The Artist’s Eye

The afternoon sun slants through the blinds, and the white shears that hang to the floor billow in the breeze coming through the window. There is a hawk that lives high in the large pine tree outside the house, and now and again he gives his high pitched caw that brings to mind the wild in Arizona where I used to live.

I’m an artist and a Tibetan Buddhist now living in the Washington DC area, working as a web designer. I love seeing meditation spaces that are created with an artist’s eye and sense of wonder.

Moon Soul Sky: This natural meditation space is a photo taken on the Costa Rica coast. This article from the blog “Empty Words” talks about stones and how they are used in a creative and spiritual way. You can view the article here MoonSoulSky, a wordpress blog article titled “The Story of the Pebble”.  “Pebbles and stones of various sizes and shapes are used in zen gardens, koi ponds, natural landscaping. They make wonderful meditative sculptures. The statues of Easter Island, The pyramids at Giza, and Michaelangelo’s David – all are made from stone. We use rocks to enhance the beauty around us, to create a sense of peace and balance, and to inspire us to creative artistic heights. We have also historically used rocks as a means of inflicting pain on another. Every light has it’s darkness.”

Om Mani Pedme Hung: This painting is from a series of oil paintings that can hang as a group or separately. Each painting is a sanskrit syllable of the mantra “Om Mani Pedme Hung” Each syllable has a significant meaning which can be read about by here. The paintings depict the syllables hanging in empty space over a vast ocean, transparent and part of the landscape. This idea comes from the Tibetan Buddhist practice and teaching that all things are one, therefore phenomena is empty of separation. Each syllable is associated with a color, hence the light tint to each letter.  A large central painting (not shown here) is of the horizon on the ocean with simple, clean colored dots depicting the six syllables in their simplest form.

This room is on the other side of the spectrum. Professionally designed and created by an interior decorator featured on the AGA (advanced graphics applications) website without any reference to the designer. It shows a graphical depiction of the Bodhi tree, the place where the Buddha first reached enlightenment. With a sculptural tree, a statue of Shakyamuni, and subtle light and space created for quiet meditation, this space is everything a meditator or artist would need to find peace and quiet expressed in an artistically creative way, ready for a serious meditation session. As you can see, when sitting in front of the modern altar, you’ll be viewing a garden out the large windows on each side of the altar, bringing the outdoors inside. If you know the designer please let us know.

And finally, a contemporary meditation space showing a beautiful altar with a large statue of the Buddha Shakyamuni sitting in a room with a highly reflective floor, almost as if he is sitting next to a quiet lake. The simplicity and quiet of this space is really thought out and executed with a lot of devotion and artistic sensitivity.  This kind of editing is so hard, and can usually only be done by someone who is highly trained in the understanding of balance, color, light and flow. While traditional Buddhist temples are filled with color, texture, textiles, statues and hangings, this shows an editing down to the basic and beautiful. Quieting the mind in this space would be easy.

That’s it for the artist eye discerning a meditation space with creativity and expression that will catch anyones attention. Do you know of a meditation space that is artistically rendered? Post a comment and share…