Art is life. Life is Art.

March 20 was the spring equinox, which Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has designated as Shambhala Arts Day. People gathered at our Centre to share paintings, poetry, textile art, mosaics, Ikebana, and object arrangement (some of it reproduced here).

In doing so, we acknowledged rich teachings in dharma art offered by the founder of Shambhala, the late Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. When Trungpa writes of dharma in this context, he means “the state before you lay your hand on your brush, your clay, your canvas — very basic, peaceful, and cool, free from neurosis.” And by ‘art’ he means “all the activities of our life including any artistic disciplines that we practice. It is not an occupation; it is our whole being.” (Dharma Art p.viii)

In the first part of the evening, each person wanting to share their art took some time to speak about their inspiration and process while showing or speaking what they’d made. After a break for tea and delicious snacks, participants watched a brief film, Discovering Elegance, directed by Chogyam Trungpa; it features a dharma art installation created by him and his students at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art in 1981.

At the end of the evening, participants created a collaborative poem or ‘doha’: we meditated, feeling our bodies and whatever was wanting to arise in us. Then we spoke phrases as they arose, which together formed our poem:

From the bottom up

Richness in many forms

Imagination

Curious hands

Snow whispers spring

Vibration

Swirling trepidation

Outside inside outside

Tenderness

Art is life, life is art.