Everyone is an Artist: A Creative Dharma Retreat
Book with Rivendell Retreat Centre
Are you someone who values creativity, no matter what form it takes? If so, then the Creativity and Dharma retreat is perfect for you.
We'll delve into the Buddha's teachings on The 5 Skandhas, an insight into how we are all essentially creative beings:
"Through the ordinary state of being, we’re already creators in the most profound way, creating our experience of reality and composing the world we perceive."
While this retreat won't be dedicated to making major art pieces, you are invited to bring your own small-scale materials such as pens, pencils, needles, thread, and cameras to explore your creativity and assist with meditative reflections.
We'll be engaging in group discussions and personal reflections on our individual creative processes, putting aside our concerns about producing a specific piece of art. Instead, we'll be exploring ways to expand our creative visions and perspectives on life, which will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of our inner selves, motivations, and inspirations.
“To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.
What you make doesn’t have to be witnessed, recorded, sold, or encased in glass for it to be a work of art. Through the ordinary state of being, we’re already creators in the most profound way, creating our experience of reality and composing the world we perceive.
In each moment, we are immersed in a field of an differentiated matter from which our senses gather bits of information. The outside universe we perceive doesn’t exist as such. Through a series of electrical and chemical reactions, we generate a reality internally. We create forests and oceans, warmth and cold. We read words, here voices, and form interpretations. Then, in an instant, we produce a response. All of this in a world of our own creation.”