This nice Yogi guy wrote me a message on a photography forum saying that philosophy is higher than art. I think I know where he is coming from.
Art - especially the Western kind - when we regard it based on some Eastern philosophy, is often considered a mere expression of suffering or desire, while philosophy (at least the Eastern branch) is the field that shows us the way out of suffering or desire. Now I am not saying I agree, just trying to sum up what the yogi probably meant. When we look at the Western art as a whole, we can notice that there are basically two kinds of artists. Of course there are zillions of categories and streams. But the bottom line, as I see it, is that one kind is the happy, confident and sociable artist who enjoys good food, good drinks and good sex. He or she (although I doubt women belong to this particular category very much, as this category seems to be about machos - the alpha masculine dominating heros that so many women adore and want to marry) usually has or had a joyful and successful life and achieved fame and profit quite early in his life. Pablo Picasso, whose art I really adore, is such an example. Or Stravinsky. Their work celebrates barbarian passions, beautiful naked women, dance, tasty, juicy fruit, the bright, shining sea... In Buddhism we call this materialism. It is a kind of one-sided understanding of life and its meaning.
As we can see, being one-sided may lead to wonderful paintins or music, but it is not simple as that, as I will try to explain later on. There is nothing wrong with Picasso's or Stravinsky art and there is no reason why it should be different. I am just trying to explain how a certain understanding of the world leads to different works of art. The other category of artists would be those suffering, deprived, frustrated, anxious guys (or women ) whose life was rather hell than anything else. They found little solace in their art, no matter how wonderful their art was. Take Van Gogh, Franz Kafka, Edward Munch, in Czech literature Bozena Nemcova, a victim of hopelessly dull, insensitive and possessive husband who had little understanding for his wife's impractical, artistic soul. Shostakovich - not only was he crushed by the Soviet regime, he was also crushed by his own depressed mind. Although these artists suffered so much, they gave the world such splendid works, something that shows how one feels when he or she is a thoroughly sincere and sensitive genius in the middle of a cynical, absurd world. In Buddhism, we call this idealism. This has nothing to do with being naive or stupid. On the contrary, it is usually a problem of an excellent mind. Idealism means that the world is perceived as something too dark, too cold, too absurd to cope with. An idealist typically believes there is something or someone high up there that is the source of light, source of love. Some people misunderstand Buddhism and believe there is something in Buddhism that is out of this world that we could achieve. But Buddhism is neither materialistic, nor idealistic.
If we could influence those splendid European or American artists and tell them about Buddhism - not the idealistic kind, of course, we could advise Picasso to bring less women to his bedrooms and drink less wine. I think he would happily ignore us. How about Kafka, Munch and other frustrated artists? I would recommend that they see something meaningful, something beautiful in everyday life activities. I would tell them to see how happy one can be in a single moment of a single day. How much solace and peace we can find in sipping tea. I would ask them to reduce their ideals and soften the criticism with which they see the world around. Should I have been successful, there would be no Kafka, no Munch, no Van Gogh as we know them today. There would have been some pretty normal guys whose work would be either absent or quite mediocre. Right? Would it have been so? The thing is we cannot go back and talk to Franz Kafka. Now if there is a genius living frustrated and unhappy working on a great novel, the thing is not about whether we should make her happy and prevent her from writing that fantastic book. The thing is it is up to me, up to you, up to her, how we deal with our own lives and how we deal with other people's lives. In other words, we can try to help someone, but we cannot make sure everything and everybody will be satisfied. The question I am interested in is not whether philosophy could remove the excellent art as we know it from the current world. The question is whether philosophy can help us be happy and still produce excellent art.
Buddhism teaches that we can find happiness and wisdom when we go beyond the opposites of materialism and idealism. It teaches that if we eat and drink and sleep just enough and lead a sensible life, day after day, we can find some balance and satisfaction despite the crazy things going on in the world. I still believe that although we may find a lot of balance thanks to such an ordinary life, we can still be great artists. Why? Because no matter how much balance we find, it will never be perfect. And no matter how content we may become, we will still want some sex. Unless we are 99 years old! And sex is not always such an easy thing to find. So here - if there is no sex around, we can go and create something instead. Or read Dostoyevsky. Because sooner or later you will be fed up with Dogen... I am kidding. But I mean we Buddhists don't want to lose you, real people in the real world doing real things like writing great novels or shooting films about tigers! I am very optimistic - Buddhism leads to sincere interest in humanity in general. I know some great Buddhists who have practiced Buddhism for decades and who have understood Buddhism thoroughly and they still have to face extremely difficult situations in their lives and they still have plenty of room for love and art and beauty and all kinds of passions in their hearts. Buddhism does not solve suffering by offering a ticket to some kind of mental heaven, a trip to eternal peace. It only - and I don't think it is too little, but actually it is quite a lot - gives us a chance to see our problems from the point where we are completely involved in some kind of activity, being physically as busy as mentally, which means not busy mentally too much, just acting here and now.
Now what about the Eastern art? When it comes to Chinese or Japanese poetry that is based on Buddhist practice and philosophy, it is just another form of Buddhist teaching. This kind of art is neither a mirror of dark, frustrated idealistic mind, nor is it a mirror of hedonistic experience. A Chinese poet - or a Japanese poet, a Buddhist monk, writes about simple everyday experiences. Such a poet writes about the sound of crickets, the empty bowl when he is hungry, his straw hut, walking stick... he or she may write about sadness or loneliness or even about falling in love - but this time not as something that should be thoroughly analyzed, instead the feeling, be it joy or sadness, is accepted and recorded as it is. Here philosophy and art are one thing.
A Chinese guy wrote some time in the 9th century:
How wondrous this, how mysterious!
I carry fuel, I draw water.Such poetry is far away from the meticulous analysis of the mental world as described by Franz Kafka or composed by Shostakovich. What could be so mysterious about carrying wood or water? Buddhism helps us reveal that what had always seemed ordinary is actually wonderful. Everyday life deserves our thorough attention as it is the only thing we actually experience. Of course, we experience a lot of mental things all the time, but Buddhism reveals that while we are free to imagine and work on anything conceivable within our minds, we are standing in the middle of reality beyond our thinking, beyond our ability to put this or that into categories, and that reality offers at least as much beauty and happiness as we may try to generate through thinking and imagination. It is like bringing our own coffee to a great coffee house and complaining that our coffee is awful. It is like bringing water to the ocean saying there is not enough water in it. Does this mean all the wonderful art that was created within the modern history of Europe and America is just useless crazy crap? No, it is beauty that was created based on some kind of misunderstanding. It is a sincere expression of a sincere mind, trying to reveal what is beautiful, what is meaningful. It is the sincere effort that is valuable and that produces the authentic art, no matter how naive the philosophy is at the beginning of such art. It is a message about real people and their real passions and suffering. It is highly valuable and deserves to be studied and observed. It is an important message about what it is like to be human.
I used to study modern painting a lot and painted a lot. I could not stop thinking about it, dreaming about it and doing it. Then I met Susie, an English teacher from California and found a book about Zen in her apartment in Prague. The book triggered a completely new approach to my life. From then on, for about 10 years or so I was only interested in Zen, no matter what it was or no matter how much I misunderstood what it was. I went to a Zen center in the USA and never painted again. Actually, I once or twice tried to paint, but it was like trying to start an engine without any fuel. There was no real motivation. I had to force myself to paint, so it didn't work. Instead I found myself writing a kind of Chinese style poetry. I had realized that the most important thing is one's everyday life, all those little everyday experiences. To me, painting used to be a way how to create beauty in a world that is not beautiful enough. This time I found the world beautiful enough and there was nothing I could add to its beauty. So I could only describe what I saw in front of me, writing poems about clouds, trees, fields, ponds, and girls. Just like the Chinese guys or maybe just imitating what those monks wrote:
sitting under an apple tree
I watch it
dance in the wind...
Here, no matter how egoistic, how selfish and annoying I actually am in my real life, I would like to reduce myself to a mere tool through which the real beautiful world is expressed. There is no need to explain the beauty, no need to say why I am lonely, why I want to hug someone. You just say it. Just say what is happening.
On the other hand, Brad Warner, a Buddhist teacher who used to be a punk rock bass guitar player is still a punk rock bass guitar player. I doubt he ever wrote a single "Chinese" or "Zen" poem. To him, Zen is also just a real, everyday life. Just like to me. But to him, punk rock is his everyday life, so now as a Buddhist, punk rock is still his everyday life! I can't imagine Brad writing a poem. Actually, yes, I can imagine Brad's poetry about hairy punk drummers and their puke at the toilet. But that's just Brad. I like that he is just what he is. To hell with pretension. It is only worth writing about apple trees in the wind if you have really experienced apple trees dancing in the wind. There is a difference between writing about something that sounds like Chinese poetry and writing about something that has penetrated your heart completely. So we have punk rock as one example of Buddhist art and Chinese kind of poetry as another example.
So we can see that Buddhism shows the beauty of ordinary things like grass, a cup of tea, a cold shower, but also the ordinary things that belong to the real modern world that those Chinese monks 1200 years ago had no idea about. Including the sound of electric guitars. So what seemed ordinary before practicing Buddhism may seem wonderful after it.
What is the role of "I" in Buddhism? How can "I" help me create something valuable? Should I try to get rid of "self"? Would it make me a genius? But it is my self, it is me, it is "I" that makes me cry, that makes me laugh, that makes me try to write this essay. There is no need to get rid of me, myself, self or I or whatever you call that. It is just that Buddhist practice helps "me" or "you" see what has been long ignored because "I" or "you" have been too busy dealing with "you" or "me" forgetting just what is real. We need some "I" or some of "you" or some of "her". Without these distinctions we could simply all commit suicide, or stop eating, drinking, urinating. Why deny "myself"? I have to sleep, no matter what. I have to eat. I love. I hate. The problem is that the modern world or civilization as such or whatever you call it is almost all about myself against you. I am better than you. You are sexier than her. So I go crazy. So I shoot him. Instead of these dramatic distinctions or extreme loneliness or extreme selfishness we could just focus on everyday actions and notice how wonderful some people are and notice that the best we can do for those who are not so wonderful is to be at least a little bit wonderful ourselves.
How much ego did Picasso need to become such a brilliant painter? How about Kafka? Stravinsky? I don't know how much ego Van Gogh or Kafka needed, but they were telling the truth. They both precisely recorded what was going on in their heart, mind, imagination. They were so great because they didn't lie at all. There are tons of books full of lies and pretension. There are infinite miles of canvas that is covered in paint. But there is not a single thing that would be true about them. You can paint anything on a piece of canvas so what makes a painting true? What makes a symphony true? What makes a photograph true? As for photography, that is a tough one. Really tough. Because we could say that whatever you photograph, it is something real in front of you so you cannot go wrong. When you write a poem or paint something, you can easily pretend you feel something that you actually don't feel at all. But in the end, it is the same for photography. There are people who just take photographs having fun. Good for them. There are people who paint flowers and have fun. Good for them. There is Madonna and Like a Virgin. Good for both of them. But when it comes to art, there is something more. Pablo Picasso, no matter how awful or great he was as a real person, used his ego completely in order to create something so natural, so fluent, so bright that it seems it has been created by the universe itself. I don't think Leonardo painted Mona Lisa. If I believed in God, I would claim that only God could paint something so absolutely brilliant. But I don't believe in God so I think it was the universe itself that created Mona Lisa. Leonardo just served as a tool. A genius to me is someone who is not in the way when the universe feels like doing something interesting in art. In other words, an artist has to respect the universal laws completely. Johann Sebastian Bach or Pablo Picasso didn't imitate God or the universe. Although Bach said he wanted to compose something similar to what you may hear in heaven when you get there. But what Bach composed is heavenly - it is heavenly, or say ideally complete, just like the universe itself. Is there a speck of dust lacking in the universe? No. Is there a note missing in Bach's music? No. So there. There is nothing artificial about Bach or Picasso or Leonardo or Beethoven. That's why I would call their art "true" even if it is not verbal. You make a film about a couple who are about to divorce but from the beginning to the end you don't believe it is true. You look at a painting in a gallery and you have no idea why the heck someone cared to paint it at all. You want to say: No, this is not true! People who are interested in the truth, no matter how harsh it sounds, will call it a kitch. A true piece of art is really valuable for a Buddhist because it is something honest, sincere, a true story. A true story is more valuable in Buddhism than thousands of complex Buddhist sutras. So Kafka may be a source of truth for you, but it will probably not give you a hint how to make your life less unbearable. That's the job of Buddhist philosophy. Both is important. To notice what people really go through and study how one may overcome his or her difficulties.