sacred art vs sacred snake-oil

continuing to make my way through Merton and Buddhism, in particular his experiments with zen calligraphy, a number of questions formed in my mind not entirely unrelated to the dialogue which took place over on Echoes not so long ago. namely, what difficulties and challenges are encountered in the act of creating sacred art? further, how aware of the space in which the art is to be present must the artist be? is it possible (or even necessary) to develop radically new approaches to sacred art inside a tradition that already has well-established and effective means? is it valid for someone outside a given spiritual landscape to create sacred art specific to that tradition? and how wise or effective would it be to adopt forms from within one tradition to employ in another (or employ divorced from any tradition whatsoever)?

i certainly don't pretend to have any answers other than ill-formed and unexperienced opinions. i know for example, my feelings towards the plethora of new age mandalas is somewhat dubious. i imagine that in part this is due to their seeming largely if not wholly divorced from the manner in which mandalas originally were and still are construed and practiced in the context of ritual (and this form is not limited to Vajrayana but has also been employed through the form of Yiddam in the Vedantic faiths and practices).

i don't wish to suggest in giving this example that i believe sacred art must necessarily be limited to the tradition from which it arose. i do believe however that if the act of creation is divorced from the appreciation, understanding and respect of the context in which such a form arose then what we are in danger of being left with is snake-oil. perhaps fashionable and appealing snake-oil but snake-oil nonetheless.

namu amida butsu

interfaith dialogue and the value of practice

right now i'm making my way through Merton and Buddhism, a collection of essays about his encounters and exchanges with the Zen, Theravadin and Tibetan traditions. i'm finding it an interesting and worthwhile read at the moment and being new to Merton's thought, an easy way in. in particular i was interested to come across several comments in a chapter discussing the limitations of his knowledge of and encounters with Buddhism. i think they could serve as an important marker for me as i re-encounter and engage with the Christian tradition in which i was raised -

"After forty years of conversation, people tire of dialogue, because it so often rehearses the same old ground about our common humanity, offering no new insight and no new approach. We bow to one another and cooperate on social issues. All well and good, but that does grow tedious. [...] All this goes without actually delving into any of the actual teachings of these traditions, as if we had never trained ourselves to read scriptures and commentaries, to converse, argue and enjoy the creative tension. All our creative trials and challenges are slipping into a numbing cup of soporific wine of dialogic oblivion. Perhaps so afraid of past sectarianism, this age of ours seems to have become enamoured of a new type of untiarian sameness. [...] a naive belief that no doctrine or directed practice is any more valuable than any other"
- Keenan J., Ch.6, p.129

i think it's an important point not to disregard or lay aside doctrinal or even experiential differences for the sake of fear of offence. if dialogue occurs within the sphere of a true faith born of the respective participants encounters with their respective religions then we need not worry so much that any clashes along the way can not be mended through compassion and understanding towards one another.

i do wonder about the question of value though - given that various religions each have differing objectives, aspirations, aims and drives, often radically different to one another then it is inevitably going to be a complex issue when discussing the value and applicability of a given practice from one tradition to another. food for thought...

namu amida butsu