against art

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: against art

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

Vincenzi wrote:someone mentioned the noble eightfold path, what if someone is working (or trying to get work) as an artist?
It is a very good job for a lay person!
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
alan...
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Re: against art

Post by alan... »

convivium wrote:why does the vinaya discourage monastics to practice or take in art?
everything but the dhamma is to be dropped as much as possible. heck the buddha even compared simply not minding the satipatthanas to a monkey who wanders into human territory and gets stuck in a human's trap! if it's not dhamma practice and you're a monk then it's not really your business. every day all day is striving. once a monk reaches nibbana then surely painting is not going to be a problem, although i imagine an arahant would only paint if it was conducive to teaching others about the dhamma or something.

side note: i have no idea what i'm talking about and this is all wild assumption based on vague ideas of what a bhikkhu is today. mostly i'm using my mental perception of what a bhikkhu is as depicted in the pali canon. not too many artists among them.
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Polar Bear
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Re: against art

Post by Polar Bear »

Vincenzi wrote:someone mentioned the noble eightfold path, what if someone is working (or trying to get work) as an artist?
For a layperson, being an artist is perfectly acceptable (unless the art encourages greed, hatred, and delusion) to make a living, but this topic was specifically about bhikkhu's and bhikkhuni's who are supposed to be focusing all their time and energy on realizing the unexcelled sublime state of peace, which has nothing to do with art.

:anjali:
"I don't envision a single thing that, when developed & cultivated, leads to such great benefit as the mind. The mind, when developed & cultivated, leads to great benefit."

"I don't envision a single thing that, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about such suffering & stress as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about suffering & stress."
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Prasadachitta
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Re: against art

Post by Prasadachitta »

polarbuddha101 wrote:or a layperson, being an artist is perfectly acceptable (unless the art encourages greed, hatred, and delusion) to make a living
Hi Polar,

According to your interpretation any kind of art would encourage greed.

Metta

Prasadachitta


polarbuddha101 wrote:The pleasure of art is dependent upon passion.
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
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tiltbillings
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Re: against art

Post by tiltbillings »

convivium wrote: giant gold buddha images when the buddha said i don't want images of myself
Source?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Polar Bear
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Re: against art

Post by Polar Bear »

Prasadachitta wrote:
polarbuddha101 wrote:or a layperson, being an artist is perfectly acceptable (unless the art encourages greed, hatred, and delusion) to make a living
Hi Polar,

According to your interpretation any kind of art would encourage greed.

Metta

Prasadachitta


polarbuddha101 wrote:The pleasure of art is dependent upon passion.
I was thinking about that too. Of course, the passion that arises when looking at a beautiful painting of a tree is much more subtle than the rather unwholesome passion that would likely arise when watching Full Metal Jacket or Inglorious Bastards. Anyway, I suppose it's a matter of degree but in the end a bhikkhu or bhikkhuni, or anyone who wants to become an arahant for that matter, is supposed to relinquish all passion for sights and this would include any passion or desire to look at beautiful paintings, be they of trees or otherwise.
"I don't envision a single thing that, when developed & cultivated, leads to such great benefit as the mind. The mind, when developed & cultivated, leads to great benefit."

"I don't envision a single thing that, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about such suffering & stress as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about suffering & stress."
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cooran
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Re: against art

Post by cooran »

tiltbillings wrote:
convivium wrote: giant gold buddha images when the buddha said i don't want images of myself
Source?
I don't think the Buddha stated such a thing, but other symbols were used e.g footprints

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dha ... /fdd35.htm
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
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alan...
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Re: against art

Post by alan... »

tiltbillings wrote:
convivium wrote: giant gold buddha images when the buddha said i don't want images of myself
Source?
this always kills me. there are millions of quotes and people have no clue where they come from. some of my favorite "quotes" of the buddha fall into this category. it's frequently assumed many are made up but then again, maybe some come from lost suttas/sutras or little known ones? like a sutta that was hand copied long ago only in partial form, then quoted by some ancient author, then read by a modern author and then quoted by them and finally someone read their work and put it on the internet or whatever. or even eclectic translations that are out of circulation but live on in these little snippets, where a sourceless quote is actually a mistranslation or just an odd translation of a known sutta. such a thing could be legit, just not quite what we would expect. i've tried to web search ones with no luck but that means nothing. even if it is in the pali canon it may not be online. and if we include mahayana and vajrayana as legitimate sources then the amount of what can easily be sourced online is very small. so of anonymous quotes it can be said that they cannot be sourced but not that they are definitely not the word of the buddha.

in the end though, if you can't source it, then there's no reason to think it's legitimate in the first place. i try to only internalize and repeat things that you are 100% sure come from the man himself to me through a sutta/sutra. i've been fooled too many times by some of the literature out there and the frequent anonymous "quoting" of the buddha.

that being said, this is a quote worth researching, anybody find anything?
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mikenz66
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Re: against art

Post by mikenz66 »

polarbuddha101 wrote: I was thinking about that too. Of course, the passion that arises when looking at a beautiful painting of a tree is much more subtle than the rather unwholesome passion that would likely arise ...
Actually, one of my clues that it is good visual art is that I have an actual physical reaction. I can become literally breathless when confronted by some art...

:anjali:
Mike
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tiltbillings
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Re: against art

Post by tiltbillings »

alan... wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
convivium wrote: giant gold buddha images when the buddha said i don't want images of myself
Source?
this always kills me. there are millions of quotes and people have no clue where they come from. some of my favorite "quotes" of the buddha fall into this category. it's frequently assumed many are made up but then again, maybe some come from lost suttas/sutras or little known ones?
If the sutta was lost, it is hard to quote.
in the end though, if you can't source it, then there's no reason to think it's legitimate in the first place.
Reasonable.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Polar Bear
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Re: against art

Post by Polar Bear »

mikenz66 wrote:
polarbuddha101 wrote: I was thinking about that too. Of course, the passion that arises when looking at a beautiful painting of a tree is much more subtle than the rather unwholesome passion that would likely arise ...
Actually, one of my clues that it is good visual art is that I have an actual physical reaction. I can become literally breathless when confronted by some art...

:anjali:
Mike
By subtle I meant more that it would be harder to discern how enjoying the art and becoming absorbed in it could actually hinder someone from realizing nibbana because paintings and alot of other art forms are so harmless in general, not that people don't have obvious and significant reactions to such art. Though I think that getting over the beauty of benign but magnificent art is something that would come very late in the journey down the path, around the non-returner level where all desire for pleasure through the senses is abandoned. But anyway, who knows?

:namaste:
"I don't envision a single thing that, when developed & cultivated, leads to such great benefit as the mind. The mind, when developed & cultivated, leads to great benefit."

"I don't envision a single thing that, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about such suffering & stress as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about suffering & stress."
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BlackBird
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Re: against art

Post by BlackBird »

If you want to be a monk you should be focussed on attaining liberation, and art is just another thing that can get in the way of that. For monks it is a distraction from their meditation.
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

Path Press - Ñāṇavīra Thera Dhamma Page - Ajahn Nyanamoli's Dhamma talks
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Nyorai
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Re: against art

Post by Nyorai »

If you would know of, the monastery and its statues in its is an art of life :toilet:
ImageTo become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.
If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path. He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self.Image
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convivium
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Re: against art

Post by convivium »

If you would know of, the monastery and its statues in its is an art of life :toilet:
:toast:
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
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