A: Personally, I have found that meditation helps clear my mind and open my heart in a way that is very conducive to creative expression. Many of my spiritual friends also find this to be true. And conversely, many people have found that communing with the Muses is not unlike connecting with their God, Higher Power or inner source. As a dharma teacher, I like to remember Emily Dickinson, who said "truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it." This is what I strive for through writing--to nourish the spirit, on both sides of this page, yours and mine.
The best-selling poet in America today is Rumi, the 13th-century Sufi saint and mystic. I think Rumi's work embodies the intimate relationship between creativity and spirituality. In fact, many creative giants--from St. John of the Cross and St. Francis to Van Gogh and Leo Tolstoy and from Emily Dickinson to the ancient Chinese Buddhist poet, painter, and musician Wang Wei--have expressed their spirituality through art and their art through spirituality.
As a consequence, we have inherited a vast treasury of religious art from all cultures, products of spiritual practices, including the contemplative arts such as chant, sacred music and dance, sacred iconography, and architecture.
In Tibet, playing the ritual instruments used in liturgical rites and painting Buddhist thangkas (scrolls) are considered forms of worship and meditation. The Zen arts of poetry (haiku), painting (sumi-e), calligraphy, tea ceremony, and gardening--are examples of meditation in action, and they are practiced to bring about the same kind of results as zazen or sitting meditation.
