The Life of Arts and the Art of Life

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Every aspect of life applying in some way to the nature of Tao, 5 elements, the seasons, rejuvination, fluctuations from yang to yin; the artistic process, the art itself... what does observing your artistic process show you about Tao?

 

One of the biggest obstacles to an artists development, imo, is the role that fame plays in their lives, such as it being necessary for some artists (musicians esp.) to have a number of people present in order to develop abilities and a livelihood in that form. With great abilities comes more risk of susceptibility to the thieves of vanity and self-reflective admiration. Though these thieves ought to have been stamped out, they will perpetually be encouraged by fame and the world of fame.

 

So what do you learn about Tao from practicing your art, whether "fine arts" or gardening, swimming, building, cooking, making $$,$$$, Bonsai, hacking, organizing, research, writing?

 

Feng Shui, meditation, dual-cultivation, and martial arts.. somebody should make a website....

 

 

It will be interesting to hear what all the "warrior-scholars" practice on the side as well....

 

 

 

So, to start, for me, music is my primary art (guitar, percussion, drums, wooden flute, voice, bass, harmonica, cello, mandolin, sampling/drum machine/production).

 

One of my first major connections between the two was the Wu Wei of RESONANCE -and silence-... "take the action of no action and [the natural] order will prevail"

more recently I've found the same principle to be part of meditation bells

 

 

Also the flexible submission to the movements of the song teaches something about the other side of strength required to "go with the flow" and maintain attunement to energies which might steer the ship in different directions. There's an incredible amount of sense-ability, and subtlety of communication, that emerges just standing close to another person when you're both creating. This I've found especially true in rhythm sections.

 

To my knowledge, most classical Chinese music, like some western classical, was themed seasonally. This is helpful to think about with improvisation and writing to colour the emotional side of it (spring = nice, growing, chillin'; summer = bright strong energy; fall = chillin', descending; winter = quite space, storing/retaining, endurance/survival)

 

One might use the five elements for inspiration with positive/negative associations of emotional changes, or story developments that follow elemental creating/consuming/controlling patterns . I believe it was Billy Corgan of smashing Pumpkins who put out an album based on the character development of Tarot.

 

Hazrat Inayat Khan has been, imho, the most prolific writer to date on musical mysticism. Probably some more about him soon....

 

 

I once lived with a cat who was a really awesome flute teacher. When I was playing notes too rough he would complain, lol! And then I would know that I wasn't playing nicely enough. While at the same time would be totally attentive and sit near me sort of "looking at the tip of the nose" when I did what I was told Cats are great music teachers, they're really aware of vibrational quality and will give you shit when you're not playing right !

Edited June 29, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[relaxer]

 

So what do you learn about Tao from practicing your art, wheter "fine arts" or ardening, swimming, building, cooking, making $$,$$$, Bonsai, hacking, organizing, research, writing?

 

 

 

I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I make my living working with clay. While zhan zhuang and Yang Family taichi have been incredibly nourishing practices, clay is my main teacher, at least for now. The number of hours I've spent with the material dwarfs any amount of time I've spent in meditation or form work. I am familiar with my clay practice in a way I'm not with my meditation and form practice. I think the 10,000 hour rule applies well. Beyond a certain point, the type of practice doesn't seem to matter, the insights become universal and the level of mind, body, and spirit integration is palpable.

 

There's a catch though... The 10,000 hours must be hours of awareness and presence. If one is not present and aware, the time goes up in smoke. I think that's why meditation, chi kung, and form work pay such dividends. It's as if there is a call for awareness and presence in the very acts themselves. It is easy to become unaware while brushing your teeth, taking a shower...the monkey mind wanders, here and there, too many objects...

 

Playing music, working with clay, moving paint- these require a communication between so many aspects of our organism. Such communication yields an experience of integration, unity.

 

I just finished making a film with a friend that is part of an exhibition up now. Maybe it conveys the feeling better than my written word:

 

 

The film is part of an installation of hundreds of clay objects, half of which are functional small bowls and the other half are sculptural clay guardian head figures. Here is the write-up that goes along with the installation.

 

 

Do anything enough and it will live in your bones, your muscles, and the spaces between. The act itself seems to sink deep into the body. Walking, driving, wedging clay, throwing a pot: trace any voluntary act far enough back and you'll find it began in the head as a concept, as a series of broken, awkward segments of intentional movement. Through repetition the segments become longer, until eventually an unbroken line of integrated movement flows through time.

The body begins to take ownership of the act. The mind becomes unaware, it moves on to other affairs. The body is left to dance with and learn from the cycle of doing.

 

We live, we are, we do.

 

I have thrown thousands of bowls. The movements live deep in my body. It is like a wheel that goes on spinning even while I am away from the studio. Without conscious awareness, the cycle repeats. An effortlessness and beauty inhabits such familiarity and ease. The mind becomes still, free to question and to roam. In this stillness, I began to explore ancient Japanese ceremonial objects, African tribal art, and man's prehistoric relationship to clay. My relationship to clay was changing. New questions required new ways of working, of doing. This piece speaks to that change. It speaks to a movement from bone-deep familiarity to a conscious involvement in new, curious cycles.

 

Great topic... Crazy and beautiful universe, indeed.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

The body begins to take ownership of the act. The mind becomes unaware, it moves on to other affairs. The body is left to dance with and learn from the cycle of doing.

 

We live, we are, we do.

 

I have thrown thousands of bowls. The movements live deep in my body. It is like a wheel that goes on spinning even while I am away from the studio. Without conscious awareness, the cycle repeats. An effortlessness and beauty inhabits such familiarity and ease. The mind becomes still, free to question and to roam. In this stillness, I began to explore ancient Japanese ceremonial objects, African tribal art, and man's prehistoric relationship to clay. My relationship to clay was changing. New questions required new ways of working, of doing. This piece speaks to that change. It speaks to a movement from bone-deep familiarity to a conscious involvement in new, curious cycles.

 

 

So true! 10, 000 hours of anything and one has a new level of attention-focus and total absorption where an external object feels like it is being controlled directly from one's intention. I think that any artist, once they have reached this level, there is no better and best technician, it's all about what they do internally that makes for better and best results.

 

Mentioning Japanese ceremonial objects, it also reminds of an aspect of this, about how Shinto shrines are usually natural objects or surroundings that brings one into a connectedness with nature and that purifies them so that they can experience Kami (sort of like spirit that is in everything). I find that art for the artist is sort of the same... it makes them feel like they have purified themselves in some way that makes them open to the Spirit that is all around them.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

 

I just finished making a film with a friend that is part of an exhibition up now. Maybe it conveys the feeling better than my written word:

 

 

 

The attention to detail in the pot making looks very meditative - focused but relaxed at the same time. It's funny that you mention clay in this too, because I remember a part in "Tai Chi Classics" from Waysun Liao where movements in Tai Chi were said to resemble those of a potter.

 

 

I'm guessing martial arts and chi kung are the main "arts" of people here so I'm not sure how far this thread is going to go..

Edited June 29, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[relaxer]

The attention to detail in the pot making looks very meditative - focused but relaxed at the same time. It's funny that you mention clay in this too, because I remember a part in "Tai Chi Classics" from Waysun Liao where movements in Tai Chi were said to resemble those of a potter.

 

 

I'm guessing martial arts and chi kung are the main "arts" of people here so I'm not sure how far this thread is going to go..

 

 

I hear you. That's too bad, you know? It's a good topic.

 

The great thing that I've found about working in clay and being among other dedicated artists is the joy and humility in just engaging the act. There is an absence of contraction on any doer, or egoic belief in separation. There is just the act, the unfolding, and joy in that. (Not always, but enough for it to be seen often)

 

There's a double edged sword with the whole martial arts/ chi-kung/ meditation game. So many people seem to be after something... Be it enlightenment, massive chi balls, third eye sensations, etc,etc,etc... But as I write this, maybe it's a normal unfolding and necessary at the beginning of any practice. I had to go through a period of getting to know the material by setting goals and striving to make certain forms. Maybe this is the same thing. I just think it's healthy to realize, though, that this period is just the beginning of the path. It's saying hi to and shaking hands with the material. Why is it that so many "advanced" practitioners still seem to be going wild over what they can and cannot do? Maybe I'm just in the wrong part of the globe right now... There aren't many people who seem to have really incorporated their practice into the fabric of their like I've seen some artists and musicians do...

 

 

That's cool about what you said concerning the movement of taichi and being a potter... I've definitely experienced that first-hand. One must be centered to throw a pot with beauty and efficiency... It's beautiful to seen someone throw "internally". There are hardly any movements, but so much is done. It's conversely very messy and disjointed to see someone that doesn't have a relationship to his center try to move clay. It looks like a big misunderstanding, and not so much a flowing conversation.

[Otis]

I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I make my living working with clay. While zhan zhuang and Yang Family taichi have been incredibly nourishing practices, clay is my main teacher, at least for now. The number of hours I've spent with the material dwarfs any amount of time I've spent in meditation or form work. I am familiar with my clay practice in a way I'm not with my meditation and form practice. I think the 10,000 hour rule applies well. Beyond a certain point, the type of practice doesn't seem to matter, the insights become universal and the level of mind, body, and spirit integration is palpable.

 

There's a catch though... The 10,000 hours must be hours of awareness and presence. If one is not present and aware, the time goes up in smoke. I think that's why meditation, chi kung, and form work pay such dividends. It's as if there is a call for awareness and presence in the very acts themselves. It is easy to become unaware while brushing your teeth, taking a shower...the monkey mind wanders, here and there, too many objects...

 

Playing music, working with clay, moving paint- these require a communication between so many aspects of our organism. Such communication yields an experience of integration, unity.

 

I just finished making a film with a friend that is part of an exhibition up now. Maybe it conveys the feeling better than my written word:

 

 

The film is part of an installation of hundreds of clay objects, half of which are functional small bowls and the other half are sculptural clay guardian head figures. Here is the write-up that goes along with the installation.

 

 

Do anything enough and it will live in your bones, your muscles, and the spaces between. The act itself seems to sink deep into the body. Walking, driving, wedging clay, throwing a pot: trace any voluntary act far enough back and you'll find it began in the head as a concept, as a series of broken, awkward segments of intentional movement. Through repetition the segments become longer, until eventually an unbroken line of integrated movement flows through time.

The body begins to take ownership of the act. The mind becomes unaware, it moves on to other affairs. The body is left to dance with and learn from the cycle of doing.

 

We live, we are, we do.

 

I have thrown thousands of bowls. The movements live deep in my body. It is like a wheel that goes on spinning even while I am away from the studio. Without conscious awareness, the cycle repeats. An effortlessness and beauty inhabits such familiarity and ease. The mind becomes still, free to question and to roam. In this stillness, I began to explore ancient Japanese ceremonial objects, African tribal art, and man's prehistoric relationship to clay. My relationship to clay was changing. New questions required new ways of working, of doing. This piece speaks to that change. It speaks to a movement from bone-deep familiarity to a conscious involvement in new, curious cycles.

 

Great topic... Crazy and beautiful universe, indeed.

What a fantastic post! Thank you! And the video is great, too! I loved watching the bowl take shape under your(?) fingers.

[Otis]

It really is a great topic; thanks to H.E.

 

I'm fortunate enough that my work is what I wanted to do: filmmaking. And I've been fortunate enough to have many very cool assignments, over the years.

 

Still, after so much time creating television (which I'm not a fan of watching), and working on other people's projects, I finally felt the need to create my own youtube channel, and start making improvisational play videos, with my friends. The last few years of Inspired Mayhem (the channel's name), have allowed me to use my production skills to bear on my new practice: surrendered, free, child-like collaborative activity, with few rules or plans.

 

Many of the early videos focused on finding pedestrian inanimate objects, and discovering the adventure and possibilities within them. Then I did a lot of solo (and some partner) play dancing with inanimate objects in the world, like bulldozers, rails and ramps. My friend Nick joined with me to create "public provocation videos", in which we dressed up as characters, and interacted with the bemused and bedazzled random people we ran into. Plus, there have been many variations on stunts, dance, and other goofiness, usually centering around found objects and locations.

 

I've always seen this creation as an extension of Taoist practice, because it is about forgetting what we've known, letting go of fear and expectations, and discovering new possibility through balance, joy, ease, and collaboration. A small compilation of stuff:

 

 

And, of course, my main practice is dance. Not performance (so I don't tend to think of it as "art"), but rather the exploration of what beauty means, to my kinesthetic senses. Ease, passion, curiosity, discovery, and joy are the parameters and motors of my dance play, and it's been very rewarding to my body, mind and spirit.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

I've always seen this creation as an extension of Taoist practice, because it is about forgetting what we've known, letting go of fear and expectations, and discovering new possibility through balance, joy, ease, and collaboration. A small compilation of stuff:

 

 

And, of course, my main practice is dance. Not performance (so I don't tend to think of it as "art"), but rather the exploration of what beauty means, to my kinesthetic senses. Ease, passion, curiosity, discovery, and joy are the parameters and motors of my dance play, and it's been very rewarding to my body, mind and spirit.

 

Can definitely see the Taoist side of the videos. That stuff can't be done without breaking through barriers of social expectation, as well as conquering the need to control things rather than having a strong enough sense of self to let yourself ride the currents. The openness that this creates can only nurture spontaneity and sincerity which are high on the list of Taoist virtues.

 

I suppose the difficulty with this, as I've experienced it, is that riding these currents can make it difficult to settle down sometimes, or make quietism seem like a waste of time which isn't the case. However, I can see you've had more experience with martial arts so you've probably developed perhaps methods to transition between the two, or have a different experience altogether with this effect. I suppose "releasing Yang" like that brings one to another level of yin once in a while too...

[relaxer]

It really is a great topic; thanks to H.E.

 

 

I've always seen this creation as an extension of Taoist practice, because it is about forgetting what we've known, letting go of fear and expectations, and discovering new possibility through balance, joy, ease, and collaboration. A small compilation of stuff:

 

 

And, of course, my main practice is dance. Not performance (so I don't tend to think of it as "art"), but rather the exploration of what beauty means, to my kinesthetic senses. Ease, passion, curiosity, discovery, and joy are the parameters and motors of my dance play, and it's been very rewarding to my body, mind and spirit.

 

 

WOW! Thanks for the video and post! I'm definitely inspired. Practice, play, and spontaneity are all so evident not just in your movements, but even in the editing. Thanks for that.

 

Yep, those are my fingers in the that film. he he

 

It's fun to get a taste for other taoist arts. Thank you H. E.

[Otis]

Can definitely see the Taoist side of the videos. That stuff can't be done without breaking through barriers of social expectation, as well as conquering the need to control things rather than having a strong enough sense of self to let yourself ride the currents. The openness that this creates can only nurture spontaneity and sincerity which are high on the list of Taoist virtues.

 

I suppose the difficulty with this, as I've experienced it, is that riding these currents can make it difficult to settle down sometimes, or make quietism seem like a waste of time which isn't the case. However, I can see you've had more experience with martial arts so you've probably developed perhaps methods to transition between the two, or have a different experience altogether with this effect. I suppose "releasing Yang" like that brings one to another level of yin once in a while too...

Thanks for the good words, H.E.

 

I feel like the noisy is just preparation for the quiet, which is in turn preparation for the noisy.

 

For example, partner dancing is one practice that calls me toward inner quiet, to listening without planning. If my only goal is to harmonize, then I don't need to try anything specific in the dance, just follow the moment.

 

And the stunts, contact staff, and dancing on concrete and rails, are just examples of dancing with inanimate partners. These partners are perfect teachers, because they are utterly unbiased. If I use too much force, the only thing I hurt, is myself. I started doing all this at the age of 38, after decades of a bad back and muscle spasm, so I have little physical room for bravado. My practice with stunts, props, and urban dance play, is to become softer, quieter, and thereby become more flexible and capable, when the world does get noisy.

[Otis]

This one is a better example of a play video I created with friends.

 

For awhile, I'd bring some props that I had found or bought at the 99cent store, and just invited people to play along. The result was always unpredictable, very silly, and involved the creative input of many people.

 

Edited June 30, 2011 by Otis

[CLPM]

Through some searching I found this thread, and I think it is interesting.

 

I am interested in music and interested in film. I want to try and make a living out of one of these, because there is nothing that makes me feel the way these activities do. Fairly confused as to what I enjoy more, music/composing or screenwriting/directing, but this is besides the point.

 

I think all art is benefits from being conscious and aware. You will write better stories if you are more aware, you will be able to express your emotions through music if you are more conscious of yourself.

 

And I think a person benefits from art, because art is what makes your soul grow. Along the lines of something Kurt Vonnegut said...creating something is very powerful.