Cultivation and art creation

Taking into consideration the different art forms such as traditional Chinese dance, painting, poetry, music, etc. that Teacher uses to rectify the Fa, it is obvious that art is really valued in the Fa rectification period and considered an important truth clarification tool.

As we cultivate and reach higher levels we understand that much of the art in today’s world is degenerated. People would argue that this is due to the degenerated teachings of art schools, the degenerated minds of the artists themselves or due to the degenerated path that modern art has been following the last hundred or so years.

Among practitioners there are also those, who have studied art and have artistic talents. As we cultivate we go through different stages and different understandings. I have heard from practitioners, saying that “I used to paint or I used to write but after I started practising I gave up everything”. Why is that? Someone could say: “Because I realized that painting or playing music is an attachment”, or “because I know now that I am not pure enough and what I will create won’t be pure enough either. I want to clean myself first and give up my attachments and I will start painting, writing, etc again.” Is this understanding correct?

We all understand that we have attachments and that in the process of cultivation we get more and more rid of theses attachments and become more pure. And as a result what we create will be more pure as well. However, when we reach a certain level in our cultivation, which is much higher than the level we had before, we will also realize that the level we are at now, is much lower than a next level we could reach. So, if I stop creating art and say to myself that I will create art again when I am pure enough wouldn’t that mean that I will never create art because I will never be pure enough compared to a higher level of pureness I can reach? I believe this could happen. And if I stopped creating art, wouldn’t this mean that I have stopped cultivating my talents? According to my understanding our talents have been given to us by Dafa to make use of them during the Fa rectification period.

Let’s imagine that all painters who created the paintings for the “Art of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” exhibitions said to themselves: “Let’s not paint for the exhibition now. In 5 years we will be more pure to create paintings and those paintings will have an even bigger effect.” If they all had thought like this, the exhibitions that saved thousand of lives around the world would have never taken place. Of course we have to be responsible to the Fa and be in a position to judge for ourselves whether what we create is good and pure enough to have a positive effect.

In our life’s path prior to becoming Dafa practitioners, different things including art such as poetry, painting, music, etc have enriched our understandings and have helped us reaching a point of ability to understand Teacher’s Fa. Even though many of these art forms had not been created by practitioners, they still played this important role in our lives.

The message I want to pass on with this article to fellow practitioners, according to my current level of understanding, is the following: Cultivating continuously a talent or an art skill, we posses, is very important and is connected to the cultivation of our inner self. If we don’t cultivate it, it could die out. Even if those pieces of art we create, are not created with the purest heart we can reach through our cultivation, they can still be helpful for today’s or future’s ordinary people or even cultivators. The clarification of the truth through art must also be in accordance to a person’s level of understanding. Otherwise, it might not touch enough a person’s heart and not play the role it needs to play.