How Art Theory is Meditation

There have been questions raised in class as to the usefulness of critical theory. Theory - whether literary, cultural, or physical - does much more than simply point out contradictions and constructions of society. Theory seeks the same end as meditation - namely, the ability to experience the world directly.

I believe Marx and Trungpa might have been great friends, as they essentially sought after the same experience. Marx and Engels comment, "We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process" (768). Marx refers to a "false consciousness", a state of consciousness which is inaccurate and muddled in a constructed society. For Trungpa, false consciousness might be translated as the cocoon: "the way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in this cocoon, in which we perpetuate are habitual patterns" (60). For both Trungpa and the Communists, the goal is to reject what we have been taught and to work with real consciousness.

Edward Said speaks of the need to get rid of concepts. He focuses particularly on the notion of Orientalism, and the need to get rid of outdated ideals and language concerning the Orient. The experience Said seeks is one free of racism and prejudice, free of fear. Trungpa says: "True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear, but going beyond fear" (48). There seems to be a notion in much of what we have studied this semester of going beyond - getting outside society, the superstructure. Trungpa's ideas on meditation mirror this idea. I read a quote of Trungpa's recently that I cannot find in my notes nor recall perfectly, but to paraphrase it: in meditation, there is no judgment of concepts or thoughts as good or bad, in meditation we learn to experience ourselves directly without concepts. In Said's eyes, the same end that meditation seeks is possible through critical theory: "It this stimulates a new kind of dealing with the Orient, indeed if it eliminates the 'Orient' and 'Occident' altogether, then we shall have advanced a little in the process of what Raymond Williams has called the 'unlearning' of 'the inherent dominative mode'" (2012). Said posits that getting outside of concepts is possible, and while he may not give us an alternative, he at least allows for the possibility. Perhaps that is what is challenging for some in studying critical theory - that there is no all encompassing answer. The best that both theorists and meditators can do is to argue for a place that exists outside of conceptual experience, a place that seems to be quite pleasant. The getting there may not be able to be talked of yet, for we haven't gotten there yet, and may not ever truly get there.

Why study theory? To gain insight into the true nature of experience. Why meditate? To understand that society is constructed. Meditation is theory, theory is meditation.

Works Cited

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. From The German Ideology.The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 767-769.

Said, Edward W. From Orientalism.The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 1991-2012.

Trungpa, Chogyam. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc., 1984.