Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Student: You often criticize a film by saying that it is too aware of the audience. But when people make films, especially in the West, the point is to entertain people.
Chogyam Trungpa: If you are completely confident in yourself, you don’t have to think about the audience at all. You just do your thing, you just do it properly. This means YOU become the audience. What you make is entertainment, but that needs a certain amount of wisdom. When an artist does a painting for commission, there is a good likelihood that his painting will be one-sided because he is aware of the audience and he has to relate to the educational standards of the audience. If he presents his own style without reference to the audience, they will begin to react and automatically their sophistication will develop and eventually will reach the level of the artist….You see, we have the responsibility of raising the mentality of the audience. People might have to reach out with a certain amount of strain, but it’s worth it. The whole civilization then begins to raise its level of sophistication….The beautiful thing about Buddhism, if I may say so, is that Buddhists don’t try to con you. They just present what they have to say as it is, take it or leave it.
From “Visual Dharma: Film Workshop,” in the COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Seven, pages 644-645.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Ben Tremblay // Jan 13, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I just had one of those in.real.time email exchanges that so dignifies things “cyber”; what began as a couple of good-humoured tweets (Twitter.com, for those who haven’t wet their feet) unspooled quickly into a free-fall esssai on huh huh clutter and “too busy” and “too much to do”.
My interlocuter, a self-employed professional, tried to engage in a chat about home-brew beer while he was, in fact and actually, preparing a three continent junket.
I /didn’t/ slip in “Great project require profound relaxation”, but that thinking in-formed my part of the conversation.
At one point he talked about how he take care to turn the logic off. And that stunned me. In that gap I peeked at our legacy, our inheritance … basic goodness and primordial wisdom … what’s to turn off?!
Fortunately he and I share a rich vernacular so I just observed that non-linearity and dynamical balance remind us of the foundational logic of things. And I left it at that. His next email was 3 words: “Thanks. I appreciate that.” And he was at ease with dropping it. Which I think is nice.
All of this to seque from this lovely piece on the confidences through to a piece that demonstrates how the Vidyadhara was at once architect, engineer, and alpinist in his thoughfulness and preparedness … with all the laziness of a big cat!
A slideshow thanks to the ChronicleProject.com
cheers
ben
[1] http://www.chronicleproject.com/slideshow/bt_pres/index.html
2 susan // Jan 13, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Many thanks for links. And the excellent story. Your description of the Vidyadhara is so perfect. Perfect.
3 Carol Statella // Jan 13, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Ben, your comment left me kind of speechless and without thought, thank you. Always welcome.
From a sonic perspective, yes–I can relate to hearing about “commissioned symphonic works” and inwardly making a note to steer clear. There are some really powerful exceptions though…John Adams and Joan Tower, both with profound and original expressive vocabularies, seem to take their commissions and FLY with them.
4 Ben Tremblay // Jan 13, 2008 at 9:11 pm
*apologies if this is flooding*
@Susan: !Encantado, senora!
Carol: I’m just the tourist; it’s the mountain that’s breathtaking!
But … re: commission … is it not those artists’ authenticity that enables them to engage with “profound relaxation”?
At the risk of seeming precious, the Vidyadhara explicated what I remember poorly as “3 confidences”:
See clearly; know what is; act with confidence.
I suspect a lot of our drama is huh huh like peacocks fluttering their tails, or courtesans their fans, for whatever reason and on whatever pretext. *Ain’t we luvable though?!*
TD!
p.s. I took the liberty of linking to my old Buddhist Resources page … after 11 years it’s still getting hits daily!
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