Reflections of the Buddha - The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

in nature is also in one’s mind . . . This kind of teaching has been
continuous in Japanese Buddhism since the periods of Kūkai [774
– 835] and Shinran [1173 – 1263]. Without realizing this, people
make voyages to [distant places] in search of self, but god was not
there . . . Returning from their trips, they realized that god existed
in their mind. I think what is important here is not only the
awakening itself, but also the journey to this awakening. 17
For Buddhists, the journey to awakening, or Nirvāna, begins
with the understanding that the world’s constituents,
including ourselves, are impermanent, dissatisfactory,
without a concrete self (“no-self”), and conditional (dependent
arising). By experiencing these pre-modern
Buddhist works in Andō’s spaces, the visitor to this
Pulitzer exhibition may also appreciate these ideas in
new ways.
Impermanence
Andō imparts rich meaning into the Pulitzer’s spaces by
allowing elements such as light and water to be part of
the experience; they help mark the passing of time and
the changing of seasons. 18 This state of flux connects with
Buddhist concepts of impermanence: Everything arises,
exists in a state of constant change, and then passes away.
The Pulitzer’s glass walls along the water garden
allow sunlight into the galleries and passageways.
Wind creates movement across the water’s surface. On
bright days, the sun glistens and reflects light off the water,
casting lively rippling patterns onto the building’s
ceilings, floors, and walls, a metaphor for light’s boundlessness.
The visitor who arrives on a stormy day with
dark skies and rain (sometimes in the form of torrential
sheets that course across the water garden’s exterior
walls) looks out and feels a sense of awe and foreboding
from inside the galleries. This constantly changing light
also progresses across the surfaces of the artworks; it animates
them, not unlike the natural light and candlelight
that once moved and flickered across the statues at their
original sites.
Andō has written about how light and form are
interrelated:
Light isolated within architectural space lingers on the surfaces of
objects and evokes shadows from the background. As light varies
in intensity with the shifting of time and changes of season, the
appearances of objects are altered. But light does not become objectified
and is not itself given form until it is isolated and
accepted by physical objects. 19
When natural light is muted, soft, and indirect at the
Pulitzer, it gives a sculpture like the one of Prince
Shōtoku (no. 1) even greater volume and adds to the lifelike
qualities of the baby image, especially around his soft
belly and rounded shoulders.
The Buddhist idea of impermanence is expressed
at the Pulitzer not just by the building’s
constantly changing light but also by the simple fact that
the art included in this exhibition has itself undergone
12
great change: the sculptures are dented, abraded, fragmented.
A head is all that survives of a monumental
Buddha from Afghanistan (no. 8); a hand, twenty-six inches
long and once belonging to a Buddha Amitābha, is one
of the few remnants from a colossal sculptural triad in
Japan (no. 2). All of the Buddhist works in the exhibition
attest to the ravages of time. They are no longer in their
original context, no longer standing among hundreds of
other sculptures on a Tibetan altar or among sculptural
groups in Chinese temples. Time has all but rubbed off
their colorful paint and glistening gold. Today, Buddhists
rarely pray before these sacred objects, which are now
placed within the Pulitzer, a contemporary building with
little adornment and constantly changing light. The mutability
of sky, place, object, and the visitor’s own state of
mind heightens this sense that everything arises, constantly
changes, then passes away.
Dissatisfactoriness
Impermanence, Buddhists believe, leads to dissatifactoriness
(dukha), which is often translated as suffering. But
the term in Buddhism best connotes the condition
caused by an axle hole that is not properly made so that
the axle wobbles in a dissatisfactory way. 20 People often
search for happiness in things that do not last, causing
dukha in their lives. Changing afflicted states of mind
also produce dukha, which can lead to such feelings as
hatred, greed, and delusion.
Andō’s philosophy of architecture addresses
dukha. In 1984, he wrote about confronting societal
norms:
Once a desire approaches satisfaction, it grows larger and stimulates
other ambitions. Man enters a never-ending cycle and
becomes dominated by his own excessive desires. What really enriches
an individual’s life in an age such as ours? It is important
to discover what is essential to human life and to consider what
abundance truly means. An architectural space stripped of all excess
and composed simply from bare necessities is true and
convincing because it is appropriate and satisfying. Simplification
through the elimination of all surface decorations, the employment
of minimal, symmetrical compositions and limited
materials constitutes a challenge to contemporary civilization. 21
Here, Andō not only critiques contemporary materialism
and consumerism but also espouses Japanese aesthetics
derived from Zen Buddhism as an alternative: simplicity,
austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the integrity
of natural objects and processes.
Yet the objects in this exhibition cover a wide
range of Buddhist cultures and sects. Andō’s geometry
and materials seem far removed from the philosophies
that lead to the making of such elaborate works as the
gilded bodhisattva from Nepal decorated with semi-precious
stones (no. 14) or the imperial sūtra from China that
is ornately painted in gold (no. 24). There is even the
Buddhist deity Vaiśravana (no. 20), who became a Chinese
wealth god, depicted with sumptuously decorated armor.