Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art Review

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Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art

Mary Jane Jacob, Jacquelynn Baas, 2004

Work Review

Author: Nam Nhu Do

RMIT Student ID: s3533350

Date: 30th November 2016

I first read Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art by Jacquelynn and Mary Jane in my first year at RMIT. It was a personal adventure in my life, into higher studies, and, looking back after two years, into a new frame of mind. I could recall strolling through the various columns of Beanland, looking for a book that I never did touch upon, yet was unconsciously aware of my interest in the subject. That journey took me to the work I am about to describe herein.

Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art meditates the ever-increasing utilization and incorporation of Buddhist values into contemporary art, and into the lives of people in the West. The multi-disciplinary artists who contribute their experiences and ideas in the book have elaborated how practicing Buddhism aids their art-making process. In particular, they advocate such Buddhist teachings as the sight and obtainment of a sense of emptiness, or a tranquil ‘working place’ in which colleagues would learn to listen to one another, which have personally spurred their creative works and working efficiency.  Meanwhile, the writers come to counter the sluggish response from art critics and historians as regards this sprawling movement, which first emerged in the nineteenth century.

There are a number of thoughts, and historical connections, that I have been able to meditate upon and derive from this reading experience. One of the criticisms laid out in the work points at the relatively cynical Buddhist practice in the West, where people come to yoga and meditation in the pursuit of self-enlightenment, whereas in the East, monks and peasants exalt such values in the hope of social harmony and order, as well as the ability to cooperate and understand their surroundings, which include both nature and mankind. This somehow takes my mind back to the period of turmoil in the United States in the 1970s, noted for its generation’s youthful rebellion against the establishment, disenchanted after the Vietnam War, the oil inflation, civil rights turbulence and ineffective governmental policies. A question thus enters my mind, which posits that if the utmost purpose of reading and practice of Buddhism is to yearn for an understanding of mankind, would it be my obligation to seek sympathy for the aforementioned acts denounced in the book?