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Looking at Art Teaching Through Zen Aesthetics

This article explores Zen aesthetics as a lens through which to look at art teaching. It seeks to awaken the spirituality of those who are committed to educating others toward a greater sense of humanity, and particularly to ignite new aspirations for art teaching. Although the apparatus of Zen is colored with religious nuances, viewing Zen as a religious doctrine is probably not as accurate as seeing it as a lens for looking at life, because Zen is about living freely, consciously, and fully. In Zen practice, aesthetic experiences are essential to realizing one’s humanity and spirituality. They are the means by which we perceive, calm, maintain, and illuminate our minds so that we can listen to, feel, sense, hear, and smell directly not only our inner selves, but also the outer phenomena that surround us. The arts stimulate us to get in touch with our innate abilities so that we can see clearly, feel strongly, smell deeply, and hear sensibly. In the East, arts and aesthetics are embedded in all aspects of everyday life and interpreted in a much broader sense, including such unconventional practices as fighting, gardening, flower arrangement, tea drinking, and meditation. Living itself can be a form of art. Cultivating the mind, such as by teaching, is another form of art. These artistic practices are all avenues for gaining insight into our existence and for reaching the state of enlightenment (self-actualization). The essence of Zen aesthetics is simplificative, intuitive, and suggestive. It is simplificative because, to see the truth, we must go back to our original state of being, the one that has not been influenced by modern civilization. Simplification is therefore the first step toward emptying our encultured minds to see our inner landscape. Simplification empties the mind for true wisdom to come in. The Sheng Kuan Chung University of Houston