Contaminated Minds And Contagious Souls

I went to see Nway Htut's show 'Contaminated Minds And Contagious Souls' at Neoartists 'mini' Gallery in Bolton. I was interested by the title. It was advertised as taking inspiration from Buddhism and the culture of the artist's birthplace (Burma) using an illustrative, manga influenced style.

I got to speak to the artist. She said it was the last of her fine art work as she now plans to focus on a career in illustration. Her hair short as it was shaved recently while she was a temporary Buddhist nun. Before becoming Buddhist, she said she was first involved with Wicca and then Christianity while in Burma.

Contagious souls, 2010, acrylic on canvas.

The piece which I thought was strongest, and most clearly carried the title themes, was contagious souls. I read it as a fairly literal illustration of people influencing the contents of their neighbours' heads. The interesting part is the row of blanked-out faces. Are they empty because they've reached nirvana? Or empty because they're pure, newborn babies, or because they've been brainwashed? Nway says that symbolism wasn't consciously included during it's making.

"before becoming a nun and going into a meditation centre, my mind seemed to be influenced by anything and it have been reckless for years, its feeling so weak.. and I can say that the meditation and Buddha's teachings have taught me quite a lot how I should handle my mind and life..learning those Dhamma  (Buddha's teachings are called Dhamma) .. make me think about the concept behind Contaminated minds and contagious souls.."
(Htut)

This statement makes the point that her mind used to be 'influenced by anything', but it is not anymore since hearing (being influenced by) the Dhamma. I found this confusing until I listened to a link Htut suggested to me ('Can you afford not to meditate?'). There seems to be a contradiction between being skeptical of different truth claims, but then accepting one. However the Buddhist teacher portrays a Buddhism which seems almost nihilistic:

"don't believe something just because it sounds reasonable"
"don't believe something because it agrees with what you already believe, what you think"

"what is easier - to believe or not believe?...to believe is easier!"

"I think my nature loves freedom...I don't want to take any orders...maybe that's why I became a monk"

"from that day I loved Buddha because he told me not to believe him. You don't even have to believe Buddha...you have to practice and find out for yourself that this is true"
(Sayadaw U Jotika)

He seems to say that rather than making a truth claim, like other religions, Buddhism is different. Maybe Buddhism's claim to truth is more nihilism-friendly because it doesn't relate to a god, or gods.

http://neoartists.co.uk/

"an enemy of ideologies"

Notes taken from a Wim Reitkerk lecture:
(link to mp3)

Destutt de Tracy originally used the term ideology to mean the study of ideas. Napoleon I hated university ideologists because they criticised his political ideals for being tools used by him to retain power. They were in turn criticised for using their ideological studies for a practical goal - seeking the fall of the French government. Ideology then came to mean a system of ideas, surrounded by metaphysical and moral truth, created for a highly practical goal. This could be done subconsciously or consciously.

Later Marx spoke about man's desire to be better (an ideal); God was created as an ideology in order to achieve it. He suggested that this particularly helped the ruling classes to keep the working class quiet. Marx believed in no absolute truth (which is itself a truth claim), so any ideologies are created by human society, and cannot contain absolute truth. Rather than arriving at relativism though, he says that the best ideology should be followed by society to arrive at  his goal - for him the freedom of man, and the delivery of the working class. So Marx (and Lenin) acknowledged that their thinking was ideology, an instrument to reach a practical goal.

However to acknowledge Christianity is an ideology, you would be saying that faith in God is only useful as far as it helps you to get somewhere. Rietkirk notes that using the bible to defend or attack an economic system, or political systems, is highly risky because you start you transform Christianity into an ideology - one that supports our own views, or own nation. Our ideals would become idols - something that comes in place of God. Christianity is weak where it has the same form as an ideology; where people use scriptures as 'medical prescriptions' to feel OK, where people go to church just to make themselves feel better.

The goal of any ideology becomes the absolute, even if absolute truth is denied. So Christianity cannot be an ideology, because it would require subordinating God to a practical goal, which contradicts core Christian belief. He gives examples in the bible of people trying to use God for power to achieve something, apparently good, but failing because they were subordinating him to their own desires and purposes.