"The creative process has more to do with perception than talent. The creative process requires that we first perceive our world as it is before we can represent it in some form or use it as a launching pad for expression. Meditation helps this process by clarifying our perceptions, relaxing our relentless self-dialoguing, and revealing the source of creativity. We also learn through meditation that we can rest in “square one,” a state of mindfulness and awareness where our mind, body, and environment are synchronized and self-expression can transform into pure-expression."
--http://www.shambhalaart.org/program


"Without seeing things as they are, it is hard to create art. Our perceptions are obscured and our mind is not fresh, so making art becomes a troubled, futile process by which we're trying to create something based on concept."
-- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche


"The practice of dharma art is a way to use our lives to communicate without confusion the primordial and magical nature of what we see, hear, and touch."
–- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche


"First thought is best in art."
-— William Blake


"The map is not the territory."
-— Alfred Korzbyski


"The truth of the thing is not the think of it but the feel of it."
–- Stanley Kubrick


"One eye sees, the other feels."
-– Paul Klee


"Symbol, in this sense, is not a 'sign' representing some philosophical or religious principle; it is the demonstration of the living qualities of what is."
– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche


"Through meditation we come to see things as they are as opposed to how we think or imagine they are. We discover that everything has a felt presence to it as well as a thought sense that we bring to it. What we create and perceive communicates through signs and symbols. Signs communicate primarily information and the thought sense of things. Symbols on the other hand are primarily about non-conceptual direct experience, the presence and the felt sense of things. Seeing the difference between signs and symbols, thought sense and felt sense, as well as how they work together empowers our creative and viewing processes."

--http://www.shambhalaart.org/program


The eye of desire dirties and distorts. Only when we desire nothing, only when our gaze becomes pure contemplation, does the soul of things (which is beauty) open itself to us.
– Hermann Hesse

There is such a thing as unconditional expression that does not come from self or other. It manifests out of nowhere like mushrooms in a meadow, like hailstones, like thundershowers.
– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche


"Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction."
– Pablo Picasso

"Some feel that if an idea or inspiration is clear, or pure, then whatever is produced will automatically be the same. However, the gap between inspiration and manifestation can be huge and filled with obstacles, negativity, and self-consciousness. The five elements not only describe our world and our experience, but four of them offer means, actions we can take, to work with these challenges: Pacifying (water), Enriching (earth), Magnetizing (fire), and Destroying (wind). These four actions are used in everyday life, as well as the creative process, as the vehicles for compassionate action and pure expression where obstacles become challenges and negativity is transformed into greater vision and truth."
--http://www.shambhalaart.org/program