culture and creativity in buddhism

8/7/2019 Culture and Creativity in Buddhism

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Culture and Creativity: Take a Hint from the Buddha

These days, it is almost impossible not to associate culture and

sophistication, such as refined tastes in music, literature, sculpture or fine

dining with creativity. One needs to contribute something original,

something that no one else has thought of before, so that c onnoisseurs

and aficionados of something like contemporary Tibetan art or Chinese

calligraphic painting can point to a piece of work and applaud its creator.

We call her creative, someone who has created meaning as opposed to

having discovered it. Yet I would ask: is meaning something that can only

be created? Or can it also be discovered creatively?

We may sing similar praises for great religious philosophers who have

contributed invaluable insights to the human conditio n, to flourishing and

culture. Strictly speaking, the Buddha was immensely creative as a thinker

and philosopher. He re-interpreted many Vedic ideas and recast them in a

psychological and ethical light. He refined the metaphysics of Indian

thought by abstracting it from literal interpretations of physical phenomena

(such as the Jain idea of Nirvana, where one flies upwards to

enlightenment, unshackled by the dust of karma).Yet he never saw himself

as creative per se. In fact, he had merely discovered something very

special, a truth that had not yet been revealed to this world -age in his

time. And thanks to him, we of this world-system now know what that


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truth is. The work of an enlightened being, no matter what aeon or world,

is difficult indeed! Can the Buddha have been said to be creative, then?

Klostermaier certainly thinks so. In fact, he is creative precisely because he

insists that he is not bringing anything new to the table, but unveiling the

table itself:

The great creative geniuses of India, men like Gotama the Buddha

or Sankara, take care to explain their thought not as creation but as

a retracing of forgotten eternal truth. They compare their activity to

the clearing an overgrown ancient path in the jungle, not to the

making of a new path (Klostermaier, 1978, p. 6).

The Buddha declared the Dharma, the eternal law, never appears or

disappears, but is only lost and rediscovered. In this sense, can we not say

that a new vision of creativity is taking place that is, one of the

pathfinder, the discoverer, and the brush-clearer? In this regard I like

Cowards explanation of the Indian idea of language as not something

invented, but respoken:

The creative effort of the rsi the composer or seer of the word

is not to manufacture something new out of his own imagination,

but rather to relate ordinary things to their forgotten eternal truth .


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In this Indian perspective both the technical study of grammar and

the philosophical analysis of language are seen as intellectual

brush-clearing activities which together open the way for a

rediscovery of the eternal truth in relation to everyday objects and

events (Coward, 1980, p. 5).

Here we have a different ideal of the artist or poet, not as a creator or

maker but as a pathfinder or discoverer. A canvas, a blank piece of paper,

a piano waiting for its player to thrill and move an audience some say

that the agent is free precisely because she can create, but she is also free

because she is a discoverer of art, music, or philosophy. She is free

because she is a discoverer of her own potential.

Is there one correct way of looking at inspiration and imagination? After

all, culture is certainly a man-made thing, yet it is also something vital to

the life of civilization itself: where there is human thinking there is culture

expressed through art and the sciences and it cannot be thrown away

or destroyed. Is creativity in the sense of innovation and originality by

definition something new? Or is creativity something timeless, always

echoing but never limited by beginnings or endings? I have no idea what

the answer is, and it would surely be hubris to believe one can discover it

in one lifetime. Nevertheless, one can try. Many have, and there is no


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reason not to follow in their footsteps: especially if we have an example of

such stature as the Buddha.

Speculation and aesthetic originality are all well and good (enjoyment of

beauty is painfully important), but the practical achievement of the

spiritual goal and experience as taught by the Blessed One and

embodied in the bodhisattva path is what makes the difference for

oneself and others around us.

culture and creativity in buddhism

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