Maitreyabandhu - What Good Are the Arts? (with Book Launch)
On Fri, 21 August, 2015 - 17:11
Maitreyabandhu has long been a champion of the Arts as a viable path of spiritual practice in the Buddhist context. And here is an unapologetic but nuanced - in many ways delightfully good humoured and cultured - look at why the Arts must be part of a wider perspective on life if they are to be any good to us.
Drawing on sources as diverse as John Carey and Wagner via Elizabeth Bishop and Hello Kitty, Maitreyabandhu illustrates why the Arts detached from the whole life - particularly ethical life - fall short of what we need to partake in their full potential for joy. A challenging but ultimately deeply sympathetic and human approach to the value of the Arts for anyone concerned with the place of aesthetic experience in relation to values.
Talk given at the Conscious Surrender to the Beautiful Order weekend, August 2015.
See all posts from the weekend
Responses
Great talk, thanks so much for sharing it. I particularly liked the comments on the aesthetics of everyday life. I once described to a friend a good family morning as feeling like I was creating a Zen garden of kids playing, and this talk helped me see the connections between what I can get out of great art and my realities of looking after two small kids and how I can encourage those moments and recognize their qualities. Was also struck by aesthetic experience being described as spiritual death. I’ve been thinking about Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of skyscrapers and skulls in relation to my experiences of opening in meditation and suddenly spiritual death seems a very apt description of what I am sensing in this combination… so really thought provoking… thank you!!!
Thank you so much Maitreyabandhu for this inspiring talk.
This talk has fed me with a clarity and resolve to make space in my work for the beautiful to arise.
With admiration from Ruth Koffer(Aberystwyth sangha)
My comment is brief, but Maitreyabandhu’s talk is beautiful and envigorating. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to listen to this. Susan