Expressions

Maybe a definition of art is not in the end result so much as the sense of release in the activity, the process of both the painting and its inspiration.

Painting, drawing, the arts in general can be ways  to transform that deeper layer of being and it is crucial that we do so if we wish to go beyond unnecessary suffering.

We do not act, as much as we may wish it, from our conscious minds so much as from our unconscious emotions. If we want to change the way in which we perceive and interpret experience we need to reprogram our most basic and primordial conditioning.

Buddhadharma talks or three root poisons that cause unnecessary suffering, greed, hatred and delusion sometimes also rendered as confusion. What are these if not our fight, flight or freeze responses but no longer directed towards survival, as that is, at least for most of us, a given but instead directed towards self centred ends.

These once useful, indeed essential, responses require retraining and maybe even restraining if we are to attain the genuine happiness of enlightened beings.

Art is an opportunity to creatively explore that which drives us and turn it towards something skilful with the aim of reprogramming such conditioned response.

Overtime we can experience these primordial forces but allow them to be, to choose a different way, to act appropriately for the betterment of all rather than just the few or even the one.