Dharma is something we strive towards but what if dharma is already in us? What if dharma is our default position and what we experience is a learnt overlay? 

What if we evolved into an altruistic, empathetic, compassionate and caring species of ape but owing to our overdeveloped brain we have become enveloped by the learnt rules of civilization which have to some extent suppressed, deflected or obscured our innate nature?

Dukka, impermanence and the self 

Dukka is suffering through wanting existence to be something it is not. When did we start to consider that existence owed us something? In order to desire something we don’t have certain foundational elements that have to be in place. First there has to be a self, an individual to create the desire, without an ego there is no one at home to do the desiring or feel the dissatisfaction of not getting it. The creation of the self automatically creates dualism; if there is a self there is a subject and if there is a subject there must by definition be an object. 

This is the Second element, there has to be something to desire and a reason for desiring it, the object. And third there has to be a barrier to obtaining the object of desire. Something between the subject and the object, the space created by dualism. 

Thus the emergence of the self, the individual, creates the conditions for dukka through the creation of the space of dualism. Once established this leads to the realisation that all objects are unsatisfactory as they are all impermanent. So no matter how many or how much we collect nothing lasts in this dualistic construct. 

Perhaps if we recognise that dualism is a construct we can see what lies beneath, existence is being in the world. Remembering playing as a child gives insight into this existence. In play there is no duality, there is only the experience of play. At the end of play comes the reemergence of the existence of duality.

The five hindrances

The five hindrances that are said to impede dharma practice, desire, anger, sloth, dissatisfaction, doubt can all be seen to some extent as learnt habits. No doubt there is a genetic base for some desires but the desires for those things we don’t need for survival might be a reflection of our learnt responses rather than anything innate. Adverts make us desire things which we certainly don’t need, no one thinks the desire for a new vacuum cleaner is innate.

We hurt when we are hit by a stone but our first response is surprise and we only engender hate when we develop a relationship with the person who threw the stone. We dont hate a cliff for letting a stone fall, or the person whose step disturbed the ground. hate only develops when we interpret the reason for the stone’s release as being an undeserved act of aggression.

We were not born slothful and children play constantly without becoming tired, boredom is a result of lack of imagination and creative endeavour, both of which are the result of lifestyles.

We worry, become restless and dissatisfied with our lot all because we are led to believe there is a better alternative. There is no better alternative to life and existence. What leads us to desire something other than what we have and where we are? Without exposure to the supposed benefits of alternatives we could not be aware of them and without awareness we could not desire them, we have therefore learnt to be dissatisfied.

Doubt might in this context be considered a useful attribute. Doubt about wisdom being something to aspire to. Perhaps wisdom is simply lying under the swaths of learnt habits to be revealed rather than attained?

The eightfold path

One of the issues secular dharma has with the eightfold path is the adjective Samma, traditionally translated as right but also interpreted to mean appropriate, complete, correct or other less dogmatic terms. One of the definitions in a Pali-English dictionary is ‘as it ought to be’

If we look at the eight; knowledge, perception, speech, action, work, effort, meditation and concentration and rather than doing these the right way we try act  them out as they ought to be, the emphasis changes from a set of guidelines held by a body that knows the correct way of doing things to doing things in way which is intrinsic to our nature. As it ought to be is, as it ought to exist. 

What then if the advice in the eight areas is not to do things the right way but to do them as they ought to be done. How ought we to act? “You ought to be more careful” this means not that you should follow rules of how to be careful but that acting with care is more sensible, again to be sensible is not to follow a rule but to act within our nature. “You ought to pay attention” is advice not to follow a rule but advice that to concentrate is inherently beneficial and sensible. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself” suggests that there is an undefined inherent ethic which you have violated.

What then is knowledge as it ought to be? Or speech as it ought to be? Or actions as they ought to be? Could these be to know, communicate and act as is our intrinsic nature? If not, What is the alternative? To act, communicate, work, concentrate following some other set of rules? If so, who made these rules? Who set the guidance? What higher guidance are we looking for? Perhaps the guidance is already within us. And the advice is to look for it under the layers that our upbringing has covered it with.

Can you remember learning to lie? Can you remember learning to steal? Can you remember learning to envy? Can you remember learning your status? Can you remember learning to hate?

Clearly humans have a great capacity for learning how to be but this learnt behaviour is not necessarily how we ought to behave. Perhaps we already know how we ought to behave but because of all we have learnt the path at times becomes obscured.

Seeing the dharma as a way of being and acting that is inherent leads to a different view of practice. Dharma practice is traditionally presented as procedures that lead to enlightenment. The eightfold path is presented as a guide to behaviour, a way to act ethically, but what if rather than how to be, it is an exposition of how we are?

These are thoughts that have been with me for some time and I am aware that they are poorly expressed and there are likely to be many holes in the hypothesis; it may indeed be fundamentally flawed. Please feel free to point out the errors as it is through dialogue that a more coherent idea might emerge. 

Considering the cognitive space which we refer to as imagination and which among other things, we use to imagine possible futures. Reflecting on the imagination being the entire way we experience reality led me to wonder about the relationship of ‘myself’ to imagination, the more I wondered the more it seemed to me that imagination was very closely related to the concept of self. Whenever imagination was present it seemed there had to be a self occupying it. I tried to think of situations when imagination was present but self wasn’t, and failed. I wondered where self could exist without imagination and again struggled to find those spaces. This led to further pondering the results of which are outlined below.

Neither imagination or a sense of self exist in a physical reality beyond the mind. So it is fair to say without much fear of contradiction that both self and imagination are creations of the mind. As well as this similarity there also seem to be other links between the space of imagination and a felt sense of self in terms of personal identity and our existence as an independent entity. 

It is difficult to conceive of the idea of a personal self existing anywhere but in the realm of imagination. Where, other than in the mind could the idea of a personal self reside? And since the self resides in the mind in which mind states can it be found other than the imagination? Despite my doubts about the value of dictionary definitions relating to subjective conscious experiences, for clarity I used a dictionary definition of imagination as; the facility to be able to create mental images of things not directly experienced by the senses (I am using this limited definition which does not include the word creativity to simplify things!). An additional aspect to imagination that is not covered in this definition is that the mental image in the imagination must change over time, indeed existence through time is an essential quality of imagination, remembering and planning take time. Imagination where ‘I’ view the past and future seems the natural space for my self to occupy, indeed it is not immediately obvious where the idea of a personal self might exist other than in the realm of imagination.

If I recall a past event or plan a future activity, both these thought processes take place in the realm of the imagination: recollection of something that happened in the past and planning for the future require an image of some description. If we are planning a future then we need to use imaginary versions of our senses; hearing and sound if we are composing music, vision if we are planning an event, movement if we are planning an activity, etc. Is it possible to consider any thought taking place in the imagination involving planning that does not involve us, i.e. our self, to a greater or lesser degree? Turning to memory, again we recall facsimiles of our senses and how they saw, heard, smelt, felt and reacted to a past time. These memory exist for us – our self – over time in imagination

There are some mind states where we seem to be without self. A sudden physical pain is a felt experience which only later might we refer to as ‘my pain’. Say we pick up a pan handle only to realise it is frighteningly hot, the pain is felt as an experience, we don’t think, ‘my hand is burnt’ there is simply an experience of pain. We can later say ‘I have burnt my hand’ but this is a later construction of a past event which would take place using imagination. The pain itself does not require imagination as it is a direct result of experience through the senses.

In samadhi meditation when we focus on the breath an aim is to concentrate on the felt experience to the exclusion of all other thoughts and images. In Vipassana meditation we are focusing on thoughts and emotions as they occur without judgment of reaction. In both processes there is the sense of the mind being focused beyond the realm of imagination and self. Other processes when the mind is involved in specific activities that take all available mind space such as complex mathematics and perhaps craft skills and some aspects of creativity can be so all encompassing that they leave no room for reflection on self. But do these activities involve imagination? In his studies of what he refers to as the state of flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests that when in a state of optimal experience we lose both a sense of self and of time. Since imagination is a temporal experience this suggests that in flow we experience being without imagination or self.

It does appear then that these specific highly focused non-self activities that take place in the mind could also be characterised as taking place in thoughts that also lack the need for a general or broad imaginative space. These special cases, if they require imagination at all, require a highly specialised image. For example, In conversations with mathematician friends they say that when in mathematical flow they are using mathematics as a concept rather than dealing with images of symbols and numbers. This resonates with what Ronn said in the last meeting about these specialist areas having their own ‘language’.

The times when we are in flow are for most of us rare, the majority of the time our minds are much less focused, we harbour various imagined scenarios and are open to distraction. It is at these times that the imagination has space for our self. This is Descartes duality where we happily consider ourselves as having thoughts, memories, plans, conversations, it is at these times we cultivate, and have since childhood been developing, our sense of ourselves. What it means to be me. 

So if the self can only exist in the space we refer to as imagination, what of imagination? Where else does imagination – in the sense of a general broad platform rather than the very focused and narrow imaginations associated with specific thinking tasks such as complex mathematics or musical composition – exist?

Any time we consider using our imagination we must by default think of ourselves as part of that construct. Indeed we say, ‘our’ imagination, if it it our’s then it involves ‘our’ self. Even in dreams we either see ourselves or are the viewer of the action, in both cases there is either yourself taking part as a character or as an onlooker.  

To summarise, it could be argued that the self cannot exist without imagination and that imagination cannot exist with self. If this is the case what is the difference between self and imagination? Are they synonymous? Could it be that rather than a self residing in imagination, your imagination is your self? 

If we relate this back to creativity and the idea that there are aspects of the creative process that only work in the absence of self, then what this looks like now is that as well as finding a space that lacks self we are also looking for a space without imagination. This does seem to resonate with the idea of flow where any distraction and involvement of time, self and other diversions tend to disrupt the process. At times of flow there is simply experience rather than a self having an experience in an imaginary space over time. We may though have some sense of being while in flow, is this sense of awareness the same as self? There does seem to be a difference between a personal self, a personal identity, a sense of me, and the more distant sense of awareness of being that might occur in meditation, flow, etc.

Is there any science to back up this hypothesis? The modular theory of mind as proposed by evolutionary psychologists suggests that what we think of as consciousness is one or more of such modules. The author and evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright refers to these as these in some of his teachings as the public relation or PR modules whose job it is to relate information from the unconscious modules. The fact that at least some aspects of thought originate first in the unconscious before being passed to the conscious is now well established. Indeed the theory that conscious thought is no such thing and that conscious processes are all after the fact is very pertinent to dharma and reactivity. Peter Carruthers view that there is no such thing as conscious thought suggests that feelings such as anger are products of unconscious processing passed on to consciousness that interprets them as real and instills in them a sense of ungrounded authenticity and If we can distance ourselves from these feelings we can begin to see them for the distractions they are.. Another perspective on the role of the unconscious in decision making can be found in Before you know it by John Bargh.

According to evolutionary psychology, modularisation evolved as part of sapien survival strategy. in The strange order of things Antonio Damasio presents a compelling argument that the whole brain, body, mind construct evolved from the effect of feelings and in this proposal consciousness is a side effect of feelings. 

Some current research appears to support the view that consciousness, including therefore the experiences of imagination and self, is a side effect of evolution These theories don’t contradict the idea that imagination and self could be one and the same thing. The modular view as developed by evolutionary psychology explicitly considers the self a fabrication of the mind. 

Taken together this current research suggests that we tend to look the wrong way through the telescope when considering self and consciousness. As beings with a self we can be fooled into giving prominence and indeed preeminence to ourselves. We can see ourselves as distinct and apart from the world around us, and consider ourselves to be individual and unique entities of special importance. If these feelings are as a result of the chance progress of evolution then it seems plausible that the construct of self might well see the space it calls as imagination as something other than itself, a space to occupy and to use when required. It is perhaps on reflection more difficult to see how or why two distinct systems – self and imagination should have conveniently evolved in tandem that so well suit each other. 

Are self and imagination two subjective experiences of the same phenomena, two names for the same experience? Since it is the nature of self to consider itself distinct, from a subjective perspective self and imagination would necessarily be perceived as two distinct phenomena but is this really the case? Ocham’s razor suggests we should always look for the more straightforward explanation, and favour explanations that posit fewer over more entities. 

Is it not possible at least, that looking the correct way down the telescope is to see self as nothing more than an evolutionary side effect which has so taken over the mind/brain/body that it has installed itself as the preeminent feature of being? This more objective stance might see self as a construct that evolved in tandem with the phenomena of imagination to enable a temporal view of the world that allows for reflection of the past and planning for the future. The moment to moment experience of being, tends now only to become prominent when we practice mindfulness.

To paraphrase the Christian aphorism that the greatest trick the devil ever played is to convince people that he does not exist. Perhaps the greatest trick the self ever played is to convince people it does exist 

A few things occur. (I just wrote ‘…to me.’ at the end of the last sentence and then deleted those two words. ‘I’ had nothing to do with the ideas that popped into this head, they just appeared)

All ideas are the result of what we call creativity. Therefore all philosopher’s ideas are the result of a creative process. Stephen Bachelor has talked of the process of Gautama’s awakening and spreading the word of his revelation as being similar to creative imagination. Indeed the story reads like a textbook example of creativity. A man is dissatisfied with the ways to live he sees around him – problem identification. He explores various alternatives – carries out extensive research. Thinks intensely about the problem – saturation. Sits down and resolves not to get up until he finds the solution – incubation. Has a moment of inspiration – insight. He then takes the idea to others to turn it into reality – realisation. And lives the idea – verification.

Looked at this way and following Stephen’s thread that in spreading the word of his insight Gautama is following a creative process. As well as encouraging his followers to live a questioning life is he also suggesting they follow a creative life? Apparently most African languages don’t have a word for creativity, perhaps an explanation is that what we call being creative is so all pervasive, so common, that it is implicit in life and does not require articulation. Like African languages, perhaps Gautama didn’t call what he was describing as living creatively simply because there was no word for creativity in Pali. It does seem from what Stephen is suggesting that Gautama was advocating living a creative life. One of Stephen’s questions to us on the ABB course was “what is Buddha nature?” Perhaps Buddha nature is a synonym for living creatively? Perhaps rather than just trying to interpret, understand and follow the thoughts and pronouncements that stemmed from Gautam’s insight we should focus on the underlying process of creativity that brought about these thoughts in the first place.

A key question that follows from this and one that has the potential to expand the concept of creativity, is what does it mean to be a creative person? There is a tendency in our culture to focus on creative outcomes, particularly in the arts, and to label the individuals who made them creative. This reverse engineering approach tends to emphasise both the exceptional nature of creativity and extol the individuals who produce creative output. If the earlier explanation of why some languages don’t have a word for creatively has some validity, then perhaps what we should be focusing on is not tangible product but intangible process and reflecting on whether that process is exclusive to the gifted few or is indeed ubiquitous. 

Going back to the deletion of the words ‘to me’ I mentioned in the first sentence above. This seems like a key element in the process of creativity. We talk about individuals having ideas. Socrates, Guatama, Keats, Leonardo etc. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the ideas came through them rather than the individual being in some way responsible for the idea. We can only set up the conditions for ideas to emerge, we can’t make ideas in the way  we can follow a set of instructions to make a chair.

In the world we live in we recognise the individual as being significant, central and indeed pretty much what we are – individuals. But when did this happen? At what stage in our lives did we become individuals? My daughter is 8 months pregnant with what will be, we hope, our first grandchild. The unborn child is referred to as ‘Toots’ (an early scan looked like Carla Miranda with a bunch of fruit on its head, hence ‘Tooty fruity’) So Toots already has an individuality and even nascent personality (all the pre-birth gifts were fruit orientated.) This individuality though is a projection created by us, it is not embodied in the infant. 

Donald Winnicott, was a pediatrician and psychoanalysis who explored the nature of being of infants and children. One of his interests was what is the world-view of babies and how does it change over time? He surmised from his observations that babies do not identify as individuals separate from the world but they simply experience being, and that experience over time includes an increasing number of things but does not initially have a hierarchy or delineation of self and other, things just are. As children grow they develop a sense of a subject/object structure to reality and from this grows a sense of self separate from the other. From my own childhood I have a memory of a time before I became an individual and can recall some of the first times I was told to respond to others as separate individuals rather than as things in experience. For me school was the most decisive and divisive factor. School required responsible individuals, not beings having experiences, and so over time the being was separated from its experience of being in the world and became the individual Rupert.

Winnicott also wrote about the importance of childhood play, he considered play nascent creativity. This theory supports the idea of creativity as being ubiquitous. If all babies and children play and play is the seed of creativity then all children have the potential to grow into creative adults. But here, like play, creativity would not be defined by outcome, we don’t categorize childhood play by what is achieved, by what the outcomes of play are. We consider play important and worthwhile in itself perhaps we can apply the same principle to adult creativity? 

This relates back to Gautama’s idea of non-self. Non-self could be seen to be a key to creativity. If we can regain the early experience of non duality and lose the trappings of individuality, ego, self, we can reclaim playfulness and develop our creativity. 

On the secular dharma course Stephen Bachelor talked of a shift in his writing from telling to showing – not telling but rather allowing the work to reveal the writer’s intention. Stephen talked about no longer being interested in telling people about Buddhism but now wanting to show and be transparent, to remove himself as the organiser, author and use the material to bare witness, to show dharma as a practice not a theory. There is a parallel with this idea in some paintings which can reveal the thoughts, ideas and intention of the painter. Great paintings are like great books, an artist can reveal aspects of the nature of being that might otherwise remain hidden. Sometimes though to read a painting a grasp of an individual language is required.

Comparing Vermeer and Bruegel Stephen suggests the former explores the inner nature of what it is to be a person while the latter explores the nature of the world; one looks inward to the individual and the other looks outward to the world. Vermeer leads us inward, inside the person and Pieter Bruegel takes us out to the world.

There is a parallel here with Stephen’s book The Art of Solitude which is designed to be one half of a work to be completed and complemented by The Art of Care. Each book by having the same number of chapters and words will mirror the other in a similar fashion to his collages where found materials are mirrored by flat coloured squares. Both being examples of Diptych with two complementary aspects of life are revealed. These books then are works of art that through reading reveal an internal exploration and an external practice of the dharma. In a similar way to Stephen suggesting Vermeer and Pieter Bruegel paintings respectively look inwards to the internal person and outwards to the world.

This dualism between inward and outward looking implies some form of barrier between the internal self and the outside world; where though is this border? the membrane between solitude and care? inside and outside, person and world.  The terms Diptych and dualism assume a demarcation between sides, two alternatives, two approaches. 

While there may be a linguistic distinction between the two approaches this may have more to do with the nature of language and with how thought is based on language than what is actually happening. Since paintings don’t rely on language to communicate, they can be more subtle and nuanced and less dogmatic. Many of Vermeer’s characters suggest an imminent transaction with their world and some of Bruegel’s figures suggest if not contemplation then certainly a level of introspection. Perhaps the paintings that reveal the potential for art to dissolve the artificial border between inner and outer worlds are Rembrandt’s portraits. In his later self portraits Rembrandt looks out at us and allows us into his being he shows us what it is to be him and that being is very directly engaging with us. Unlike Vermeer’s milkmaid who is clearly involved in quiet introspection, Rembrandt is engaging us in a language free conversation, a conversation where by laying himself direct, open and honest he enables us to reciprocate and to engage with him and to observe our process in that engagement. We see the man and experience something of his being in the world and we know that the experience of engagement is possible by our also being in the world.

Rembrandt’s genius though is not reserved for self portraiture. In his portraits he is able to show us both how the sitter would have themselves portaided to the world, how they would have others see them and at the same time expose the inner self. In his portrait of Lady Margaretha de Geer Rembrandt renders the worldly trappings of power and position delicately and beautifully; presented without irony, but of actual status not assumed or without substance. However, spending more time with the work begins to reveal the character of the sitter. We see a formidable personality, her strength of character, the unflinching recognition of the world and her position in it. Yet alongside this the longer we stay with her the more we become aware of her acceptance of her own mortality, her human frailty and impermanence. Rembrandt reveals the inner and outer worlds and we realise that there is no border between. Margaretha was clearly not afraid of being presented as what life had made her, she demanded no painter’s flattery. Margaretha sat twice for Rembrandt so she knew perfectly well what to expect.

The longer you spend looking at a Rembrandt portrait the more you get to know the person, their characteristics and their personality. It is similar to how a person unfolds over time when you meet them in life. The mystery is quite how this effect is achieved. what is there in the painting that is similar to life? and what is it that goes beyond an image, after all in order to find out what someone is like we need to talk to them to engage with them not simply to look at them. Somehow Rembrandt creates an accessible personality by manipulating pigment on canvas. It is I think this realisation that is key, the understanding that there is an interpreter between us and the sitter. It is through Rembrandt’s interpretive rendering of the sitter that we learn about them. Here again the process is all. The painting is no more an end than the viewing, the painter enables the painting which enables the communication. Producing painting as a commodity is not art.

There are three elements to this process of communication, the painting, the painter and the viewer.  It is interesting to see the parallels here with aspects of the eight-fold path tasks, complete view/understanding and complete speech/communication. Rembrandt is able to communicate an understanding of what it is to be alive. As far as we know, Rembrandt was not a Buddhist or even a philosopher, he was creating these images, these languageless explorations into the nature of what it is to be in the world, through his life and work as a painter. He didn’t have to paint this way, he could have painted in the fashion of the times and made money and not died in debt. It seems he had no choice, or rather his choice was to paint to explore and reveal what he could of the truth of  being alive, what is the point of anything else? There is a mirror here also of complete livelyhood, a complete understanding of his craft to enable him to work without thinking about the technicalities. Just as a master potter throws a pot, the technicalities of the process are second nature and the potter is able to focus on the form arising from the hand.

Dorothea Tanning is interesting as she explores an inner world that reflects aspects of her inner world but all are in turn reflections of the life she has lived, she shows images of dreams that have almost real places with almost real people. Some works explore relationships and how characters appear, she paints characters as our emotions portray them. Later works appear to be formed as they are being painted rather than being planned. elements appear as if from the background half imagined memories fade in and out of focus. Tanning explores dark and mysterious, romantic and playful work flows from her almost as if she can make solid what she feels.

Marc Rothko. “art of not self expression” Agnes Martyn art of solitude.

If not expressing something of the self what is abstract art expressing? something of the self of the viewer perhaps? When looking at a Rothko it is our self that is doing the expressing we react to the painting, it provokes a reaction, a mood, an emotion, Rothko manipulates us in a similar way to Bruegel and Vermeer . The painting is designed, considered and constructed. This is a different process to Rembrandt, Bacon or Tanning where the painting emerges from the process of painting. It is possible to conceive of the former painters providing others with instructions on how to produce their paintings or to enlist their help in the production. This is not possible with the latter painters as their work is not pre-planned in the same way but rather emerges from the process of production and only the artist as they are working can make this happen.

Spending time in front of great art can bring us into a contemplative space. We can find dharma revealed in great art. As useful as meditation.

not sure that Bruegel is “not entertainment” The paintings are interesting, well made, draw you in, take you round, show you interesting things and tell you a story. I think they are designed as entertainment, there is so much to see and admire. Bruegel

Rothko’s work on a more meditative plane, they are designed to provoke emotions, going so far as to overwhelm the viewer and become the primary focus of the mind.

Both the Bruegel and Rothko can though be said to be paintings that are part of the process of art rather than commodities, the Bruegel is closer to a commodity and Bruegel  was painting to make a living, he was painting for a market. Rothko was appalled by the appropriation of art works by capitalism and the commodification of painting  and saw the subsequent development of pop art as a commercial enterprise devoid of true art.

An Andy Warhol print is clearly a product to be marketed rather than a work of art to be meditated on. Pop art in this way is an exploitation of commerce and an undermining of the meditative purpose of art, art as process.  The outcome is predetermined before the process has begun. rather like the production of any commercially manufactured product the art work is designed before being mass produced, marketed and sold. There is little or no sense of a process involving artist and viewer, the artistic process is reduced to little more than a commercial transaction.

In this way of thinking conceptual art also has limitations as art of meditative contemplation. With conceptual art it is the idea rather than the object that is central to the work and ideas can only be contemplated upon by a consciousness. So while there is process beyond the production that is limited to an Intellectualization or politicalization process, it is true that following the process of interpretation the viewer may then experience an affect but this is at least one point removed from the work itself. it is not the contemplation of the work but rather the contemplation of what the work means that arouses an emotional response. There is also a sense of control by the artist that restricts the process, treating the viewer as an object to be manipulated into feeling the way intended to have a response predicated by the object. Thus the object is less part of the process more an outcome with a specific purpose.

Great art transcends this  exploitative and manipulative approach and introduces and invites the viewer to become part of the process with no specific or predetermined outcome in the mind of the artist as to what that interpretative outcome will be other than to offer the opportunity to explore and experience being. Here the idea of the sublime in art can be considered both a contemplation and an experience, that is to say both a reasoned and a felt encounter, working at both a conscious and unconscious level. A work that opens up creative expression within the viewer of being and the world.

The art of Bruegel requires primarily a conscious reading but can lead to an unconscious contemplation reading whereas Rothko appeals to the unconscious more directly by removing obviously recognisable elements that would be open to interpretation by the rational conscious.

Rembrandt’s portraits, while figurative and therefore providing a direct channel to the world, lack a complex distracting narrative and the invitation is to look directly into the character to commune to both feel directly and to understand the nature of the sitter.

In an online comment discussing a Rembrandt self portrait there was a comment from someone who had seen the painting and said it felt like a haunting. It made me think that this was indeed exactly what it is like.

Looking at a Rembrandt portrait is like seeing someone alive who you know is not only dead but not there. What you are looking at is a picture of someone who died a long time ago in a distant land, what you see is a living person there in the room with you. Said like this it sounds very much like a ghostly apparition. However, while slightly unnerving, this is no fearful encounter; it is an almost normal meeting with someone who just happens not to be there and who is long since dead.

You could say that looking at a photograph might have a similar effect but a photograph can only capture reflected light and thus gives only a facsimile, a lifeless copy. A photographer has only limited options in order to manipulate their image, the medium has its uses but it cannot animate lifeless pigment.

Buddhist values reestablished in everyday life. This is what is in Bruegel paintings, the elements of compassion,  suffering, are brought into the ordinary world of everyday life.

In an essay on creativity the philosopher Henri Bergson writes about the impossibility of there being a possible future that is already in some sort of virtual existence. He suggests that unlike the architectural plans for a building which precede the production of the building itself, there is no virtual future in the past waiting to be revealed. Predicting the future artifacts of creativity is a pointless and impossible task Bergson suggests, there is no way of predicting how creativity will be channeled through the conduit of a creative mind, there is know one not even Shakespeare could know Shakespear would write hamlet. Bergson considers the product to be of greater significance than the person who created it. Referring to Hamlet he asks, which is richer: the product or the person? 

As we had been discussing the creativity of evolution I wondered how this question would apply to nature; which is richer, nature or evolution? And then broadening the question out further; which is richer the universe or the processes that created it? – general relativity, quantum mechanics and the big bang (as far as current science goes)

Starting and the end so to speak with the biggest picture, trying to disentangle the universe from the processes that create it is a thankless task. The universe exists in general relativity; in time and space and according to general relativity time and space are not different things but simply different ways of measuring the same concept – spacetime. (the faster something travels through space the slower it travels through time and vice versa) So the universe is a process that we humans happen to perceive moment to moment. We say this is how the world is now but that is because of the perspective we are looking at from not because that is the way it is. We are always traveling through space time so can never see it from the ‘outside’. The universe is not a product or artifact but a continuous unfolding process.

Similarly trying to disentangle a flower from evolution is simply different ways of looking at the same thing, without evolution there is no flower and flowers exist in time and are constantly changing due to evolution – and the forces of nature of course. A flower is an example of evolution in progress and the world as we see it now is an example of all the forces of nature in progress at this point in time. 

From this perspective, all created products are also simply examples of the creative process unfolding at a moment in time. Products come into being are appreciated, age and change over time. The words of Hamlet might be the same as those Shakespear wrote but each generation’s interpretation of those words is coloured by their culture. A twenty-first century audience can not see through the eyes of an Elizabethan one. Taking this one step further to consider the person as the agent of creativity, are not they too simply temporal elements of the creative process? People are born, live and die, they exist through time, the ideas they come up with and the manufacture of outcomes they produce are all products of a process of living, creating, existing through time. 

From this perspective at least it seems that considering creativity as process is more likely to lead to deeper understanding than the subjectively manufactured human centred idea of equal primacy of person, process and product.

Perhaps like the holy trinity with its three manifestations of the concept of God, there is creative process the person, creative process the process and creative process the product as three manifestations of the same concept – the process of creativity?