The symposium “Art and the Sacred” was held at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, in March 1997. The construction of this Gothic-style building began over a hundred years ago. I noticed that its south tower had grown a little since I had seen it ten years before, though the construction of the north tower had not yet started.
The invisible portion of the mammoth structure gave me a sense of assurance that humans will continue to build civilization after my own death and the deaths of all those who are alive now. But soon I remembered that the chance for humans to survive for another century is decreasing rapidly. So I said at the symposium, “The thought that humanity may not see the completion of this building is daunting.”
Our best chance for a major breakthrough to avert the imminent social and ecological catastrophes before us is through the sustained effort of those engaged in spiritual paths. Meditation, contemplation, and prayer can help us to become simple, humble, and truthful. Insights that emerge from such spiritual disciplines strengthen our ability to care for others—in this and future generations.
The terms religion, spirituality, and the sacred have various interpretations. Words like love, justice, and art can mean different things according to speakers and listeners. It is crucial, then, to clarify our language to reduce the chances of misunderstanding. The meanings of religion, spirituality, and the sacred often overlap.
In my view, spirituality is largely a process for experiencing the sacred. The sacred is someone or something we revere or devote ourselves to—including, but not limited to, God, the gods, the Buddha, buddhas, ultimate reality, and the source of life. The sacred also includes the environment of the divine, and the settings, teachings, rituals, or vocations that enhance our experience of unconditional dedication.
Religion is the institutional structure that results from an encounter with the sacred. It is a complex system of languages, symbols, doctrines, practices, and patterns of community life. Although spirituality is the source of religion, and is often found in religion, it is possible to be spiritual without being religious. That is, we can participate in those practices through which we encounter the sacred without necessarily adopting the institutional setting which develops around it.
Religion, science, art, and politics are all tools that are intended to enhance the happiness of individuals and society. On the other hand, as history demonstrates, they have often been used to blind, exploit, divide, traumatize, and destroy people. We need to be aware of the traps of these great disciplines as well as their powers and benefits.
Spiritual practice enables us to be deeply in touch with ourselves and one another. The more we realize the boundless interconnections among all beings, the more of our self-centeredness is replaced by love, understanding, and compassion.
Whether it is yoga, sacred dance, meditation, or participation in a mass, church choir, or tea ceremony, spiritual practice largely follows a defined format. In fact, at the heart of spirituality is a mindful repetition in which our energy goes deeper and deeper. Being immersed in such a repetitive practice is often a relaxing and satisfying experience. Being so engaged in spiritual activity we become less driven by desire, particularly by the unwholesome desire to acquire more and more material objects and power. In place of desire we become simple and humble and, in this way, more fully spiritual.
When Jesus was healing the blind or when the Buddha was speaking to fellow seekers after his enlightenment, each manifested spiritually but not yet religiously. What they did in their lives was to achieve initial breakthroughs, new unfoldings of freedom from the limitations that had been in existence since the beginning of humankind. Jesus’s initial breakthrough, expressed by his words “Love your enemy,” has been re-experienced by billions who have followed his path. Similarly, the Buddha’s words, “I am enlightened together with all beings,” opened a path to repeat breakthroughs over centuries.
Gandhi’s challenge—to respond without military arms to the world’s largest empire—was likewise an initial breakthrough for nonviolent social change. His deeply spiritual principles have subsequently been adopted by others, as in the civil rights movement in the United States and in the challenge to apartheid in South Africa.
Initial breakthroughs transform the impossible into the possible. In most cases we do not need to achieve an initial breakthrough ourselves, but we must learn to relive such breakthroughs in our own context. When successful, the new context may unintentionally evoke inherently unique breakthroughs.
A spiritual path is often described as the “way”—the dao (tao) in Chinese and dō in Japanese. In East Asia, art is part of the dao, not merely creating something beautiful, but participating in an imaginative expression of feeling, understanding, and vision. In this sense science, medicine, philosophy, and politics can be art.
In the dao, art and the sacred are not separate. But if we take these two disciplines apart, it is possible to say that the sacred is often the foundation of art and art the vehicle of the sacred. Among the numerous prophets and mendicants who have had highly spiritual or mystical experiences, there have been few who could express themselves so convincingly as Jesus or the Buddha. But these pioneers of the great religions had a genuine presence and power of language that have inspired people of all generations. As masters of communication, they were artists.
Spiritual practice can help art to be truly imaginative, bold, and visionary. Art can empower the wisdom and love of those engaged in spiritual paths. Together, art and the sacred can realize a miraculous effect. By transforming individual consciousness, humanity is itself transformed in the path of protecting the life of all beings. What can be more sacred than this?