S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 1 9 9 Martin Dojčár At the Collegeville Institute, you were working on your project “What can Buddhist artistic traditions learn from Christian Iconography”. As far as I know, developing your painting technique was one of its aims, but not the only one. What is the main outcome of your almost a yearlong inquiry? Okay, now you are asking me questions about my true passions! Ha. Yes, a significant part of the program was for me to explore what would happen if I had the majority of my day available just to focus on creating icons. At the monastery in California, I had many duties and the monastic schedule made it difficult to find time to keep up a daily practice of writing icons. Being able to have more space in the day made for a much more even flow of energy. I didn’t get as concentrated as I did when I had only a few hours, but the even flow of energy seemed to be more calming and relaxing in general. The number of hours dedicated to writing almost tripled in any given day, and as a result, I went from writing an icon in about two weeks to be able to complete one in a day. Actually, at the very end it took me only two hours to complete a couple of portraits. So, there was a greatly improved sense of comfort with the technique. I could also see a bit of my own style starting to emerge. One of the bigger questions I was asking before the program started was, “Is there a way to write a Buddhist icon, so that anybody looking at it can tell the intention of the artist?” It seems to me now that this is not possible, as painting an icon is called writing because we are dealing with a visual language. And just as I can’t appreciate say French poetry since I don’t speak French, unless we take the time to understand the language of various religious art techniques, the real meaning behind the works will be lost. At first this kind of saddened me but I realize my first Christian Icon teacher, Fr. Damian Higgins of Mount Tabor Monastery in Redwood Valley, CA, partly uses his icons as a way to talk about his faith. In this way, I can see that continuing to develop my icons skills could have some benefit. Having the year to explore icon writing as a meditation technique has given me the incentive to go a bit deeper. I hope to start creating icons from scratch (not just copying existing icons), and hopefully someday get to a point where I might be able to lead workshops on creating religious art. Another aspect of my trying to develop my own style of writing Buddhist icons by using an ancient Christian technique is to show that people from different faiths and backgrounds can learn from each other. This reminds me, you mentioned you might be doing an interfaith walk with one of the monks from Collegeville, is that correct? What is your intention behind that? Father Michael Peterson, monk of Saint John’s Abbey, and myself have one monastic camping trip planned for June 2020. We are also looking at the possibility of doing a longer hike in 2021. The camping trip in 2020 will hopefully be two Christian and two Buddhist monks camping together just outside Yosemite National Park for a week. All the monks have participated in monastic dialogue before, and I see this as a way for us to get to know each other in a setting outside of a conference or being a guest at a monastery. I made the joke a few years ago that if we really want to get to know each other, we shouldn’t be meeting for conferences, we should go hiking and call it “Monks in the Mountains”. I’ve invited Fr. Michael to accompany me on a three- or four-month hike in 2021, doing a large section of the Pacific Crest Trail. I hope that we would create a YouTube channel and post about our walk. The idea is that I would be reading the Rule of Saint Benedict or some Christian teachings that Fr. Michael suggests, while he, on the contrary, would be studying my monastic rules and reading some talks from my teachers. Afterwards, in the evenings we could have discussions, sharing, and hopefully capture some of the better insights we get from our discussions on
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