity, thought of in terms of how it will appeal and sell to a particular audience, as opposed to how it will sound in the close proximity of a small chamber, sounded between friends after an evening meal. The general tendency in new music these days is to perform music in living rooms, lofts, odd warehouse like spaces, I guess in an effort to return the listener to a place where there is no 'separation' between the music, the listener, and the 'act' of experiencing the music. Because really the music is what happens inside us, which is never the same for any one person. It seems the rise of the concert hall, and standardization of instruments, was an effort to create a kind of uniformity, or a certain predefined notion of 'clarity', and what that means, for a particular era of musical 'taste'. All interconnected, or fighting against, the particular 'insanity' of the rest of the world around it, and which gave birth to it. Hello Don, and thank-you for posting your interesting comments to this forum. I copied your comments and responded to you here on this sub-forum, where I believe it is more relavant. I do not happen to subscribe to many of the ideas that PureLand Buddhism advances, such as the non-existence of the material world. I find the idea is an incorrect interpretation of impermanence (anicca). So, while I find the 8 stages of contemplation (samadhi) relatively non-dual, I do not happen to believe this represents a place where all beings have come from, but possibly a destination for all beings who lead a rigorous contemplative life. Your comments on the evolution of music are most interesting. While the standardization of musical instruments has also created some standardization of music, as a musician I am sure you value the improvement in musical instruments has allowed you to improve your music and your enjoyment of creating music. Best regards, Jeffrey
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Post by jhananda on Jan 19, 2011 20:23:23 GMT -5
Dear Jeffrey, I find no sooner have I posted a question than I see its flaws, I find my own answers, or fail to have seen anything at all. I was just writing to a friend who was depressed about their work as an artist, where they felt they had failed in the eyes of many of his peers. I replied to him: if you define success in terms of how other people see you, then there is no one to blame for that. I agree that what remains constant through morphological change is what is important in life, however, I also believe that there is much more to life than art. Art is meant to put us more in touch with being, when it fails to do that, it serves a purpose foreign to that, which goes against life itself. Martin has several metaphors he uses to describe this process, wherein art 'casts' off it's forms, defies them, and shows us how identification with them is an illusion. I have to say I find myself yawning a bit when reading these program notes, if you were to just pick up the work of any true mystic, you would find a well-spring infinitely richer than anything Arnold has to offer. But this is in the nature of art, to 're-cast', or 're-invent' itself, meaning, as you mentioned about my own work, that what is essential, never changes. Where I disagree with you concerns 'either you have it or you don't', I would say, 'either you are aware of it, becoming aware of it, or not really'. I think what I saw after writing that reply to my friend, is that mystics have done what all art strives to do, artists glimpse the eternal truths, and 're-cast' them into new forms, forms which can rupture the stagnant energy of a society, freeing it into a more 'enlightened' stages of being. It would seem that art always searches for new ways of seeing, and experiencing being in its manifest state. I agree with you "mystics have done what all art strives to do," mystics "glimpse the eternal truths, and 're-cast' them into new forms, forms which can rupture the stagnant energy of a society, freeing it into a more 'enlightened' stages of being." However, artists, who are not mystics are not likely to have the necessary insight to glimpse the eternal truths.
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Post by don on Jan 21, 2011 18:26:16 GMT -5
Jeffrey, who are the great artists? And who are the shallow commercialized ones? Can we create a criteria for the recognition of great art? Mystics can be artists, but what are artists then? Aspiring mystics or simply contemplatives at best?
When I listen to performers, such as Glenn Gould, I cannoy help but think he must have been in Jahana, at what level I dont know, but I would say at best he would go into 3rd or 4th level Jhana? How else could he play like that?
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Post by don on Jan 22, 2011 17:08:28 GMT -5
Jeffrey, I am beginning to think about my project proposal for a masters thesis, and I feel that I must bridge and make it clear that art aspires to this level of mysticism that it never reaches, that in its essence, arts may create works of beauty far greater than any mystic, the beauty they find is always marked by the sadness of its ineffability, of its transience, or any range of strange emotions and thought forms that lend themselves to being shown than said. Most of the great mystics were really 'faceless' authors, speakers of a truth that trancended the hang-ups faced by your average artist, or even great one for that matter. But do you think there is a way to discuss the relationship between the arts and mysticism that points towards their commonalities, and essential differences? Sorry if that is rambling, its still a difficult, a messy idea at the moment.
love to all, don
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Post by jhananda on Jan 23, 2011 10:15:12 GMT -5
Hello Don, a thesis that is "based upon the relationship between the arts and mysticism that points towards their commonalities, and essential differences" sounds like a good idea. When I was working on a BFA I wrote a number of papers on the subject. I recall Kandinsky wrote on a book on the subject, which was one of the few I could find to build my bibliography with.
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Post by don on Jan 23, 2011 16:04:38 GMT -5
Jeffrey, it seems to me that the arts are all about the transformation of matter into spirit. Like an alchemical process of transforming base metal into gold.
Each art deals with a specific aspect of 'language' from within a particular cultural context, the artist being as much a part of that context as the subject of the art.
Base language is transformed into poetry, or literature, it is made to do what it was never intended to do, or perhaps what it was only ever intended to do. Sound is transformed, or composed, into song, into vibrating sound waves that produce meaning where there was once only sound. The physical and visual nature of matter are transformed into spiritual essence, and so on.
Culture then becomes a venue through which to access the divine and spiritual in nature. It can only follow that there will come a time when we can do nothing but create art in a world that is nothing but art work, producing a play and interchange between spirit and matter, but where the spiritual has become the place from where we see 'everything'. In this sense, the idea that "art will become the 'religion' of the future" makes perfect sense.
The nature of the sciences and arts is the same, they both search, creatively, for beauty, logic, and sense in a very strange world, but a world that hopefully is made even stranger because of it.
Children will be born into a world where there is no resistance to fulfilling there creative and spiritual nature, free to become whatever they will their imagination to be - perfect, fulfilled, ecstatic, or enlightened...
What do you think?
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Post by jhananda on Jan 24, 2011 8:59:32 GMT -5
Hello Don, while I agree that artists tend to have greater self-awareness than the average person, they are rarely contemplatives. And, mystics are all about being rigorous contemplatives in search of ecstatic altered states of consciousness, which tends to be a full-time occupation. Nonetheless, I am willing to consider that some artists are mystics, but I am sure they are the exception and not the rule.
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Post by don on Jan 24, 2011 13:10:23 GMT -5
Jeffrey, I'm actually not really arguing one way or the other, your average artist is indeed an everyman, situated in every form of neurotic behavior that characterizes our insane world.
The reason these people generally gravitate towards the arts, though, in whatever form that may be, is usually because of some sense of self awareness, that you mentioned. In my own case, that certainly was the guiding force.
Arguably, however, being engaged in an artistic discipline like learning an instrument, or painting, or writing, and so on, from an early age, I most certainly would say, is a 'contemplative' activity that can lead to charisms, and generally does lead towards a deepening of 'spiritual' attainment that becomes productive, and directly connected to, an artistic activity; in the same way as mediation does for others. It stills the mind.
And as a child, or young adult, having cultivated energy that leads to charismatic phenomenon that is channeled through an artistic discipline, I would argue that artists, skilled artists, from a relatively young age, are indeed contemplatives. Look at Glenn Gould as a prime example, a performer, but any great artist for that matter. Bach. In my own case, as a not so famous artist, in fact a not famous at all artist, that certainly was true.
I believe where many people get it wrong, is in the belief that art is some form of mechanical gymnastics, that with enough repetition, anyone can do. Or that it is just a trick, that has nothing to do with the person who did it. Or despite how cool the trick was, it doesn't mean the person has any special spiritual attainment that they are aware of. Although certainly true in much art, this was not the point of my previous post, so whether that person in question who did the cool trick is a contemplative or not, is not what I was aiming to make any claim about. As I already mentioned, artists are usually your everyday, everyman, nobody - great or not.
But the reason art is often dismissed as nothing more than a personal pass time, is that artists do not usually understand their gifts, even if they do live in the same world as mystics, a world that not only burns them at the stake, but refuses to listen, value, or even attempt to understand what they - 'common insane people' - are unable to 'identify' with.
The mystic is perhaps doubly troubled, because unlike an artist, they have no 'proof' at all of their attainment, just words that may or may not coincide with the words of another mystic, dead for 22 centuries. Those words can also be found in 2nd hand book stores, learned and spit out to anyone willing to listen.
Anyways, that was just a lead up back to my previous post, which was in fact aiming to say something quite different...
Does that make sense Jeffrey? I'm trying to be clear but maybe I'm off track here...
Love to all, Don
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Post by jhananda on Jan 25, 2011 8:53:29 GMT -5
My mother was a musician, my father was an engineer, my oldest sister was a dancer, and my other sister was a visual artist, and I took up photography at an early age. Artists of all kinds were around the house all of the time throughout my childhood, so I know from personal experience with the arts and artists that, yes, art tends to be a self-aware activity; however, most artists are more neurotic than the average person.
Also, from leading a rigorous, self-aware contemplative life for nearly 4 decades and thus being around contemplatives all of that time, then I am aware that most people who define themselves as contemplatives are rarely deeply self-ware. I have found in most cases people engaged in religious pursuits are as neurotic as the average artist.
The transformative difference is when people do not cover up their neuroses with mountains of religiousity or artistic behavior, and truly lead a consistent and rigorous, self-aware contemplative life.
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Post by don on Jan 25, 2011 19:12:44 GMT -5
Artist=neurotic, yes it certainly seems to go part and parcel with the job description, for sure, but what are we defining as 'self aware', as opposed to talented, or someone who does indeed enter a contemplative state of mind when engaged with art? I define a serious artist as someone who engages daily for several hours in the creation of art, neurotic, ambitious, or not.
I would say that the art work itself, is of the same nature as religious iconography, the purpose of which is to bring a person to a state of inner contemplation/awareness, a trip of sorts, from which the person leaves transformed in some manner, however small or great that may be.
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Post by jhananda on Jan 27, 2011 8:19:05 GMT -5
Hello Don, and thank-you for posting your interesting comments. While many artists are neurotic, and I would add many religious people are also especially neurotic, I would not go so far as to say Artist=neurotic, or religious=neurotic, or mystic=neurotic. Because, by definition, one who is a fully developed mystic will have traversed his or her neuroses. Here we should read neuroses=dhukkha.
We should also say that just because someone is an artist does not mean that person is self-aware. And, we should also say, just because someone is self-aware does not make one a mystic and thus free from neuroses. While self-awareness can lead to mysticism, and thus freedom from anxiety (dhukkha); it is nonetheless not a given that it will.
Self-awareness is an aspect of the contemplative life, which equals the larger aspect of meditation. However, meditation and self-awareness are not an end in themselves, but lead to contemplation (samadhi). However, there are 8 stages of contemplation (samadhi). One must master at least the first four stages of contemplation (samadhi) to be sufficiently liberated as to say one is free from anxiety (dhukkha).
While the practice of the arts can lead to self-awareness, it is not the complete development of the contemplative life. One must also practice meditation, which is not only a highly focused activity of self-awareness, but it is also the cultivation of altered states of consciousness that are characterized by bliss, joy and ecstasy. Few artists report such activity; however, most mystics do.
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Post by don on Jan 27, 2011 14:02:18 GMT -5
Jeffrey, that is very interesting, I have not before made the distinction between meditation and contemplation. It seems like a small point, but to say "i meditate, or I practice mediation" and, "I experience contemplation, or the contemplative states" or two totally different things. One who says they meditate, means next to nothing, we would have to ask, and do you experience contemplation?
And your clarification of neurosis is much appreciated, while many artists/priests/people are neurotic, the point is that neurosis amounts to anxiety, or dukka, which has everything to do with 'the body', or inhabiting the space of the body acting within a world of sensory phenomenon.
I am less comfortable with the following:
While the practice of the arts can lead to self-awareness, it is not the complete development of the contemplative life. One must also practice meditation, which is not only a highly focused activity of self-awareness, but it is also the cultivation of altered states of consciousness that are characterized by bliss, joy and ecstasy. Few artists report such activity; however, most mystics do.
I agree that the practice of art as it is in this day and age, is indeed 'incomplete', most certainly in the way it has become completely divorced from what it means to lead a 'contemplative' life. Surely this is the point of practicing anything! Let alone the arts. I would like to go further into this point, and interconnection between 'creativity' and the contemplative life at a different time.
For the moment, I would only argue that the practice or creation of 'art', is a form of meditation. But like traditional 'meditation', it may not necessarily lead to self-awareness, or contemplative states.
As a rigorous contemplative, and rigorous artist, I have often entered contemplative states while practicing art. In fact it was first through the practice of piano that I entered contemplative states, which I now know in retrospect was 2nd jhana.
If I had been taught music as a form of 'contemplative' practice from the very beginning, (I in fact have encountered virtually no teacher who even mentions the word spiritual), I suspect I would be a better, and more fulfilled artist today.
I would speculate that genuine, professional artists, become increasingly neurotic due to the fact that no one acknowledges, values, respects, or understands, the 'contemplative aspect of art, or the practice of art, and therefore artists, usually blind to their gifts, are driven further into anxiety as they receive less and less recognition for what is indeed the true value of their art.
Glenn Gould at the age of 33 gave up all concertizing and only made recordings, stayed in his room ,only communicated by telephone, slept during the day, worked at night, was drawn to the 'North' (he went to the North Pole), and was ferociously against the exploitation of performers, likening them to circus animals made to perform tricks on a stage...but even still I would agree with you Jeffrey that while he most likely spent much time in Jhana, was highly self aware, he only led a superficial contemplative life, but to be honest, he never really talked about 'spirituality', or about his subjective contemplative experience, he was just there, and probably not even aware that he was different! (He also had Aspergers, I had a student with it, and while very talented, they seem to be unaware of their own condition, that they are any different than other people...but who is to say what is the norm?).
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Post by don on Jan 27, 2011 14:39:15 GMT -5
Re: Technique
Some after thoughts on technique, it would seem the technique to do anything, regarding the body, involves some level of self-awareness. The word 'self-awareness' is in itself a duality, a self, and awareness, becoming aware of the 'self' means a form of 'dis-identification', however small that form of 'letting-go' of the sensory body may be. In learning to play piano, I am teaching students how to become aware of their body, and how it interacts with the instrument. As with meditation, the ones who fail are the ones who get 'stuck' on the technique itself, as an end in itself. So you have failed musicians, or artists in general, who still practice their scales diligently, but in futility. Or those who still must turn on the metronome because they cannot 'feel' the pulse.
Self-awareness would seem to be all about a movement from the 'self' to 'awareness' in itself. The body would seem to be intrinsically uncoordinated, but I don't think it is, that is where 'dukkha' comes into the picture, and all the stress hang-ups that the body has, when we are free of the stress, the body just unfolds and does things magically.
More to come...
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