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

In Search of the Miraculous

you may or may not know that there's this guy whose life and work i'm frequently given to bouts of mad raving about called Bas Jan Ader. i first came across him while writing a paper on Dutch conceptual artists and was immediately struck by a raw and powerful image of  the artist in tears, captioned with the words "i'm too sad to tell you"

an explanation of his grief was never given, only the assurance that it was genuine and not a performance put on for the sake of the piece itself. and though this is image is powerful enough in its own right, for myself it carries a heavier effect after having learned a little about Ader's life and how it ended at the tragically young age of 33, while In Search of the Miraculous.

Ader was born in 1942 in Winschoten, close by the border with Germany. the son of a Dutch reformed minister, from an early age a sense of spiritual yearning was cultivated in young Bas Jan and this yearning continued as an underlying theme in much, if not all, of his artistic oeuvre.

although Ader never really gained a substantial following during his lifetime, he is now becoming something of a cult figure in the artworld and i think in part this is due to the very powerful sense of yearning prevelent in his work. other than "i'm too sad to tell you", he is perhaps most well known for employing gravity as an artistic medium in his performance series of falls - "fall 1", "fall 2" "organic", "geometric", "nightfall" - where he is seen falling from (among other things) the roof of his house in California (fall 1), into a canal (fall 2) and  from a tree (organic) in the Amsterdamse Bos (about 10 minutes walk from where i used to live!)

there is the sense in this series of trying to capture, through repitition and replication, a brief moment of awareness of something greater than oneself. as a friend of Ader's put it, commenting on these pieces after his death - it's not the act of falling that is important, nor is it the anticipation of falling, nor the landing, but that split second having let go, just for the briefest moment before gravity pulls you back to earth.

throughout his work, this theme of the gap between the individual and something greater, the tension created by such a gap and the urge to bridge that gap, to pull towards oneself that sense of the Miraculous, fuelled Aders yearning, restless spirit. much of his work concerns this restless wonderlust, this sense of the Miraculous being out there, waiting to be found. it's there in works such as "yeh, i've been searching" and culminated in 1975, in what was to be his final piece - "in search of the miraculous" - an effort to sail the Atlantic in a twelve and a half foot sailboat.

six months after his departure, the boat was found half-submerged off the Irish coast, with Bas Jan nowhere to be seen. there is a curious footnote to this tragic story - in his locker at the University of California where he taught at the time prior to his disappearance, was found a copy of the book "The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst". Crowhurst,a british buisnessman and amateur sailor, died at sea while competing in a single-handed round the world yacht race. evidence discovered after his disappearance suggests the attempt ended in insanity and suicide, Crowhurst believing he had stared into the face of God and throwing himself overboard.

certainly, Bas Jan's life had a tragic ending but he has left a deeply powerful legacy behind. i believe what makes this legacy so powerful is the level at which it speaks to this universal sense of spiritual yearning, the desire to bridge the gap, to go in search of and maybe, at last, find the miraculous.

namu amida butsu

http://www.basjanader.com/

http://www.hereisalwayssomewhereelse.com/

"...there is nothing that is not the nembutsu"

Among all living things

mountains and rivers,

grasses and trees,

even the sounds of blowing winds

and rising waves -

there is nothing

that is not the nembutsu

- Ippen

during Shokai, while viewing the beautiful slides of Shogyoji a visiting priest kindly brought with him to show us all, a good dharma friend exclaimed to me how easy it is to miss the beauty that is all around us. as pictures of lotus flowers, dry river-beds and trees wearing their autumn foliage, all set against the back drop of the temple appeared on the screen i got to thinking how busy and occupied we let our minds become and how much as a consequence, we miss. (note - the following are my own photos and in no way compare to how beautiful those of the temple were to see)

i've always loved the above waka by Ippen since the moment i first came across it but i feel much as i cherish it there is a danger upon reading of mistaking the nembutsu for some kind of pantheistic life force (certainly a danger i have come across in my own understanding frequently). and admittedly, my understanding of the complex doctrine of sunyata is a shallow one but it seems that, if we spend our time searching for the nembutsu in something, then we miss its calling us. a tree is just a tree, a mountain just a mountain, a rising wave just a rising wave - none of them require us to look for or discover some inherent essence lying inside them in order for them to retain their wonder and meaning.

 

but how often, as my dharma friend mentioned, do we miss what is right infront of us? i think of the times my mind has shamefully wandered during otsutome, or as i've recited the nembutsu or even, despite my best efforts, during a dharma talk by friends and teachers at Three Wheels. is it any surprise then that if, even during times we would wish our minds to be calm and receptive they swing about from branch to branch, we miss out on the beauty and wonder that surrounds us each and every day?

nonetheless, i find myself asking - does a tree require my noticing it in order for it to be? or again, does a mountain? a rising wave? similarly, the nembutsu is working all the time...it has been calling us even before we came into this life and it is precisely because our minds are unsettled and clouded over that such a Vow as its cause was pledged by Dharmakara.

 

of course, it would be wrong of me to say therefore that it's perfectly okay to just lie back and let the mind drift along chasing concern after concern. no, certainly it's right to want to focus and approach otsutome, nembutsu recitation and hearing the Dharma with the respect they deserve. but believing that Amida's compassion will somehow fail in its working if i can't attain constant, undivided focus is really just so much noise and jiriki.

namu amida butsu