Creativity and Spirituality

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greggorious
Posts: 251
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011
6:40 pm
Creativity and spirituality

by greggorious Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:11 am
P
o
I work
in the creative field. I write songs, I sing, I play Guitar, I act and I write poetry. Why is it
s
that
during
some of these times when I'm immeresed I feel a presence that isn't just me? Like
t
I've transcended myself and feel something much larger than me going on? Is this a spiritual
sense? Is this a brief window of enlightenment that comes for rare glimpses at a time? Buddha
didn't speak much of these things.
"The original heart/mind shines like pure, clear water with the sweetest taste. But if the heart is
pure, is our practice over? No, we must not cling even to this purity. We must go beyond all duality,
all concepts, all bad, all good, all pure, all impure. We must go beyond self and nonself, beyond
birth and death. When we see with the eye of wisdom, we know that the true Buddha is timeless,
unborn, unrelated to any body, any history, any image. Buddha is the ground of all being, the
realization of the truth of the unmoving mind. Ajahn Chah
o
p
Re: Creativity and spirituality

by Dan74 Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:03 am
P
o not sure of what's written in Buddhist texts on this topic but the Buddha was clearly a
I am
s
creative
person looking at all the various ways he had come up with to put his point across.
t
mean all the similes and stories, metaphors and beautiful imagery.
Dan74
Posts: 2828
Joined: Sun Mar 01,
2009 11:12 pm
As far as I can make out, creativity is a result of a spacious uncluttered and free state of mind.
An intuitive disposition that is good at making surprising connections helps too. The "larger
than me" feeling is because this state of mind is not bounded by the usual calculating and
predicting that relates the happenings to "me" and "mine but is spontaneous and
unpredictable.
I think calling it brief glimpses of enlightenment is going too far, but this quality can be very
http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11557&p=174849[17/8/2558 0:54:15]
useful for practice which otherwise can get stagnant and rigid. The trouble creative people
often have is lack of discipline and staying power with what they are not so good at.
_/|\_
o
p
greggorious
Posts: 251
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011
6:40 pm

by greggorious Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:17 am
P
o
Thanks
for your reply Dan. Along with the positive attributes of my creativity have come
s
depression,
anxiety and alcohol addiction. I don't like it when people say that creativity
t
comes
with the territory of suffering, or that there's a fine line between madness and Genius. These
are fallacies to me. If you look closely there are far more people who are creative and content
than creative and suffering.
"The original heart/mind shines like pure, clear water with the sweetest taste. But if the heart is
pure, is our practice over? No, we must not cling even to this purity. We must go beyond all duality,
all concepts, all bad, all good, all pure, all impure. We must go beyond self and nonself, beyond
birth and death. When we see with the eye of wisdom, we know that the true Buddha is timeless,
unborn, unrelated to any body, any history, any image. Buddha is the ground of all being, the
realization of the truth of the unmoving mind. Ajahn Chah
o
p
ground
Posts: 2592
Joined: Wed Nov 25,
2009 6:01 am
by ground Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:48 am

P
o
s
greggorious wrote:
t
Why is it that during some of these times when I'm immeresed I feel a presence that isn't just
me? Like I've transcended myself and feel something much larger than me going on? Is this a
spiritual sense? Is this a brief window of enlightenment that comes for rare glimpses at a time?
Buddha didn't speak much of these things.
The presence you feel may initially be just an absence, the forgetting of "me" immediately
followed by re-awakening of "me" trying to grasp this ease and getting caught up in thought
causing the appearance of an alleged "presence"
Kind regards
o
p

by Kim OHara Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:57 am
P
o
s
greggorious wrote:
t
Kim OHara
Posts: 3485
Joined: Wed Dec 09,
2009 5:47 am
Location: North
Queensland, Australia
Thanks for your reply Dan. Along with the positive attributes of my creativity have come
depression, anxiety and alcohol addiction. I don't like it when people say that creativity comes
with the territory of suffering, or that there's a fine line between madness and Genius. These
are fallacies to me. If you look closely there are far more people who are creative and content
than creative and suffering.
I think you're right to say suffering should not be an inevitable consequence of creativity:
creativity in itself is always connected to freedom and joy and the pure satisfaction making
something new, making a flower grow where there wasn't a flower before.
The suffering, I think, often comes when the creativity is blocked in some way - either by the
individual or by the society around them. And all too often the creative person blames
him/herself for the blockage and frustration, and then comes the suffering. The solution, then,
is awareness of external conditions and confidence in personal judgement - easier to say than
do, of course, especially when the creative person is still feeling his/her way artistically.
Kim
o
p
jackson
Posts: 192
Joined: Sun Nov 22,
2009 4:40 am

by jackson Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:02 am
P
o
HisGreggorius,
t
I think
what you might be referring to
is emptiness, the state where there is no self-view

present. I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately actually, and I've found the state of
creativity and the state of meditation to be similar, in that both contain an open receptivity, a
kind of inner listening, and I've also found that trusting in this emptiness and writing music
from it has improved my compositions very much. I also think it's important to distinguish
between concentration and emptiness, for one can concentrate and still be coming from a
conceited viewpoint and be totally absorbed, whereas with emptiness it's more like there's just
elements at play, no doer. I saw part of a documentary on Marvin Gaye tonight, and while he
was writing "What's Going On?" he told Smokey Robinson that god was writing the music. He
was probably referring to this state where there's just hearing and transcribing. Anyway I'm
looking forward to this topic!
Jackson
"The heart of the path is quite easy. Theres no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love
and hate and let things be. Thats all that I do in my own practice." - Ajahn Chah
o
p
Buckwheat
Posts: 938
Joined: Thu Nov 24,
2011 12:39 am
Location: California USA

by Buckwheat Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:44 pm
P
o
I think
it's also important to remember that both the joy of creativity and the inspiration
s
spiritual
experiences, while being relatively pure, are still just forms of samsara and
t
of
frustration. They are to be learned from so that we may go beyond. That beings said, it's a
heck of a lot healthier than watching porn.
Sotth hontu nirantara - May you forever be well.
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