Arts as practice.

Art helps us expand our experience and broader our sympathies. The Arts can allow us to live through experiences that have never happened to us in ‘real’ life, letting us grow through them and learn from them almost as though they had been our own. Through a play, novel or poem we can enter into the world, the thoughts, and the feelings of another person. We can know what it is like to be them, and we can develop a sense of sympathy for them. 

Art enlarges our imagination. Our separation from nature and the emphasis on mundane facts in our culture can atrophy our imagination. We need to counteract this, because imagination is an important faculty in the spiritual life. It allows us to contact possible ways of being that are completely beyond us at present. Imagination also opens a gateway to the visionary world we can experience in meditation

Creative expression is important aspect of spiritual life in Triratna. Similar to the larger Triratna network, our NY Community includes many artists of all different kinds. Even if we are not all “professional” artists, many of us engage with one or more art forms as a part of our Buddhist practice.