The Light Enters You

Shambhala Sun: Where and how did you first
encounter Buddhism?


Bill Viola: As with many in my generation, I was first exposed to Buddhism
and so-called Eastern philosophy through reading and meditation workshops in
the late sixties and early seventies. Firsthand experience came during
several visits to Japan in the 1970's, where I traveled to many of the major
Buddhist temples, gardens and sacred sites. The sense of a palpable
stillness and silence, reflected in the serene image of the Buddha's face,
was so different from my memories of being in church. This left an even
deeper impression than the art and architecture I was ostensibly there to
see. Then in 1980 I received a Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission Fellowship
to live in Japan with my wife, Kira. During that period I had several
experiences that changed my life and my understanding of art and its place
in spiritual practice.

The first came when we were at the Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo to see an
exhibition of art objects from a Buddhist temple in Kyoto. While we were
standing before a row of life-sized bodhisattva figures, reading the
relevant facts and descriptions, a little old lady walked right past us and
moved down the row, stopping to bow in silent prayer at each figure, placing
a silk scarf over their outstretched hands. I was dumbstruck. This was an
art museum! When the guards didn't react, I was stunned. At that moment, the
living practice, the living art in these works, shone through, and I felt
like someone who for years had been admiring the outer form of a computer
without ever turning it on.

The second experience came after I had become frustrated at finding someone
to teach me the traditional Zen ink painting I had seen in books. The
Japanese have a beautiful way of allowing you to fully realize your
stupidity before they finally correct you, and I was becoming exasperated at
not getting a straight answer in response to my request (which I realized
later must have been like a young Japanese artist going to contemporary
Amsterdam to learn how to paint like Rembrandt). Finally, Mr. Tanami, one of
the directors of the fellowship program who had been watching all this
unfold, took me aside and said, "Bill, why don't you just go to a temple and
study Zen. Then everything you do will be Zen art!"

Like a loud gong resounding in my brain, the reverberations of that
statement are still with me. Could my precious art exist in service to
something else, something much broader and deeper? Until that moment my
measure of success in art resided within the confines of exhibiting in
museums, galleries and alternative art spaces. In Japan it was beginning to
sink in that perhaps art resided in life itself, that as a practice it
derives primarily from the quality of experience, depth of thought and
devotion of the maker. Everything else'virtuosity with the materials,
novelty of the idea or approach, innovation in craft or technique, skill of
presentation, historical significance, importance of the venue'in short,
almost everything I learned to value in art school - was secondary.

Shambhala Sun: What about practice? What has been your experience with
teachers?

Bill Viola: I've been very lucky to meet the right teachers at the right
time. In art school at Syracuse University I was fortunate to have Jack
Nelson as my professor, an iconoclast and maverick who saw through
institutional limitations. He established a new department called
Experimental Studios ("The only rule is that there are no rules"), and
gathered around him a group of students disillusioned with the status quo.
He inspired us to be truly free with our creativity. I probably would have
dropped out if I hadn't met him.

In Japan in 1980, Kira and I were both interested in pursuing Zen
meditation, and through contact with a shiatsu master in Tokyo we were
introduced to a visiting Zen priest, Daiju Tanaka. We immediately connected.
Tanaka Sensei was an independent free spirit, another maverick of sorts. Not
associated with any temple, he traveled around the country visiting a loose
association of friends and students. He knew very little English, yet the
level of communication we had was deep, vivid and clear.

Trying to break the ice at our first meeting I said, "Sensei, I have read
many books on Zen." He looked me right in the eye and laughed loudly.
Shrunken, I tried again and told him that the next week we were going to
visit Eiheiji, the original temple established by Master Dogen, the founder
of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism and Tanaka Sensei's lineage. It is one of
the largest working temples in Japan. Again, he gave me a piercing look and
snapped, "Eiheiji!"too big! Zen Mitsubishi!!" He then took us to a nearby
Mister Donuts and over coffee gave us the first of many teachings in regular
after-meditation sessions that Kira and I affectionately dubbed, "The Mister
Donuts Seminars on Zen Buddhism."

Tanaka Sensei was also an artist. He was always working, freely,
spontaneously and fearlessly. We could be anywhere'in a restaurant, on a
train, and he would suddenly call out: "Inspiration! Inspiration! Paper"
Paper!" He'd grab a pen and quickly make a little Daruma (Bodhidharma) face
because that was the moment to make a Daruma face. I was witnessing art
inserting itself into experience'where it needed to be, not where you wanted
it to be'and it was very inspiring to see.

Excerpted from
The Light Enters You, Shambhala Sun, November 2004.The Light Enters You, Bill Viola, Shambhala Sun, November 2004.



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