The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume Seven (32 page)

Having developed self-respect and learned a way that you can uplift yourself on the spot, at the level of first thought best thought, you begin to develop composure and decorum in your state of mind, your body, and your artwork. Composure inspires a sense of richness and beauty, and decorum is a sense of keeping your world together. With decorum, you and your world hang together so well that you do not create any destructive effects or schisms in the phenomenal world, which create further neurotic problems.

If you have both composure and decorum, you have a sense of fully being there, completely being there. You are actually able to cut subconscious gossip, which is the aspect of mind that constantly produces destruction and distractions of all kinds. For instance, when you are about to have a clear vision, a good idea, suddenly there is a gush of wind coming through, which we call subconscious gossip—and that clarity is completely wiped out and destroyed. So it is necessary for us, particularly as artists, to have trust in first thought best thought. In that way, you will be able to cut through the subconscious gossip that creates doubt and resistance. Such directness is based on training and discipline, being willing to stick with your particular work of art or project until a sense of upliftedness takes place, your dignity develops, and a fresh first thought best thought emerges.

The dharma artist is not a self-styled artist painting a picture out of his own shit and piss and selling it for a million dollars, but an upright person, a good, gentle, and well-meaning person who is willing to cut through his or her subconscious gossip completely so that a straightforward, brilliant, precise, clear mind takes place. An artist doesn’t have to moan and suffer and roll in neurosis all the time. Unfortunately, that perverted version of the artist had evidenced lately, particularly in the Western world. People tend to appreciate those artists who tune in to their particular style of expressing neurosis. They like that neurotic style, so they buy their work of art and cherish it as though they were collecting a pet. Likewise, some people might prefer a three-legged dog for a pet rather than a four-legged dog, because they think it’s cute. In that way, art becomes corrupt and decadent, and the whole thing goes down the drain. In contrast, what we are trying to do is produce a work of art, in whatever form we might use, by developing a state of being in which the wakefulness and delight of the Buddhist and Shambhala teachings could be seen and expressed. What that comes down to, again, is one’s basic state of mind.

In any perception, first there is the quality of
seeing,
that is, you project out to the world and you see something. That creates a kind of open ground. It also creates possibilities of choosing and rejecting, in the positive sense of discriminating intelligence, as opposed to having our choices determined by emotions such as passion and aggression. You simply see things just as they are. Having
seen
, you can begin to examine the phenomenal world further. At that level, you begin to
look
.

How do you do that? First there’s a quality of abruptness—cutting your thoughts, cutting through subconscious mind, cutting any artistic theories altogether. You become just an ordinary individual seeing things at the level, we could say, of cats and dogs. Having
seen,
then you begin to
look
beyond that level and to develop a sense of composure about the whole thing. You actually begin to perceive how the world hangs together. If you want to design something or other, first you see the possibilities of the design; then you can begin to scrutinize and look further. By doing so, you develop a sense of how to appreciate the world of your design and how to manipulate the viewer at the same time—manipulate in the positive sense.

When you
see,
it is first impression. When you
look,
then you conclude what you have seen. Seeing is first thought best thought, and looking is second thought, maybe best thought. One never knows, it depends on your state of mind. We always see first. Having seen, then our usual selection process, called subconscious gossip, should not be employed. Instead, visual dharma should be employed so we can actually see with a taste, which is looking. That might mean that there is some kind of discrimination, but that’s okay. Altogether, what happens is you
see
and then you
look
—and having seen and looked already, then you see again, which is the final conversion. Everything’s fine, or maybe terrible—or question mark.

I would like to encourage everybody to practice meditation so we can actually see and look more. If we don’t understand ourselves, it will be very difficult to appreciate anything else that goes on in our world. And on the whole, please cheer up. Don’t analyze too much.

The next concept is joining the whole thing together and making a statement, which is based on threefold logic. This of course comes from first seeing and looking. Threefold logic is an old Buddhist tradition of how to perceive messages from the phenomenal world, how to appreciate a view completely, and how to present your personal view to somebody else as well.

Threefold logic has to do with presenting a complete world to somebody. Somebody may want you to design a wedding ring or a liquor cabinet or a suit. Somebody might want you to design a whole city or even a nice necklace for their Pekingese dog. Threefold logic can be applied to any situation that comes up. In threefold logic, first we have the ground, then path, and then fruition. It is like holding a fan: first holding the fan, then opening the fan, and then producing a breeze by waving the fan. So threefold logic works in this way: first, one establishes the ground; second, one perpetuates that ground with a certain logic; and third, one puts all of that together and confirms it. That’s called threefold logic, and that kind of logic could be used in designing or producing a work of art. We could describe that as the heaven, earth, and man principle used in the Japanese tradition of flower arranging, or as the three bodies of the tantric art of Tibetan vajrayana Buddhism—dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya. However they are described, the three aspects of the background of manifestation, the potential of manifestation, and finally manifesting altogether are very important in order to execute a work of art.

In the Shambhala tradition, we use the terms
heaven, earth,
and
man.
We start with the ground, which is heaven. Heaven is not necessarily empty space; it has the authority of divine principles coming down to earth, as well as a sense of goodness, gentleness, and togetherness. Heaven has a quality of looking down and a quality of conquering space. There is the sense of being unyielding and regal. There is also a playful aspect to heaven. That sense of openness and room to work could be very dangerous: if you wanted to trip out on it, the heaven principle could con you into situations. There could be some self-deception. The blank page is inviting you, asking you to start with your first dot. So you could start with first mind–best mind and invite a genuine heaven. That’s the basic principle of heaven.

Then we can get into earth, which is a sort of grounded quality, or mother-earth principle. Pregnant earth, encompassing earth. It could develop problems with domesticity. Very gentle earth, accommodating everything, including chaos.

The man principle is quite daring and cute—particularly when they are babies, though one usually forgets about their diapers. Man has openness and strength at the same time; there is both daring and goodness. Man is not necessarily making reference to heaven and earth, but is just an individual existence, simply taking place.

Then we join them together; and to join heaven, earth, and man, we need a king. The king principle is not really a fourth logic but is the three of them brought together to become a unity. If you did not have heaven or sky, you couldn’t exist. But heaven also depends on earth. If there were just heaven without earth, that would not make much sense; and if there were only earth, which is the confirmation of heaven, there would be the same problem. And if there were heaven and earth without anybody occupying that space, then nobody would be doing anything at all. Therefore there is man. And at some point all of them join together—not as a fourth principle of logic, but as an extension of the third principle to its logical conclusion. If we have some sense of the dharma of these three principles, then we could put them all together.

Heaven, Earth, and Man

A work of art is created because there is basic sacredness, independent of the artist’s particular religious faith or trust.

D
HARMA ART HAS TO DO
with the state of mind of the artist and how we can communicate that fully to ourselves and to our world. In this regard, we could review the three principles of heaven, earth, and man. Heaven is regarded as space. It provides some psychological space in your state of mind, the sense that there’s enough room for you to work. The space of heaven is primordial mind, free from conditions. It is not blank or vacant, but it accommodates everything. It has the quality of wakefulness, the quality of delight, and the quality of brilliance. So the general meaning of heaven is some kind of totality in which we can operate. We can actually walk, dance, kick, and stretch ourselves in that atmosphere. There’s lots of room, lots of freedom, and also a sense of wakefulness.

That kind of space becomes an integral part of the process of creation. Restrictions and inadequacies usually come from feeling burdened, as though we are carrying a heavy load. But if we develop the notion of space fully and properly, we begin to find that there is no burden, no load. That is a relief—not just a petty relief, but a larger version of mind altogether. We begin to realize that an extraordinary openness takes place in our lives—in the way we move, the way we eat, the way we sleep, and the way we create a work of art. Tremendous freedom takes place in that basic space. Such freedom is not a product of the creation of art; it is preproduction freedom. That is very important for you to know. Before we produce anything at all, we have to have a sense of free and open space with no obstacles of any kind.

When we have that state of mind, and the right attitude and experience of space has happened already, then out of that comes what is known as blessing, or sacredness. When there’s enough sense of space and of no struggle, we can afford to relax. We begin to discover what is known as sacred world, in which any artistic endeavor is regarded as sacred. This is not a product of being smart or clever, whether mathematically, technically, or politically. Sacredness is the binding factor in the heaven principle. If we have one thing here, something else there, and other things arranged all around in our design or visual concept, we don’t clutter them all together; and we don’t make the big mistake of reorganizing and reproducing our neurosis in the world, because there is a sense of sacredness or blessings. Any good work of art always has that notion of sacredness within it.

Some people look at a painting and think it looks sacred and holy because it invites the sanity of a particular religious tradition. They immediately label it as deriving from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. But in fact, they regard the artist as having been indoctrinated into a certain faith and therefore able to produce a work of art in accordance with his commitment. I think that way of labeling works of art sacred is sacrilegious. It narrows it down too much, cutting out the whole aspect of human dignity. Basically, it is simply saying that a person who is relatively fanatic in his or her religious commitment will produce the best neurotic art according to that religion. That is a terrible thing to say, absolutely terrible. We are trying to go beyond that narrow sense of sacredness. A work of art is created because there is basic sacredness, independent of the artist’s particular religious faith or trust. That sacredness is the heaven aspect, which creates an umbrella, so to speak, that becomes very powerful and very
real.
At that point, human dignity is more important than the particular religion or discipline a person came from. That sounds great, don’t you think? Sacredness from that point of view is the discovery of goodness, which is independent of personal, social, or physical restrictions.

The second principle is earth, which has three categories. The first category is
absence of neurotic mind.
The artist produces a work of art on the spot. So whether the artist is sane in the long run or has a larger vision of things or not, each moment there are on-the-spot moments of sanity, connected with the healthiness of the artist’s state of mind and his or her relationship to the medium and the work of art itself. According to the Buddhist tradition, neurosis refers to that state of mind which fixates and holds on to things. It is broken down into three categories: passion, which is too gooey, too much glue; aggression, which is too sharp, too threatening, too rejecting; and ignorance, which is a state of stupor that cannot discriminate left from right or black from white. Basically, we’re talking about the absence of that, the absence of neurotic mind.

The second category of the earth principle is
thorough relaxation and wholesomeness.
That sense of relaxation is so thoroughly developed in your state of mind and body that as an artist you begin to develop tremendous softness. Your relationship to the world becomes very soothing. It is so soothing that before you create a work of art, you might feel as if you had gone through a washing machine. You are completely relaxed and you just flop. Your mind and body are so mixed together that a sense of goodness is already taking place in you. You could say it’s like coming out of a sauna bath: you feel so relieved to come out of that room, and a sense of relaxation takes place. So basically we are talking about relaxation. Another school or philosophy of art might say that if the artist were aggressive and neurotic enough, on the spot that would produce a wonderful work of art. But to our way of thinking, from the visual dharma point of view, it is just the opposite. A person has to experience relaxation before producing a work of art.