Click here to view the embedded video.

Raheem Thorpe, a Staging actor, talks about Sugimoto’s Sea of Buddha and how he feels about being back at the Pulitzer since being part of Staging Old Masters.

by Amy Broadway, Interim PR Coordinator

One of the main goals of Staging workshops is that the actors personally connect with the artworks in Reflections of the Buddha. The company will craft and perform scenes in the spring based on musings about the stars of the exhibition, such as Prince Shotoku, the giant sculpture of a left hand, or perhaps Oscar Munoz’s La Línea del Destino (Line of Destiny). The works haven’t been officially chosen yet, and it will be interesting to see what gets picked.

Several Fridays ago, Agnes Wilcox, the artistic director of Prison Performing Arts and the workshop leader, asked the actors to pair off, peruse the exhibition, and speculate about the images they saw. Afterwards, the exhibition’s curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, led Staging through the galleries, sharing her knowledge of the artistry, cultural history, and meaning behind the works.

In the video above, Raheem Thorpe, a graduate of the Staging Old Masters program, talks about how he and his peers first interpreted Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Sea of Buddha and what they learned from Francesca. The last time I saw Raheem, he was working with teaching artist Jenny Murphy in Urban Renewal, part of the Urban Alchemy series of programs Transformation. You can see him interviewed in 2010 here. He’s great on camera, and I look forward to seeing him on stage (Staging will perform in the galleries alongside the art).

As a side note, many of you may recall that this is not the first time the Pulitzer has been graced with Sugimoto creations. As we celebrate our tenth year–which officially began in October– we’re looking back at past exhibitions and web catalogues. Click here for another blast from the past, a look at our 2006 exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto: Photographs of Joe.

Four Mandalas (dkyil‘khor), 18th century; Tibet; thangka; colors on cotton, mounted on silk brocade; 31¾ x 24 in.; The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Bequest of Joseph H. Heil, 74‑36 /16

Our next Frame of Reference is tomorrow at 2pm. Please stop by the Pulitzer to listen to Miao Han, director of the Fo Guang Shan St. Louis Buddhist Center, talk about Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai) in the entrance gallery. The group will then move to the lower gallery to hear Dr. Qing Chang, Asian art professor from University of Missouri St. Louis, share his insights about Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana).

Last month I had the opportunity to participate in a group of stimulating and varied Frame of Reference talks that addressed the theme of healing in Buddhist art. Neuroscientist Ben Kolber connected Green Tārā’s seated pose of royal ease to his own work as a pain researcher. He identified this pose, known in Sanskrit as lalātisana, as a relaxation posture, noting that the experience of pain is markedly less acute among people who meditate. John Mueller, professor of architecture at Washington University, shared his fascination with Monk Ananda’s ever-so-slight smile, noting that a comparable smile can be found on several Buddha and Bodhisattva figures throughout the exhibition. See, for example, Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni) and Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Karunamaya). According to Professor Mueller, the gentle smile conveys the peaceful contentment that enlightened beings experience through nonjudgmental acceptance and appreciation of their surroundings.

My presentation focused on the healing aspects of Four Mandalas, an eighteenth century Tibetan thangka, or portable icon, from central Tibet. A mandala is a diagram used as a guide to meditation. It represents the dynamic relationship between the Buddhist practitioner and the cosmos of the mandala’s central deity. As you move mentally through the various sections of the diagram, your consciousness dissolves and you temporarily become one with the deity’s cosmos.

Positioned at the center of Four Mandalas is Amitāyus, the Buddha of health and longevity. Clad in red, he sits crosslegged in the lotus posture. His hands, which rest on his lap in the dhyāna (meditation) mudra, hold his special emblem, the ambrosia vase. Many Tibetan Buddhists commission images of Amitāyus to gain karmic merit and to assure health and long life for themselves or someone close to them.

You’ll notice that Amitāyus is seated on an elaborate lotus throne which grows directly out of a body of water. The lotus functions as an important symbol in Buddhism and it appears on numerous artworks in this exhibition. Sprouting from the mud, this flower grows up through the water’s surface only to blossom in the sunlight. Buddhists regard this process as an ideal metaphor for the human spirit, which can transcend duhkha—the negative circumstances of daily life—through meditation and study of the dharma.

The four mandalas represented here are “palace-architecture” diagrams and they float against a blue-black background of mountain peaks and clouds. Each mandala is enclosed by a series of rings. The outermost ring is the belt of fire, signifying the knowledge essential for bursting the bonds of ignorance. The second ring is the narrow black “vajra” belt, which represents enlightenment, the threshold of the spiritual world. The third ring is the circle of eight cemeteries and features eight ascetics meditating in scenes of nature. The innermost ring depicts a circle of pink and red lotus leaves, indicating that the practitioner has left the world of senses and has entered the spiritual realm.*

After making your way inward through the four rings, you’ll notice a structure that resembles a town square. There are four T-shaped doors, each of which is located at one of the four cardinal directions. Each door is flanked by different colored bands that connect all of the doors. These bands represent the walls of the emperor’s city. Arches rise above the doors and encircle a series of stories that are supported by columns. All of these architectural elements represent different aspects of Buddhist teaching, upon which the practitioner meditates while moving through the diagram.

At the center of the upper left mandala you’ll see a dancing blue figure with four arms. She wears a crown of skulls and holds a skull cup in her lower left hand. This semi-wrathful deity is a dākīni, an accomplished yoginī, who acts as a guiding intermediary for practitioners during meditation.

As your meditation comes to an end, you’ll move outward from the center, through the four exterior rings, and back into the material world.

*The source for my discussion of the iconography of Four Mandalas is an unpublished essay titled “Amitāyus,” written by Dorothy F. Fickle for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1968.

Tony Wagner, Actor, in the Watercourt; photograph by Sevda Safarova

With Staging Reflections of the Buddha we are fortunate to have some very talented program staff members who were also part of Staging Old Masters. Among these returning members Maggie Ginestra, who wears multiple hats in this project. Her post today represents a very special role–that of biographer and recorder of the life accomplishments of our actors and staff.

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by Maggie Ginestra, Assistant Scriptwriter for Staging Reflections of the Buddha

As Assistant Scriptwriter, I’m enjoying the opportunity to interview each person involved with Staging Reflections of the Buddha toward short biographical blurbs that will be up on the blog for your perusal and enticement, future audience members.

So far, I’ve been sneaking moments with the actors when they’re not busy, and sometimes even when they are (because an idle moment with Agnes Wilcox is rare). One of the great things about interviewing actors who have rarely or never been on stage before is that their performance background really is, as one actor told me, their whole lives. Another actor’s father taught him to read by handing him the business section after dinner and stomping a foot if he spoke softly or incorrectly. If that isn’t a cure for stage fright…?

Over half of the actors, men and women, are Veterans whom we had the privilege of celebrating last week, and many have traveled all over the United States, one even by bike, though most were born and raised in St. Louis. I’m enjoying the theme of return, and even renewal, as each actor speaks with a sublime blend of openness, humility, and curiosity that seems to be contagious around here.

I still have some interviews to go, but soon we’ll have the privilege of introducing you to the incredible company of eyes, ears, and voices that we hope will magnify and enrich your experience of Reflections of the Buddha. If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, I recommend checking it out before we open in February. We all had a chance to just look and see before we began to talk and listen—so you should too!

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure and fortune of becoming acquainted with many members of the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis. They have generously and enthusiastically shared their time and energy with the Pulitzer in developing and facilitating many aspects of the diverse programming for Reflections of the Buddha. In particular, I have been working with several local Buddhist groups affiliated with the Council, to coordinate the Pulitzer’s phenomenally successful meditation series.

Not knowing how incredibly popular this series would turn out to be, each week has brought its own set of challenges. The first week was very exciting for all of us planning it, and we did everything we could think of to be prepared for hosting the 50-60 people we expected. It was a particularly funny thing we didn’t think of though–what do you do with the castoff shoes of 50 meditators? Oops! We did not plan for the piles of footwear, but by the second week we had assembled shelving to further eliminate what could have been a potential fire hazard. Now, if only we could count on everyone to actually use the cubbies! Of course, we continue to do our duty to keep the space safe and comfortable, but this requires a certain amount of finesse and thinking on the fly.

That’s another funny thing about planning large, extended events like this, and why it’s especially valuable to me that I have the opportunity to work with such gracious and magnanimous people as those I have. I very gratefully acknowledge this is one of those serendipitous learning opportunities life hands us every so often. Not only do I get to learn the many complex nuances of public programming and event planning, but I have the added blessing of working with some of the kindest, most patient people. And considering that one of the key notions underpinning most Buddhist thought is that all things are in a constant state of change, impermanence is the nature of things, we are also dealing with experts in how to be flexible and open-minded.

A kind of inside joke I keep throwing into internal conversations around the Pulitzer is, “Well, at least we’re working with Buddhists, right?” By that I mean, “Could we ask for anyone nicer or more understanding?” It’s true! While our galleries are open to the public only two days out of the week, there is constant activity behind the scenes to ensure our best efforts go to promoting the visitor experience. Though as with any other large undertaking, the reality is there are challenges, struggles, and even at times unfulfilled expectations. The best laid plans sometimes end up getting thrown out the window!

Fortunately, in the case with the meditation series, the unanticipated popularity has only brought out the best in people. Though some interested parties have had to be wait-listed, and some who made reservations have had to cancel for illness, injury, or inconvenient schedule changes, I can honestly say that I’m blown away with everyone’s patience and understanding with the ongoing evolution of this program. From the dedicated practitioners, to my incredibly supportive and helpful coworkers, to the many attending participants, everyone has shown such grace and loveliness to myself and each other. It has been such a wholly positive–dare I say enlightening–experience to interact with so many people who dedicate their time, their energy, and some of them their whole lives, to bettering themselves, their minds, their lives, and the world around them.

I cannot even begin to describe all of the inspiring activities and conversations I have been allowed to participate in over the last few months for this project. I have even been kindly invited to their monthly Council meetings. They hold their meetings at various affiliated temples, so this has given me opportunities to visit several local groups in person. It is always with a warm reception and usually tea and cookies, that I have been so welcomed. About a month and a half ago, my colleague Sevda Safarova and I were treated to an array of interesting and unfamiliar tasty foods at the monthly Thai Food Fair at the St. Louis Thai Temple. Our generous host, Dr. Kongsak Tanphaitchitr, Secretary of the temple and Chairman of the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis, showed us around their lovely grounds and invited us to join their festivities. He and Naronk Hompleum, a fellow member of the Wat Phrasriratanaram Thai Temple, will be leading the two meditation sessions this Saturday at the Pulitzer.

We can look forward to the next three weekends rounding out what has been a very full and generally fulfilling seven-week series. Since each of the past four Saturday morning mediation sessions at the Pulitzer have been so well-attended, we are now going to be offering additional afternoon sessions for the upcoming three Saturdays: October 29, and November 5 and 12. While it appears that these sessions will soon, if not already, be full for pre-registration. We continue to encourage folks to contact meditations@pulitzerarts.org in order to receive the most up-to-date information.

One of the works included in Reflections of the Buddha is an accordion-fold scroll on loan from Harvard Art Museums. This gorgeous manuscript focuses on the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, commonly known as the “Goddess of Compassion”. The text and images within the scroll illustrate the calamities and dangers from which the deity will save any worshipper who cries out her name, as well as the diverse forms that Avalokiteśvara can take in order to make the Buddha’s teachings understood to any aspiring believer.

The scroll is an extremely long piece. Composed of 112 leaves, the work reaches a length of over 45 feet when completely laid out. As you can imagine, this size makes it difficult to display the entire manuscript at any one time. Thus, throughout the exhibition period at the Pulitzer, we will rotate the segments that are on view, allowing the returning visitor the opportunity to see different sections of text and image. In addition, since the scroll dates to the 15th century and is made of indigo-dyed paper, the work is vulnerable to light. Rotating the pages provides the added bonus of not exposing one segment of the scroll for too long of a period of time.

The first pages of the sutra have been on view since we opened the exhibition in early September. This Wednesday will provide visitors with their first chance to examine the subsequent leaves of the scroll. Here is a sneak peak of one of the scenes:

The Universal Gateway of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara” Chapter Twenty Five of the Lotus Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing Guanshiyin pusa pumenpin), with an Appended Heart Sūtra (Xin jing), 1432
 China, Ming dynasty, 1368–1644
 Accordion fold book; gold ink on indigo dyed paper; palace copy
 Overall: approximately 13 3/8 x 542 3/8 in. (33.9 x 1377.6 cm)
 Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Alan Priest, 1926.46
Photograph by Katya Kallsen © President and Fellows of Harvard College

The figure on the left is Avalokiteśvara. She extends her right hand all the way down to earth to rest on a supplicant’s head. In this way, the artist illustrates Avalokiteśvara’s vow to intercede directly into the human world to save those in need.

This segment of the scroll will remain on view through December 7. Subsequent rotations will open to the public on Saturday, December 10 and Wednesday, January 25, 2012, so be sure to stop by the Lower Gallery periodically to make sure that you see as much of this incredible work as possible.

by Emily Augsburger, Community Projects Coordinator

As we approach the end of October, the community projects department will begin our project for this exhibition:  Staging Reflections of the Buddha (Staging).  Before I began at the Pulitzer, I had heard about the project through the Brown School of Social Work, and I was completely inspired by the connection between social work and the arts. I am ecstatic to now be a part of the inner workings of this profound project.

For the past few months, we have been busily working with our amazing Staging team as we recruit actors and strategize the epic adventure ahead. Next Friday, we will hold our first workshop with the Staging actors. Agnes Wilcox will lead the process, and our team will work for the next seventeen weeks on the creation of the final performances. I am ecstatic that I am able to bear witness to and participate in the powerful transformation of the human spirit that comes from a project like Staging.  I look forward to keeping you posted on the Staging process as we progress. Cheers!

Staging Old Masters, 2009, Ideal (Dis-) Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer.

by Lisa Harper Chang, Community Projects Director

Once in a great while, we are fortunate enough to have professional experiences that are revelatory and make profound impact on our hearts, as well. I was fortunate enough to have one of these experiences with our 2009 project Staging Old Masters. The actors with whom we had the privilege and joy of working simultaneously put into question and answered what shape this collaboration between social work and arts could take.

It is with great hope, a healthy dose of intimidation, and endless excitement that I share with you the news that we will be offering Staging Reflections of the Buddha, a project inspired and informed by our previous Staging program and by the amazingly thoughtful exhibition curated so brilliantly by our senior curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra. With this iteration of Staging, we will continue our work with Prison Performing Arts (PPA) and Employment Connection while expanding our partnerships to include St. Patrick Center. While all of our actors last time were new clients to our social service partners, we thought it would be both impactful for all involved and meaningful to integrate alumni from Staging Old Masters and PPA with new clients. All of our actors are in some state of transition–homelessness, formerly incarcerated, ex-military (combat and non-combat)–just at different stages of their journey. Their journeys unite with ours through theatre experiences amidst the art and through shared ritual in an exhibition-inspired lantern ceremony marking the end of the exhibition and commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Pulitzer.

Over the coming months we are thrilled to share with you the intimate details of the program. Please join us on this journey, as we explore how to unlock the creative potential in all of us.

FULL STAGING WEBSITE LAUNCHING SOON

Pencil drawing by James Kennedy, Farmington State Correctional Center. More artwork by prison inmates may be found at insiderart.org.

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Carol Corey has been a student of Zen Buddhism since 1999. She works with Inside Dharma, a Buddhist prison outreach organization that teaches meditation in Missouri prisons. Practitioners from Inside Dharma led a meditation workshop at the Pulitzer on October 8.  

by Carol Corey, Community Services Organizer, Inside Dharma

In 2003, I responded to a request from an inmate at Menard State Prison in Illinois who was looking for support in his efforts to practice Zen meditation. Scott was about 40 years old. He had been incarcerated in this maximum security prison since he was fourteen. I answered his letter, and we’ve been corresponding ever since. In 2005, one of Scott’s articles was published in Tricycle Magazine (a Buddhist publication), and later that year it appeared in Best Buddhist Writings of 2005. This essay provided a compelling account of the life-changing transformation Scott went through, which eventually led him to become a serious student of Soto Zen Buddhism.

Before long I began a correspondence with James, another inmate in the category known as juvenile life without parole or “JLWOP”. He practices Tibetan Buddhism and, in his letters and during three visits, has made it clear that these teachings were, and still are, a lifeline for him. At one point he began studying the Tibetan language in order to understand the original teachings.

James is thirty-two and has been in prison since he was fifteen. He also has written about the arduous, personal introspective process that began a few years after his arrest. Several of his essays appeared in the Buddhist magazine Rightview Quarterly.  James has learned computer programming and animation without internet tutorials, and has set up a closed-circuit TV system for inmates. He teaches GED classes and is active with the prison hospice program.

Working on various Inside Dharma projects has increased my appreciation and admiration for people who are willing to face their demons, and in the case of inmates, examine the causes and conditions that led to their imprisonment. Providing meditation sessions inside the prisons gives those who attend a method for looking inward and coming to terms with an often painful history. In addition, Buddhist teachings encourage the cultivation of wisdom and compassion as these inmates move forward. The emphasis is not on right, wrong, or punishment, but rather on whether actions cause harm or not, and how to reduce suffering for self and others.

The teachings of the Buddha encourage a process of waking up: of seeing the world as it really is, not as we’d like it to be, and responding to our daily circumstances from that perspective. The “Inside” in our organization’s name has a double meaning, referring both to our work inside prisons and the fact that liberation from the suffering of grasping, anger, and ignorance begins inside one’s own mind.

When inmates express interest in learning more about meditation, compassion, self-discipline, or any Buddhist school, sect or tradition, Inside Dharma responds by providing reading material, pen pals, practice materials, and visits by our Volunteers in Corrections. If inmates make an effort to organize Buddhist practice groups within their institutions, Inside Dharma makes every effort to provide support.

Several ex-offenders, who began their practice while in prison, now attend two weekly meditation sessions at Shinzo Zen Meditation Center. Here they can not only practice sitting with a group, but participate as valued members of a sangha–a spiritual community that practices the Buddha’s teachings together. Discussions following each 30-minute sitting period often lead to unique insights and perspectives for those of us who have not experienced the criminal justice system directly.

I’ve been inspired by the friends I’ve made through these various Buddhist outreach enterprises. I observe their efforts to practice what the Buddha taught with grace, courage, and good will.

Inside Dharma operates out of a former parochial school in University City, and shares the space with Shinzo Zen Meditation Center. Find out more at www.insidedharma.net.

by David B. Olsen, Gallery Assistant

Immersed in the familiar quiet of the Pulitzer, it’s sometimes less easy to lose oneself and drift than it is to develop a kind of sonar.  As a gallery assistant, for example, I have learned to recognize people by the speed of their strides or the force of their footfalls; although everyone is never equally visible, some little electric presence is still always stirring. The space of the building doesn’t echo exactly, so much as it resounds, and the light white noise of movements or murmurs floats through the galleries and collects in the corners. To hear it filled with music for the first time at Wednesday night’s concert challenged my relation to the space. It’s not like I was lost as much as transplanted; the simple shapes and contours of Tadao Ando’s architecture seemed to multiply and became many in the bouncing of sounds between them. Even in its most meditative moments, the music of Jonathan Harvey was expansive and alive, searching, active, and enveloping.

For the first performance of the St. Louis Symphony for Reflections of the Buddha, five works by the British composer Jonathan Harvey were chosen by Music Director David Robertson, who remarked that Harvey’s love of simple sounds and chords belied a dark, slumbering sense of annihilation in his music. In particular, Harvey’s integration of electronic music–reflected in two of the concert’s pieces–seemed to invoke the spiritual world of “ghosts and angels,” whose language was composed of sounds that we would not immediately recognize. And although the Buddha is often associated with a sense of serenity and bliss, there was a certain haunting quality to Harvey’s work that reminds us that to be spiritual is to dwell among spirits, to commune with a spectral world on the other side of our own. In the opening piece, for example– “Buddhist Song No. 1” (2003), featuring lyrics adapted from A Guide to the Boddhisattva’s Way of Life–the piano’s innocent, childlike arpeggios were interrupted by a few violent stabs on the high notes, as though to remind us of the impermanence of joy. The lyrics, sung by mezzo-soprano Debbie Lennon, also recalled the vagaries of life in an often unwelcome world: “Just as on a dark and cloudy night / A flash of lightening for a moment illuminates all, / So for the worldly, through the power of Buddha’s blessings, / A virtuous intention briefly occurs.”

Only two pieces directly invoked the Buddha, however–both sung by Lennon, with Peter Henderson on piano–while the others seemed to locate the listener in that world the Buddha sought to disclose. In an electronic piece engineered by Joshua Riggs, the ritual sounds of bells commingled with the bleeps and boops that dominate the modern soundscapes of our homes and offices; I touched my own pocket more than once to make sure that what I was hearing was not actually my phone. For me, however, the highlight of the concert was the final piece, “Other Presences” (2006), which was performed on the trumpet by Joshua MacCluer. Playing into a microphone, MacCluer’s signal was then routed, looped, and panned between four different speakers. The slow accretion of electronic noises swelled like liquid, recalling Senior Curator Francesca Herdon-Consagra’s earlier remarks that the sparse design of the building was akin to a “vessel for empathy.” What were once my familiar echoes had been washed away, and my own senses began to feel false; the song, now, was the sound of the world falling a little apart, revealing its inherent hollow. Here, amidst the ensuing din, coming from all sides and resonating from unseen angles, it was almost impossible to distinguish what was still being played live and what was merely a reflection, an image in sound of some long ago breath. It was kind of breathtaking, in fact, and also as close as I’ll probably come to understanding what I am supposed to have learned about Buddhism for this exhibition.