the symbolism of experience
Chögyam Trungpa
“Symbolism doesn’t have to be poetic, or spiritual, or mystical; it is the ordinary truth that takes place in everyday life.”
Photo: Douglas Dickel
Due to copyright issues, Dharma/Arte is publishing only an excerpt of this text.
The topic of symbolism is not just for artists or art historians, but for people who would like to understand and develop themselves.
The goal is not to teach lots of gimmicks, but to help you understand something about yourself, your view of life, and of the phenomenal world in general. In turn, you might understand how to apply that viewpoint audio-visually as well.
Symbolism is based on what we experience personally and directly in our lives: pain, pleasure, or whatever. From that point of view, symbolism is a state of mind.
First of all, before we know anything about anything, we have problems with motivation. If we view the whole world as raw material, like a simple sheet of canvas, a simple piece of wood, or a simple piece of clay—what is its relationship with ourselves?
That piece of canvas or clay, being an inanimate object, has no particular personal interest or desire to form itself into a painting or a sculpture. But as human beings, we do have ideas about how our life should be, how our understanding should take place. So we are caught in a double bind: we want to understand, but we would also like to reshape the universe according to our own expectations.
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