Zen and the Art of Dharma Art
Learning to let go of the struggle to achieve
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“Please, not another collage!” I heard an inner voice say, accompanied by a panic response.
Seven years ago I attended my first silent meditation retreat, held on a beautiful 100 acre property about two hours north of Toronto. This is where my meditation teachers Andrew and Angie live. Their annual retreats have become a centerpiece of my personal spiritual exploration. This year the retreat brought many gifts including an opportunity to reconsider my fraught and fearful relationship to art.
While on retreat, we mostly spend our days sitting on meditation cushions or engaging in walking meditation practices. Time is also set aside to wander the land and commune with the elements. This year, to support us with our closing reflections, we were invited to use collage and poetry to express what had unfolded in our contemplative journeys.
Our teacher Andrew arranged scissors, glue sticks, markers and magazines around a beeswax candle in the center of our meditation circle. With my heart racing wildly, my body remembered a similar activity we did on my first retreat seven years ago. I recalled feeling an inner pressure to achieve a work of art that would convey a “spiritual depth” as well as disprove a deeply rooted belief “I’m not good at art.”
As a backstory, I have very fond memories of younger me, gleefully cutting, gluing, painting and colouring to my heart’s content before comparison and self-consciousness arrived around grade two. As an adult I’ve made an effort to reclaim this early joy through a variety of adult art classes. Since my early 20s I have enrolled in “Drawing for Beginners” classes at least eight times. I often enjoy the process of drawing but the idea of creating an “art” piece to be shared with others is terrifying. A part of me relentlessly holds the opinion that art is not one of my natural gifts.
Back on retreat, our teacher instructed us to notice our thoughts and feelings as he described the practice of Dharma Art: a meditative practice that invites an inner listening to what wants to be expressed without any struggle or desire to achieve (for more on this see True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art written by meditation master and artist Chögyam Trungpa.) A terrified part of me was intrigued. Could this practice help to release me from fear and struggle and bring back the natural joy of my young, innocent inner artist?
Our first instruction was to sit on our meditation cushions, still our minds, and invite an inner “blank canvas.” The intention was to enter into a meditative state and listen to what wanted to be expressed, without ego or struggle. Before taking any action, we were instructed to sit in stillness and wait for the first creative impulse to reveal itself.
As I sat in meditation, I immediately heard an inner voice sharing syllabic sounds from a chanting practice we had done earlier that day. Following this inner impulse, I picked up a thin sky-blue marker. A E I O U, the syllables from our chant emerged in different fonts and forms across my paper. This would be the beginning of my Dharma Art piece.
This guiding voice then instructed me to turn over my paper and reach for the nearest magazine which featured a glossy photo of a grinning Dalai Lama. An excitement emerged and with it came the momentum to grab a pair of scissors and a glue stick and follow the unencumbered invitation to play.
Words stood out like bright stars in a dark sky. In no particular order I cut and placed each chosen word on the page. In this particular Dharma Art practice we were invited to explore poetic expressions that reflected our respective experience of being on retreat. Importantly, we were asked to notice what wanted to be shared without placing limits or rules around the “how” and the “what.” All expressions were welcome, words, images, movements, sounds, there were no restrictions to what wanted to come through us.
Bursts of energy emerged as words came alive, inviting me to arrange them in ways that delighted and surprised me. I was drawn to cut out a large donkey head, an image of a small child looking into the cosmos and an esoteric image of a figure holding a fire-like substance overhead. I encountered brief moments of self-consciousness where I found myself peeking over to see what others were up to, measuring my creation against theirs. Each time I noticed these distractions, I made a conscious choice to rest back and soften into a state of open listening. I listened to an inner guide reminding me, “All is welcome. There’s no performance here. Listen to what wants to be shared.”
Our teacher gave us a five-minute warning. Without panic I completed my piece and settled back into meditation. I could hear a few of my fellow practitioners audibly struggling with the time restriction, coming face-to-face with their own agitated thoughts and emotions when being invited to bring the practice to a close.
Our teacher rang a bell indicating the end of our time and we were given a choice: reveal to the group what we had created or keep our pieces for ourselves. When my turn came around, I felt an unfamiliar ease and openness towards the images and words that emerged through this practice. I shared my wacky donkey poetic creation preceded by a short chanting session of “A E I O U” in various tones and cadences. The meditative process brought forth unexpected expressions that I could not have found through effort and achievement.
Beautifully, everyone around the circle also courageously shared their own Dharma Art pieces. Each creation flowed as a pure expression, a reflection of the larger whole. Meaningful insights reminded us of our shared humanness, our vulnerabilities around performance, worth and worthiness, alongside unique humor and musings.
Throughout this Dharma Art practice, dread and judgment did not entirely disappear, but my emotions and critical voices were dimmer, opening up space for joyful play, receptivity and an emerging trust in myself as a conduit for whatever is bubbling up.
Following this experience, I’m left with a new curiosity. How might I continue to use Dharma Art for self expression? And how does letting go of achievement and struggle bring more opportunities for joy and play?
These are the words that came to me in the Dharma Art collage process:
Soul Freedom
Dream Perfect Brilliant Stillness
The Mind Heart friend
Simple human humor human challenges
Bloodlines; beloved Tara healer of hearts;
Fantastic Voyage
Living Fully
Finding Joy in Every Moment
In ceremony
The Journey Starts Here
Creative Prompts:
What wants to be expressed through you?
How do you work with resistance when it arises?
What is your relationship to inner guidance, openness and receptivity in the creative process?
What creative practices do you dread?
Is there space to start again, practicing with a blank slate or beginner's mind?
New Lindi Ortega album
After a break, this amazing Canadian singer songwriter is back with an album all about ghosts…just in time for Halloween. Recommended!!! https://orcd.co/lortegaether
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Love this Sue-Who!