Painting the Dao

34 from the eccentric artist Zhang Zao: ‘Outwardly, we take creation [nature] as our model, but inwardly we seek the wellspring of the heart.’ Landscape became a vehicle for exploring and expressing the self, an infinite resource, eternally contemporary. The question ‘Is ink landscape painting traditional or modern?’ became meaningless; it is both, and remains as relevant today as it ever was. We find a parallel to this in alchemy in China, which shifted centuries ago from a focus on the transformation of substances in the search for elixirs of immortality to the transformation of the self, through neidan , inner alchemy. For over a thousand years the ink-painting tradition of China has been the epitome of painting inner meaning, essence, the subtle patterns and energies of nature; of painting the Dao. Not the path towards it, nor the lower-level religious structures that arose out of it, nor the surface imagery of Daoist symbolism and patriarchs. The goal was always the transcendent, ineffable Dao itself. Creativity keeps one alive beyond expectation, vital beyond reason. It functions as social grease and is infinitely entertaining with its daily adven- ture into as yet undiscovered realms. The role of creative personality is to constantly make the universe anew, and by doing so to transform it, one person at a time, starting with the self. In that respect artists are as gods, but without the burden of responsibility. Creativity is in the business of transformation. Its task is to enlighten, ultimately so in attaining the full bandwidth of consciousness through the paradigm-changing transcendent enlightenment experience itself. I came to recognise all of this when it unexpectedly, and delightfully, happened to me on the khlongs of Bangkok in 1983, providing the missing piece of my theoretical jigsaw puzzle.