My painting called “Buddha-Bush” was painted not long after the U.S. invaded Iraq. Everyday I would read the newspaper at breakfast and find myself seething. I hated George W. Bush with a passion and everything I would read about him in the paper would make me feel fully justified in holding on to this hate. However, I also hated hating. I didn’t want to carry the tightness and the burning feeling in the pit of my stomach throughout the day. In talking with Jake Sensei about this, he suggested that I create some art around the issue.

A month later, I had finished Buddha/Bush, an acrylic painting on board approximately four feet wide and five feet high. I started this painting only with the vague idea of putting Bush’s face on a traditional Buddhist sculpture. Once that was completed, I felt like I wanted to add some text. The quotes on the left read “All beings are Buddha”, “If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha” and “That stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets”. It starts off sort of like a syllogism, establishing that even someone like Bush needs to be seen as having Buddha nature. The other two sayings seemed to express my feelings about the man, if taken literally. In the Zen literature, these saying are intended to admonish students from getting too caught up in Buddha-worship instead of finding how to attain their own Buddha nature. Both meaning seemed fitting, in the case of Buddha/Bush.

It was extremely satisfying to express my resentment visually, but both I and the picture felt uncompleted. I was doing a lot of reading about duality at that point and felt like I needed something on the other side (opinion-wise and visually) to provide some balance to the painting. For the right side of the painting I didn’t necessarily something “right wing” to balance out what I suppose could be read as “left-wing” sentiments on the left side of the painting. I went through a whole bunch of Buddhist quotes from various sites on-line but nothing seemed to do the trick. Then I happened upon the Shantideva quote that ended up in the painting.

“Even if it were the nature of the childish to cause harm to other beings, it would still be incorrect to be angry with them, for this would be like begrudging fire for having the nature to burn”. When I first read this, I could not imagine how any one could really think this way, especially as it related to George W. Bush. Yet, after I wrote it on the painting, I realized that Shantideva’s words offered a way out for me. I could still disapprove of Bush, as I might disapprove of a child’s behavior, but I did not have to hold on to my hatred. Childish politicians have been around forever and there is no reason to believe that they won’t continue in the future.

As I thought about it more, I realized that in focusing all my anger towards one man I was exemplifying Ignorance, as defined in Buddhism; that is I was ignoring the fact that no person or entity stands separate from everything else in the world. It was easy to direct my anger towards Bush as single target, but what about the hoards of average Americans who voted for him? What about the advisers who seemed to have an unusual degree of influence with Bush? What about Bill Clinton, whose actions in the Oval Office drove voters away from the democratic party? What about the radical Muslim’s who helped give fuel to the 9/11 tragedy? Following these lines of interconnection, I could end up being be mad at the whole world and I did not want that.

When Jake first suggested taking my pain into my studio, I assumed that if anything would come of it might be because of some cathartic release through painting. Instead I found myself with an alternative way of thinking about things. I don’t mean to suggest that I have fully integrated Shantideva’s enlightened perspective, nor am I now a Bush fan. However, I do enjoy my breakfasts now more than I did before. When I read something that disturbs me, I stop and take a deep breath, remember how everything that happens is interconnected and temporary. Whether or not these events suit my needs, this is what is happening and I have some control over how I react to them.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.