The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [87]
As part of this discipline, it’s important to be nonjudgmental, and instead cultivate an attitude of acceptance in which we attribute the work to our natural creativity. This creativity is the birthright of all beings, and we all long to express it in different forms and different ways. When it is expressed, there is a tremendous sense of joy, and a great feeling of well-being blossoms in the mind. When this is present in an artist’s mind, I believe that a transference of consciousness occurs through the art itself. When we view this art, we can comprehend the emotions and the state of mind of the artist, and feel touched by it, even though we are not directly seeing the artist at work and are not able to see exactly what the artist went through. From that point of view, the art produced out of natural creativity is an offering to the observer, rather than a statement of our ego’s own splendor.
Without art, I think the world would feel far too serious, too pragmatic, and very humorless. Such great beauty is brought into the world by artists, whether they are musicians, dancers, writers, poets, or painters. This world has been made greater by artists and by the creativity of the mind of the artist, which stems directly from the true nature of mind itself. My point is that when an artist is able to step out of the way—to not stand between the true nature of mind and the work that is being produced—the work of art itself becomes enriched and the offering made to the world thereby becomes more significant.
The world might think of an artist as great and acknowledge him or her as distinct or important. Nevertheless, the artist continuously has to step out of the way and not obstruct the nature of mind that is in the work as it is being produced. So, ultimately, we could say that any “greatness” is simply the manifesting of our innate natural vitality. Furthermore, in regard to this natural vitality, there is really no difference between someone who is labeled as an artist and someone who is not. All have the same nature and the same natural vitality, and that natural vitality is always creating. It is creating thoughts, emotions, our life, and the world that each of us inhabits. The universe is being created moment to moment out of the true nature of mind. Creating art is part of that very same process that takes place all the time on a larger scale. From that perspective, we really cannot be dualistic about our own creation versus someone else’s creation, or about being an artist or not. We can appreciate all that is being created out of the true nature of mind and its natural vitality. When we come to understand how the nature of mind is vast and its vitality so pervasive and inspiring, we transcend all of the dualism between “my” work and “their” work. All artists, I think, have to appreciate the natural vitality of other artists’ work.
Regardless of whether we are interested in expressing ourselves artistically, from the perspective of the Buddha’s teachings we are always creating our world. The universe cannot be said to exist objectively on its own without our subjective mind to apprehend it. You cannot separate the two or speak of one without the other. In this sense, our life is created by our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions; and all of those thoughts and feelings are in essence being created by our natural vitality and our natural state of mind. If we look at it in this way, art can be seen as anything that arises from the true nature of mind, hand-in-hand with any conduct that promotes that expression. Anything that is in conflict with this natural vitality—that tries to freeze or grasp it—will create entanglement in the insecurities of the ego, causing