sepertinya buddhayana memkai referensi dari broken buddha nih
:
While Tibetan monks have a strong commitment to spirituality this does not prevent them from
appreciating the beautiful. Like Ch’an and Zen, Tibetan Buddhism has integrated both the creative
impulse and the aesthetic sense into spiritual practice. A number of great meditation masters have
also been poets, painters and sculptors. A Tibetan Buddhist has written ‘Art and meditation are
creative states of the human mind. Both are nourished by the same source, but it may seem that they
are moving in different directions: art towards the realm of sense-impression, meditation towards
the overcoming of forms and sense-impressions. But the difference pertains only to accidentals, not
to essentials.’ Theravadin cultures have produced great works of art but Theravadin scholars and
meditation masters have long regarded all the fine arts - if they have thought about them at all - as
little more than a sop to popular needs rather than expressions of spirituality or a means of
awakening and nurturing it. According to the commentaries it is an offence for a monk to even
touch a musical instrument. The Dambadeni Katikavata, drawn up after a reform of the Sangha in
Sri Lanka in the 13th century tells monks that the literary and visual arts are ‘despised branches of
knowledge’ which should be shunned.
The Theravadin position on art is epitomized by a famous story of Cittagutta from the
Visuddhimagga. One day two young monks came to visit Cittagutta in the cave where he had lived
for sixty years. One of the monks happened to notice the beautiful paintings on the roof and
mentioned these to Cittagutta. The wizened old monk said that despite his long residence in the
cave he had never raised his eyes to look at the paintings and in fact didn’t even know they were
there. The only reason he knew that there was a flowering tree at the mouth of his cave was because
once a year he saw the fallen petals on the ground. In his Refinement of the Arts, David Hume tells
of the Christian monk ‘who because the window of his cell opened upon a noble prospect, made a
covenant with his eyes never to turn that way.’ This is exactly the sort of thing strict Theravadin
monks do even today. Theravada sees the enlightened person as dead to beauty, indeed dead to
every human feeling. The Buddha was able to listen to and enjoy Pancasikha’s sitar playing
(D.II,267) but a Theravadin monk could never do such a thing, not in public at least. He might get
away with writing poetry, particular if it was about decrepitude, death or the worms that infest the
bowels. But the idea of him painting, doing flower arranging or going to an art exhibition, a
Shakespeare performance or a concert is unthinkable. The cultivation and appreciation of the arts in
Tibetan Buddhism gives it a definite appeal to many people while Theravada has nothing to offer in
this area other than the simplistic notion that beauty causes attachment.
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There is one other area where Buddhayana might be enriched by dialogue with Christians.
Theravadian hostility towards all forms of beauty has prevented the development of any sacred
music or plainsong beyond the most rudimentary forms. Thai chanting is not unpleasant to the
Western ear although its simple tune and rhythm offer limited scope for further development.
Burmese and especially Sri Lankan chanting is little more than a caterwaul. Sonorous music, song
and chanting can have an enormous value in communal worship, they can give expression to saddha
and they can even be an adjunct to meditation. The Buddhayana would study the rich Christian
tradition of plainsong and sacred music and try to develop forms of each that would be suitable to
use with Pali gatha and other mediums.
semakin jelas deh.
Topic: Apakah ada aturan Bhante Theravada boleh main gitar/musik? (Read 611358 times)