Buddhist Aesthetics

Author(s): Archie J. Bahm

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Dec., 1957), pp. 249-252
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/427603
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 BUDDHIST AESTHETICS*

ARCHIE J. BAHM

Discussion of Buddhist aesthetics involves two questions: What is Buddhism?

What is aesthetics? The first question could receive a long and complicated
answer, since Buddhism has had a long and complicated history. But, although
there are genuine differences in the thought of the various schools of Buddhist
philosophy, their aesthetic views are essentially the same. Only one such philos-
ophy, that of Gotama, the founder of Buddhism himself, as revealed in the first
two Pitakas, or earliest collections of Buddhist scriptures, will be presented as
illustrative. This illustration interprets Gotama as neither a Theravadin, a
Madhyamikan, a Shin, nor a Zen.1
Gotama's philosophy consists basically in a single psychological principle
which everyone accepts, once he stops to think about it. The principle is: desire
for what will not be attained ends in frustration. Therefore, to avoid frustration,
avoid desiring what will not be attained. The principle is simple and straight-
forward. Furthermore, it is universal, since it applies to all people at all times.
Now if it is so simple and available to everyone, why do not more people employ
it in achieving happiness? Because, in practice, people automatically and habitu-
ally desire more than they are going to get-at least a little more. Hence the
saying, "All is suffering." When one has discovered the principle and then desires
to use it, he desires to obtain more from its use than he will attain. That is, the
desire "to stop desiring more than will be attained" is itself a desire for more than
will be attained. Then, also, the desire to stop this desire to stop desiring is a
desire for more than will be attained. Thus, one is involved dialectically in an
ever-deepening predicament from which escape is impossible, unless one follows
Gotama's advice.
Gotama's solution, "the middle way," is not just a golden mean between
extremes, as in Greek philosophy, and is not just a moderate or temperate path
between debauchery and mortification. Basically, it is the way between desiring
what will not be attained and desiring to stop desire for what will not be attained.
Or, to state it differently, it is the way between desiring things (including desires)
to be more than they are or less than they are with respect to any way that they
are. This amounts to saying that, in order to be happy, one must be willing to
accept things as they are. Now if it occurs to some that "accepting things as
they are" results in conservatism, laziness, backwardness, and boredom, let it
be noted that "are" here refers to all tenses of the verb "to be" or, for that mat-
ter, all tenses of all verbs. It means accepting the past for what it was and the
future for what it will be. If there is to be change, then be willing to accept
*
Prepared for and presented at the New Mexico Philosophical Society's Summer Insti-
tute of Philosophy (Colloquium on Aesthetics), Taos, New Mexico, August 11 and 12, 1956.
1 This view is
developed in my Philosophy of theBuddha (New York, 1957), resulting from
a year's study as Fulbright Research Scholar in Buddhist Philosophy at the University of
Rangoon.
249
250 ARCHIE J. BAHM

change. If one actually has a desire to change things, then one should not have
the additional frustrated desire not to have this desire to change things. It is
true that those who are conservative and lazy may feel their conservatism and
laziness justified by this principle, but the radical also may use it if he wishes,
since it can be employed with equal effect in justifying a desire to progress.
Permit me to illustrate how the principle of the middle way is used by Gotama
to demonstrate why unhappiness results from "greed for views" regarding meta-
physical questions. Consider the common desire for a next life. If you desire a
next life and there is a next life, no problem exists. If you desire a next life and
there is no next life, you will be frustrated. If you desire no next life and there is
no next life, no problem exists. If you desire no next life and there is a next life,
you will be frustrated. In absence of certainty regarding a next life, the important
thing concerning happiness is not whether there is or is not a next life but whether
or not you are willing to accept what will be no matter how it will be.
What does all this have to do with aesthetics? Aesthetics is concerned with art
and beauty. Art, whatever other characteristics it must have, is at least artificial
in the sense that it is man-made. It is instrumental in producing experiences of
beauty. Beauty, however, consists in the enjoyment of intrinsic value-value
which is good in itself, in contrast with instrumental value, which is good for
something else. Artistic values are instrumental; the value enjoyed in experienc-
ing beauty is intrinsic. Art is said to be beautiful when it produces enjoyment of
intrinsic value.
The prejudices of Western aestheticians require that beauty have at least an
additional characteristic. George Santayana, for example, has defined beauty as
"pleasure objectified."2 That is, beauty is intrinsic value which appears as if
embodied in an object. Hence an object, either a dream object or a real object, is
necessary to experiencing beauty. But Buddhist aestheticians, if not all Oriental
aestheticians, do not require this additional characteristic. The sharp division of
experience into subject and object presupposed by almost all Western thinkers
appears unwarranted to most Oriental philosophers. Although Westerners tend
to prefer realism and to locate both reality and intrinsic value in objects, and
Easterners incline toward subjectivism and seeking both reality and intrinsic
value within the self, many Oriental aestheticians conceive intrinsic value in
such a way that the distinction between subject and object is not only irrelevant
but even a hindrance to its enjoyment. If the term beauty is reserved for "pleas-
ure objectified," then another aesthetic term must be found to designate the
enjoyment of self, or enjoyment in which the distinction between subject and
object is irrelevant. Orientals have a term for this, namely, Nirvana or Nibbana.
Western aestheticians are faced with the alternative either of extending the mean-
ing of the term beauty to include what is meant by Nirvana or of admitting
terminological inadequacy. The goal of life, for Buddhists, is aesthetic. It is
the enjoyment of life itself as intrinsic value. How can this be done? By surround-
ing oneself with art objects? No. At least this is not the most direct way. If life
itself is intrinsic value to be enjoyed as such, and if attention to external things,
including art objects, distracts one from enjoying life itself, then are they not
2 The Sense of Beauty (New York, 1896), p. 52.
 BUDDHIST AESTHETICS 251

only unnecessary but actually harmful to the extent that they prevent such
enjoyment? If Nirvana is the goal, how is it to be achieved? Some Buddhist
bhikkhus, like Hindu yogins, seek extinction of all desire through yoga-like
meditation practices. The assumption here is that if all distractions are elimi-
nated, life's intrinsic value will remain unadulterated and hence aesthetic enjoy-
ment will be perfect.
Gotama, however, interpreted Nirvana as middle-wayedness, in this very life.
The stem, sam, prefixed to each of the steps of the eightfold path, means tranquil,
balanced, equanimous, undisturbed, even, smooth, effortless. It has been trans-
lated, misleadingly, as "right belief, right resolve, right speech," etc. Its meaning
is middle-wayed belief, middle-wayed resolve, middle-wayed speech. This does
not mean merely modest or moderate or temperate, but nirvanic belief, nirvanic
resolve, nirvanic speech. Nirvana consists not in extinction of desire, but of
desirousness, or of desire for what will not be attained. It consists in enjoyment
of complete willingness to accept things as they are. It is enjoyment of this very
life, nay, this very moment, as freed completely from frustration and anxiety.
This is not just the best of all possible worlds, as with Leibniz. Most Buddhists
are not concerned about possible worlds. They are interested in actual worlds,
and there is only one actual world, namely, this one, here and now. Nirvana is
simply the complete willingness to accept this world as it is as the best of all
actual worlds. This world, this life, is intrinsic value. Nirvana is the aesthetic
enjoyment of what is as it is.
Gotama was a humanist, explaining human misery and human happiness, and
how to avoid the former and achieve the latter. Nirvana is the name for man's
aesthetic goal. When it is achieved, then "to whatever place you go, you shall go
in comfort; wherever you stand, you shall stand in comfort; wherever you sit,
you shall sit in comfort; and wherever you make your bed, you shall lie down in
comfort."3 "Whenever one attains to the stage of deliverance entitled the Beauti-
ful, one is then aware 'Tis lovely."4
If Buddhist aestheticians find beauty in enjoyment of whatever is as it is, do
they have no interest in line, shape, color, theme and variations, vividness,
interestingness, expressiveness, or principles of harmony? The answer is that
they have no objection to concern for such things so long as they do not distract
from life's basic business. One may be both a Buddhist and an artist. How? By
being completely willing to accept himself as such. If he is an artist who wishes he
were something else, he is far from Nirvana. But if he accepts himself and his
situation so completely as the best of all actual worlds, he may well be enjoying
Nirvana. If a Buddhist aesthetician is asked about the place of harmony in his
view, he will not discourse about ratios and relationships. These are trivial as
compared with more ultimate harmony. Life itself is harmonious when there is
absence of conflict, of anxiety, of frustration. The ultimate aesthetic harmony is
that harmony found in willingness to accept things (including desires) as they
are.
3 The Book of Gradual Sayings, trans. E. M. Hare (London, 1955), IV, 200.
4Dialogues of the Buddha, trans. T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (London, 1921), Part
III, p. 32.
252 ARCHIE J. BAHM

What about such art objects as pagodas, gold-leafed statues, temples, carv-
ings? The reply: These are irrelevancies. They are the work of worshippers, not of
philosophers. They are instruments made to serve those who think of religion as
magical rather than as aesthetic, and as providing power to produce abnormal
results. If the purpose of magic is to try to force things to be different from the
way they are, then anyone who seeks to use magic thereby admits that he is not
completely willing to accept things as they are. Nirvana is enjoyment of com-
plete willingness to have things as they are, without magic and without pagodas,
or, more precisely, with or without magic and with or without pagodas. The
Buddhist aesthetician has no objection to magic or pagodas because he has no
objection to anything. To object is to be unwilling to accept things as they are,
and Nirvana is completely without unwillingness.