Source: International Mission Board, November 13, 2017<\/p>\n
Harshil Tamang once fashioned artwork depicting the traditional Buddhist understanding of existence. His work represented the recurring cycle of life while expressing a longing for an elusive escape from reincarnation to nirvana, the ultimate spiritual goal.<\/p>\n
Like his father before him, he learned to paint thangkas, Tibetan Buddhist paintings on cotton or silk. The Wheel of Life painting is the most well-known thangka. It\u2019s a visual representation of life, death, and rebirth for Tibetan Buddhists. For eighteen years, Harshil painted traditional thangkas and taught others to do the same.<\/p>\n
When Harshil\u2019s grandmother passed away, a priest commissioned him to make a thangka to make merit on her behalf. Harshil asked his father about the symbolism of art created for the dead. The thangka is like a god, his father said, and making one was a way to serve his grandmother.<\/p>\n
The idea that his artwork held god-like status stunned Harshil. He remembers wondering who his art made him if it was a god. If his art could work for salvation, who was he? He knew he was not more powerful than a god.<\/p>\n
So his Buddhist faith waned. \u201cThere is no god in this universe. Man is god,\u201d Harshil recalls thinking. \u201cI am also god,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n
Not long after making this bold claim, a storm struck and flooded his home and destroyed 300 thangkas representing months of work and rendering a devastating financial loss.<\/p>\n
He wondered if the Lord was challenging his claim to divinity.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Full story<\/a> includes a video and images Harshil\u2019s art today.<\/p>\n \u00bb See also The Spirit of Tibetan Buddhism<\/a> (OMF International). I had no idea that the Tibetan Buddhism has so much in common with the church of Luther\u2019s day! (Hint: merit.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: International Mission Board, November 13, 2017 Harshil Tamang once fashioned artwork depicting the traditional Buddhist understanding of existence. His work represented the recurring cycle of life while expressing a longing for an elusive escape from reincarnation to nirvana, the ultimate spiritual goal. Like his father before him, he learned to paint thangkas, Tibetan Buddhist … Continue reading EAST ASIA: Artist Escapes from the Buddhist Wheel of Life<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7530,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529\/revisions\/7530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}