Sex, Chocolate, and Buddhism

Dhr. Seven and Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; S.F. Asian Art Museum (asianart.org)

Gorgeous Idea

Rare Buddhist masterpieces on display

Imagine talks that are informal, impromptu, in-gallery conversations. Imagine that they are facilitated by scholars, artists, filmmakers, and writers. Imagine that the facilitators explore ideas arising from the artwork on view in the exhibition "Gorgeous." And when done imaging, visit the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco to see them brought to life. Each facilitator presents an idea that piques the curiosity of the host and the audience then engages in a session to investigate it through two or three artworks:

• Gorgeous Idea: The Aura of an Ore with Jeff Durham

  August 7, 2014, 7:00-8:00 pm (free with museum admission, $5 after 5:00 pm. Meet near the information desk. Evenings, Talks, and Lectures. Buddhist expert Jeff Durham hosted "Enter the Mandala: Cosmic Mind Maps" at the Norton Simon.
  
• Sex, Chocolate, and Kimonos with Tina Takemoto

  August 14, 7:00-8:00 pm (free with museum admission, $5 after 5:00 pm). Meet near the information desk:

Caveat emptor: you get what you pay for.

How do artists use sex, food, physicality, and clothing to seduce and deceive viewers? Tina Takemoto explores how sexuality and race are deployed in artworks presented in Gorgeous that engage with cross-dressing, masquerade, embodiment, and ethnic drag.

Tina Takemoto is an artist and associate professor of visual studies at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
 
Takemoto's research explores the hidden dimensions of same-sex intimacy and queer sexuality for Japanese Americans incarcerated during WW II. She has...received grants funded by Art Matters, James Irvine Foundation, and San Francisco Arts Commission. Her film Looking for Jiro received Best Experimental Film Jury Award at the Austin Gay and Lesbian Int'l Film Festival. Her articles appear in Afterimage, Art Journal, GLQ, Performance Research, Radical Teacher, Theatre Survey, Women and Performance, and the anthology Thinking Through the Skin. Takemoto is board president of the Queer Cultural Center and co-founder of Queer Conversations on Culture and the Arts. On occasion, she makes guerrilla appearances as Michael Jackson and Bjork-Geisha.

• The Skin/Skein I’m In with Việt Lê

  September 4, 7:00-8:00 pm (free with museum admission, $5 after 5:00 pm). Meet near the information desk.
• Behind Closed Doors with Michael Stabile

  September 11, 7:00-8:00 pm (free with museum admission, $5 after 5:00 pm). Meet near the information desk. Details

Sex, Chocolate, and Buddhism
Wisdom Quarterly and Ven. K. Sri Dhammananda (Question Time)

Don't we have a parlor to get to? - Oh, S, we're gonna to be late! - I think they'll understand.

.

"Chocolate" is a fruit seed crushed with sugar.

We have a gorgeous idea, too. Crystal, what should our idea be? We can tell Jeff, and maybe he'll do it.

 

We can take a cue from Prof. Takemoto and concentrate on sex and chocolate! Did you know that chocolate is a fruit? 

What are you talking about? Chocolat is a fat. 

 

Yes, but Theobroma cacao -- "cocoa, the food of the devas" is the bitter crushed pit of a tropical fruit mixed with sugar or some sweetener, like raw agave, to take the edge off.

Chocolate Buddha (Patosoftineto/flickr)

That's rad; we should make raw chocolate, mold it into little Buddha bars, and hand them out at our talk -- our parlor room discussion -- about sex.

They would never go for it. San Francisco is way too uptight.

Maybe, but they let Jeff do Cosmic Mandalas in the main gallery, converting museum space into an actual, working sacred mandala.

True, that's true. But sex is a touchy subject for Americans. We're Judeo-Christian Puritans whether we like it or not, and most of us don't even realize how uptight we are.

"Touchy" subject is right. Maybe we should start with hugs -- chocolates and a snuggle party!

This is a Parlor.

Whatever, did you know that all sexual misconduct is sexual conduct BUT not all sexual conduct is sexual misconduct?

The real life mandala at the SF Asian Art Museum (Dr. Jeff Durham/asianart.org)

.

A woman discover the sensual scent of flowers

What, well, obviously! "All whales are fish, but not all fish are whales."

Fish are whales?

Whatever, things that live and swim in water all day.

What is sexual misconduct?

Who cares, our talk will be about sexual conduct.

Cool.

But Amber's not going to give the go ahead on this presentation.

Hmmm...I've got it! We'll run it by Seth instead.

Yes!

Worse comes to worse, we'll convince Ashley.

No, worse comes to worse they'll say we're parlor talkers. That chocolate had better be good, good like fudge.

We can quote Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda, the renowned Sri Lankan Theravada scholar-monk from Malaysia who says in Question Time:

Is sex bad?

As human beings, we have bodies that crave for all kinds of pleasures. Not only sex, we crave for food, pleasurable fragrances, sounds, sights, tastes, and tangibles.

If we deny ourselves these as being "sinful" then we repress natural desires. Instead of repressing these natural desires, we must seek to understand how and why they arise and to realize that it is not in our best intere3sts to pander to physical desires.

The victim of maya (illusion) sees the body as real and craves to satisfy a longing for sense desires (kama), which covers all kinds of sensual pleasure.

As the person, the being, matures spiritually, illusion is replaced with knowledge and wisdom (vidya and prajna). With spiritual matureity, the body is seen as an illusion and the person naturally grows out of craving. Here we see the spritually advanced being renounces sex (and other five sense strand pursuits) just as a child stops playing with toys as s/he grows up.

Quagmire is a pandaka (Family Guy)

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with sex. What is wrong is attachment and slavery to it, in believing that indulgence in sex can bring ultimate happiness.

This is the problem with the exploitation of sex by the mass entertainment industry today -- perpetuating the myth that sex can bring lasting happiness.

The third of the Five Precepts recited in daily Buddhist practice is, "I undertake the training rule to refrain from sexual misconduct." 

First, let's not that there is no compulsion, no fear of punishment for the infringement of any "divine law" here, but rather -- when we recognize the danger of attachment to sex, we freely take the steps (training rule) to grow out of it, that is, "I undertake."

(From Question Time with Venerable Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda, 2012, pp. 40-41, Buddhist Maha Vihara, Malaysia, Sasana Abhiwurdhi Wardhana Society).

The First Images of the Buddha (photos)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Editorial (dawn.com, 6-27-14); Wiki

The first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha were Gandhara art (Boonlieng)

Priceless Buddhist treasures were intercepted while being smuggled out of Pakistan, part of Pashtun Afghanistan, in the region of ancient Gandhara, India (BigStory.AP org)

  

[Breaking the] Fasting Buddha

Kashmir on the Pakistan side (Vivek Aryan)

(Dawn) Truly is it said, reality is stranger than fiction -- especially here in Pakistan. Since 1894, when it was donated upon being discovered, the Gandhara-era statue of the "Fasting Buddha" has been considered the jewel of the Lahore Museum.

Museum Maitreya Buddha

Images of it adorn postcards and newsreels, and proud [Muslim] citizens make it a point to take visitors to see it as an indication that whatever else the country may be, a cultural wasteland it is not.

This statue, priceless in terms of historical significance, has for a long time had a crack on the left arm. Investigations by this paper [dawn.com], upon receiving a tip-off, have confirmed an unbelievable story:

Back in April, 2012, the crack widened while being cleaned and the statue was given over to the museum laboratory’s tender ministrations. But instead of the scientific, delicate, and professional handling that an artifact of this stature demands, an attempt was made to fix it by applying the common adhesive epoxy, which remains [shockingly] evident on the statue’s surface and has caused irreparable harm.

Where in the world is Pakistan? It only came into existence in 1947 after the colonial British Partition of India. Along with Afghanistan, it was formerly Gandhara, India. Then the U.S. started meddling; now we bomb it secretly.

 

One of the priceless Afghan treasures of Mes Aynak

The trail of destruction isn’t hard to trace, given the standards at the moment: The current lab technician worked earlier as a driver and gallery attendant, while the lab "conservationist" used to be a peon.
 
What can be made of this but the utter disregard Pakistanis tend to show towards history and culture? This is hardly the only example of this mindset. It turns out that 2012 was an inauspicious year for Gandhara-era [Buddhist] artifacts. That summer, the police intercepted a large consignment of such relics that had apparently been about to be smuggled out of the country [see photo of looted Buddhist art above].

Gandhara is full of earliest Buddhist treasures

But during the recovery process, the police ended up damaging many of them, unprepared perhaps for their weight and certainly unmindful of their value. In the case of the Lahore Museum, the qualified chemist employed at the lab was retired in 2009. No replacement has been found. This is unsurprising, given the importance attached to archaeology and history in the country.

Afghan Buddhist monastery statue 700 AD (Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara)

• The Greco-Indian art of ancient Gandhara:

First Buddhas, Gandhara

(Wiki) Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 1000 years in Central Asia, between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, and the destructive Islamic conquests of the 7th century AD. Greco-Buddhist art is characterized by the strong idealistic realism and sensuous description of Hellenistic art and the FIRST representations of the Buddha in human form...

Future Buddha Maitreya, Gandhara-style, Greco-Indian Buddhist fusion art of Afghanistan, Pakistan, ancient India, San Francisco Asian Art Museum (Boonlieng/flickr.com)

 
Ancient Greece (in India and Persia)

Kushan Maitreya, Greco-India

Bactria was under direct Greek control for more than two centuries from the conquests of Alexander the Great in 332 BC to the end of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom around 125 BC. The art of Bactria was almost perfectly Hellenistic as shown by the archaeological remains of Greco-Bactrian cities such as Alexandria on the Oxus (Ai-Khanoum), or the numismatic art of the Greco-Bactrian kings, often considered as the best of the Hellenistic world, and including the largest silver and gold coins ever minted by the Greeks.
 
When Buddhism expanded in Central Asia from the 1st century AD, Bactria saw the results of the Greco-Buddhist syncretism arrive on its territory from India, and a new blend of sculptural representation remained until the Islamic invasions.
 
The most striking of these realizations are the Buddhas of Bamiyan. They tend to vary between the 5th and the 9th century AD. Their style is strongly inspired by Hellenistic culture. More

Western China

"Heroic gesture of the Bodhisattva," the Buddha-to-be, 6th-7th century terracotta, Tumshuq (Xinjiang) where the Chinese empire extended from the Far East into Central Asia, the Land of Buddhism and the Buddha (wiki).

 

[WISDOM QUARTERLY EDITORIAL: Buddhism made it to ancient "Greece," the Hellenistic world as a vast empire encroaching into India and Persia, before it ever arrived in China. It co-originated in Afghanistan (the Buddha's likely birthplace according to Dr. Ranajit Pal) and "India" (the Kingdom of Magadha to be specific as there was no unified India at that time), where the Buddha had traveled to establish the Teaching and the first monastic Community, which was soon augmented by many Shakyan princes and princesses, relatives of the Buddha from the area of Gandhara, Afghanistan, Indo-Pakistan, Taxila (Takkashila), Indo-Iran, and lands (the modern "stans") likely under the influence of the capital of Kapilavastu, the Buddha's hometown, the kingdom he would have inherited somewhere between modern Bamiyan and Kabul, once a fabulously rich and cosmopolitan crossroads on the Silk Route.]

• BUST: The original representation of the Buddha in gray schist, currently dated to 2nd-3rd century CE showing Hellenistic influences characteristic of the Gandhara art of Afghanistan and Northwest Pakistan (British Museum/Britannica.com)

Maitreya in USA (Boonlieng)

The art of the Tarim Basin, also called Serindian art, is the art that developed from the 2nd through the 11th century AD in Serindia or Xinjiang, the extreme western region of China that forms part of Central Asia. It derives from the art of the Gandhara and clearly combines Indian traditions with Greek and Roman influences.
 
Buddhist missionaries travelling on the Silk Road introduced this art, along with Buddhism itself, into Serindia, where it mixed with Chinese and Persian influences.

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‘Fasting Buddha’ damaged during cleaning

Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Shoaib Ahmed (dawn.com, June 26, 2014)

The Ascetic Siddhartha or "Fasting Buddha," Lahore Museum (file, dawn.com)

 

LAHORE, Pakistan - The jewel of Lahore Museum, the Fasting Buddha sculpture, carries a fresh scar, the legacy of an amateur attempt at "repairing" one of its arms after an accident during cleaning.

 

The Buddha had two fingers on its right hand missing and an old crack on its left arm. The crack was opened up a couple of years ago while the staff was cleaning it, Dawn.com was told by an art lover and conservationist on Wednesday.

 

Just use this epoxy. - Really? (dawn.com)

Later investigations confirmed the "accident," and the subsequent careless repairing by staff at the museum's lab, their restoration effort failing to go beyond the application of a common adhesive that did more to damage it than to restore it. The incident happened in the Gandhara Gallery on April 4, 2012, museum sources revealed.

They say the statue was “repaired” by staff in the museum’s lab like an ordinary object instead of implementing modern scientific methods of conservation.

Gandhara Gallery Chief Muhammad Mujeeb told Dawn.com on Wednesday that the conservation laboratory staff had filled the crack in with simple epoxy. More  

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Buddhist graffiti of San Francisco

Pat Macpherson, Dev, Wisdom Quarterly; photographer Thu Trang Ho

Amazing Buddhist mural on the streets of San Francisco (hothutrang/flickr.com)

  

Japanese samurai (tumblr.com)

Who makes elaborate graffiti in America's original Chinatown, San Francisco, California? It's art filled with the Buddha and Far East Buddhist mythology, Indian legend, and the ever present good luck dragons (naga kings). Religious imagery in an urban street environment is strangely uplifting. On a building, along a road, on a wall, on the side of a house, utilizing architecture for the expression of the USA's fastest growing minority community, this is what graffiti is meant to be. Just ask Banksy or TTH. How far do we need to travel for the exotic East to become an authentic West Coast experience?