Let's close our eyes.
Up until a few years ago,
I used to pride myself as an engineer,
Being able to take a problem,
Chop it up into pieces and come up with an answer.
But as I've started getting deeper into understanding reality through my teachers,
The artistic component of my life is becoming more and more emphasized.
And I can start,
I've started seeing art in engineering as well.
And again,
Art is not the conventional definition of art that I'm looking at.
Art is a unique expression in any medium or in every medium.
Being creative,
Either coming up with something new or seeing old things and synthesizing them as something new.
You can look at a sunset and think astronomy,
Geology,
Physics,
Or you can look at the beauty of a sunset and see art there.
No matter what profession we are in,
We have a choice to be an artist,
Especially the knowledge work that we do.
The waiter or the waitress,
Waiting table at a restaurant you're visiting.
If you have had a phenomenal experience at a restaurant,
Chances are you were waited on by an artist,
Not by a role of a waiter or a waitress.
If you fell in love with a particular discipline or a subject in school or in college,
There's a high chance you were taught or exposed to it by an artist,
Not by a teacher.
If you stood in front of a photograph or a painting in a museum and were in awe or in tears or just feeling nice,
That was art.
It wasn't painting.
It wasn't a photograph.
It was art,
An expression,
A transfer of emotion,
A transfer of intelligence,
Clarity,
Beyond the capacity of the mind to understand it,
To transfer from the heart to the heart.
I remember going to a pottery workshop last year,
And when I saw some of the pieces there,
I felt this weird expansion.
Like I wanted to go and touch every piece.
It was just regular plates,
Saucers,
Cups,
Cheese plates.
But there was something exquisite in it,
Something that warranted more than one's sense to even handle it,
At least for me.
It was an experience of witnessing art,
Touching art.
Or when I sit in retreats and do meditations,
The exquisite arrangement of words that just touch my heart is an artist's work.
You might need the skill set of an engineer or a painter,
But having the skill set doesn't make you an artist.
Something else does.
It's being vulnerable to open your heart and put that heart into whatever activity you are doing so that whoever comes across that piece of work will feel it,
Either consciously or unconsciously.
It's like if you have gone to an Airbnb,
Some places will wow you by the thoughtfulness,
By the empathy,
By the way things have been arranged for your comfort.
Writing an email can be an art.
In a world where people don't read emails,
Writing an email worth reading can be art.
Because we are all looking for connections of heart,
Consciously or unconsciously.
We all want love.
We all want to be loved.
And we all want to share love.
We just don't know how.
Some of the Buddhist practices involve doing something so meticulously,
So mindfully,
That no matter what you do,
Even chopping vegetables can become art with so much care and love.
And it's easy to misinterpret that the work needs to be exquisite for it to be art.
Therefore,
Some artists emphasize their mistakes.
It's called wabi-sabi,
Where the imperfections make art perfect.
I remember seeing a cup made by a famous potter and the cracks in that cup were filled with gold,
Just to emphasize that crack,
To make it perfect,
To highlight the imperfection.
Art very rarely comes from the place of perfection,
From the place of mind that knows everything and wants to know everything.
Art happens when you take a leap of faith in your heart,
Embrace the unknown,
And make something,
Arrange something,
Point out something that isn't so obvious and yet it's important.
If you zoom in on every choice we make,
There's always an option to do it mindfully,
Carefully,
With love,
Or to do it unconsciously,
Without thinking,
Without care,
Without love.
Almost everything that we do is for ourselves or for someone else.
Even if we do something,
Even if you decide to wake up,
Make your bed perfectly,
And then go about your day,
And in the evening when you go in your bedroom and you see this perfectly made,
Mindfully made bed,
There'll be gratitude,
Gratitude for that action that was done in the morning by you.
There'll be acknowledgement.
So something that was shared in the morning was received in the evening.
The food you make,
The code you write,
The emails you write,
They can be infused with care,
With intelligence,
With structure,
With organization,
And people who are sensitive will feel it and know it.
Those who are not sensitive will just feel it,
They might not know it.
Once we decide to be artists,
And this decision is not an exclusive decision,
It doesn't exclude your profession,
Your education,
You can be an artist and an engineer.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday and a medical doctor of 21 years was saying he's more of an artist than a doctor.
So once you decide to be an artist,
Something changes.
Everything that you touch becomes a work of art.
And just like all artists,
There comes an innate desire to be a better artist,
Not from a sense of lack,
But from a sense of improvement,
From a sense of sharing,
From a sense of love,
From a sense of channeling the creativity.
At that point,
We can stop comparing ourselves with others,
Others with us.
We can stop feeling insecure about our work that gets compared to other people's work and start being open to letting our work be compared to our work from yesterday,
So that we invest all the time and energy in improving our art tomorrow.
As I said,
This is a unique art.
Throughout the day,
We create art,
We transfer emotions,
We transfer feelings,
We transfer truth or untruth,
Care or lack of care,
Beauty or mediocrity.
We're constantly doing this with others and others are feeling this,
Whether they know it or not.
What art do we want to create?
It snowed heavily here yesterday in Cincinnati.
You could see beauty there or just snow.
And the thing with this kind of recognition is once you see it,
You can't unsee it.
We are surrounded by art.
If we are surrounded by intelligence in terms of design,
Organization,
Structure,
In terms of beauty,
In terms of thoughtfulness,
Mindfulness,
In ways of love,
Kindness,
Compassion,
We are by definition surrounded by art.
This attitude gives us a chance to take whatever we are going through,
Just like a musician does it,
Whether they are going through sadness or anger,
They'll make a they'll write a song about it.
They'll channel that to create art to move others.
So this attitude gives us an opportunity to take whatever we are going through and convert it into a piece of art through our words,
Through our actions,
Through our nonverbal speaking,
Through our texts,
Through the food we make,
The way we order,
The way we drive.
In a world like today,
We are so lopsided in our brains.
We use our left brain so much to think,
Think,
Think,
But not our right side of the brain to feel.
Not that we don't feel.
It's a very reactive way of feeling.
This avenue of deciding to be an artist,
Recognizing that we are all artists,
Gives us an opportunity to share it a little more mindfully,
To work on our craft,
To take whatever we have gotten in terms of feelings and thoughts and convert it to something that can be shared in a loving,
Kind way.
Thank you.
