Reclusland

Some quotes I came across recently, related to creativity as a spiritual path:

“One of the most significant features we notice in the practice of archery, and in fact of all the arts as they are studied in Japan and probably also other Far Eastern countries, is that they are not intended for utilitarian purposes only, or for purely aesthetic enjoyments, but are meant to train the mind; indeed, to bring it into contact with the ultimate reality.  Archery is, therefore, not practiced solely for hitting the target; the swordsman does not weild the sword just for the sake of outdoing his opponent; the dancer does not dance just to perform certain rhthymical movements with the body.  The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconcious.

If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough.  One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an ‘artless art’ growing out of the unconscious.”

D. T. Suzuki, from the intro to Zen and the Art of Archery

“The images appeared in dreams, in meditation, or would suddenly appear on the canvas. What did they have to say? What did they mean? All I knew was I wanted to pain them as fearlessly as I could. I say ‘fearlessly’ because through the medium of painting I felt I had taken a deep dive into the subconscious and I didn’t want to spoil the connection by ‘civilizing’ them. I found myself, what I took to be myself, taken up into the mystery of painting, the experiencing of ‘being painted through,’ rather than the ‘me’ who was painting. To give these inner images the freedom to surface, that which took itself as ‘the painter’ had to step aside, become passively active. Painting in this way consciousness transcends the physical plane and, stepping out of psychological time, ‘enters’ the painting. In this merger the only content in consciousness is the process of painting itself. The ensuing silence allowed subconscious images to manifest. The connection strong enough, the images spoke, not in words but in their manifesting form and presence. They were not always pretty. Self-sincerity was demanded. Otherwise, the channel might close.”

- William Patrick Patterson, from his book “Eating the I”, found via a twitter friend’s website here.

“‘You have described only to well,’ replied the master, ‘where the difficulty lies.  Do you know why you cannot wait for the shot and why you get out of breath before it has come?  The right show at the right moment does not come because you cannot let yourself go.  You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure.  So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way – like the hand of a child.  Your hand does not burst open like the skin of a rope fruit.’”

- Master Awa Kenzô, from Zen and the Art of Archery

Seems that, whatever the result of Jung’s explorations, he was definitely on the correct path.  Then again, here’s what the Buddha had to say on the subject:

“Any beings who are not devoid of passion to begin with, who are bound by the bond of passion, focus with even more passion on things inspiring passion presented by an actor on stage in the midst of a festival. Any beings who are not devoid of aversion to begin with, who are bound by the bond of aversion, focus with even more aversion on things inspiring aversion presented by an actor on stage in the midst of a festival. Any beings who are not devoid of delusion to begin with, who are bound by the bond of delusion, focus with even more delusion on things inspiring delusion presented by an actor on stage in the midst of a festival. Thus the actor — himself intoxicated & heedless, having made others intoxicated & heedless — with the breakup of the body, after death, is reborn in what is called the hell of laughter. But if he holds such a view as this: ‘When an actor on the stage, in the midst of a festival, makes people laugh & gives them delight with his imitation of reality, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the company of the laughing devas,’ that is his wrong view. Now, there are two destinations for a person with wrong view, I tell you: either hell or the animal womb.”

Kind of harsh, yes, but the Buddha was nothing if not straightforward.  Of course, as the Buddha ephasizes, this only applies to artists who are intoxicated and heedless with passion, aversion, and delusion themselves.  He says nothing about the arts being used for other purposes…