"Why do people turn to religion when suffering and disaster approach? What can the Buddha bring to human beings?" The young artist Mi Hsiung asked himself these questions seventeen years ago when he saw flood victims in Anhui Province, China, praying before a statue of the Buddha for help and consolation.

Fascinated by the power of religion, Mi began to focus his artistic creation on religious paintings. He studied Buddhist paintings, sculptures and artifacts produced during different dynasties. He was always in a state of euphoria while creating religious art, and that feeling made him fall in love with the creating process. "Strangely, when I do Buddhist paintings, I am filled with peace and joy. I never felt this way when I did ordinary paintings." Later when he became more familiar with Buddhism and the Buddhist sutras, he realized that that feeling of well-being was "the joy of the dharma."

Ever since he first tried his hand at Buddhist art, his artwork has become a means of meditation and cultivation for him. "During all these years of painting the Buddha and the bodhisattvas, I've found that what is important is not the painting itself, but learning to be a good man." He tries to cultivate himself and make himself a better person in order to produce Buddhist art that can move people, instead of being empty and hollow.

Art pursues beauty, whereas religion seeks the truth and goodness in human beings. Mi Hsiung hopes that he can combine these three sublime qualities in his religious art and bring the joy of the dharma to his viewers.

Mi was born in Shanghai, China, in 1964. He grew up at a time when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) was in full swing. His grandfather, a former landlord, was branded as a member of the "five black categories" (counterrevolutionaries, rightists, thugs, former landlords and former rich peasants, as well as their families and descendants). Almost all of these people had to endure harsh physical torture and psychological persecution. The government even confiscated the property of the Mi family.

The Cultural Revolution challenged and demolished conventional tradition and culture, including religion. In this period of time when all religious activities were banned, there was a particular scene which Mi found hard to forget. His grandmother had a Buddhist statue hidden in a closet. Every time his grandfather came back from a struggle meeting, where he was always subjected to severe public censure, she would close the door of the house, take the statue out, and then begin to worship. As she prayed, her aged, anxiety-ridden, sometimes tear-stained face would clear up. As a small child, Mi was amazed at the soothing power the wooden statue had upon his grandmother.

At a time when traditional culture was being destroyed, Mi was lucky to have a grandfather who was good at Chinese painting and calligraphy. He loved to watch his grandfather paint and produce beautiful handwriting with a brush. Noticing his interest in it, his grandfather began to teach the five-year-old child to write and paint. Mi quickly absorbed his grandfather's lessons and was soon able to produce paintings that made his parents decide to cultivate his talent. The family, being poor, had to scrape together every penny they had to provide Mi a formal art education.

He was sent to a teacher who had taught at the Zhejiang Fine Arts College. Mi still remembers that because of the suppression of traditional culture, the fact that he was learning Chinese painting had to be kept hidden, or else the teacher and Mi's family would be in trouble. Therefore, he always went to his teacher's place in secret. When his teacher hung a bamboo basket at the door, it meant that the coast was clear and he could go in. If not, it meant that someone was around and he could not enter the house. Even the tuition had to be paid in a special way. For fear that people might discover the truth, Mi's father gave the teacher presents instead of money.

After he had finished grade school, Mi went to the Shanghai Huashan Arts School and then the Shanghai Light Industry College to study interior design. During those years, he often traveled with his schoolmates to different places to paint from life. He especially liked to go to teahouses in the countryside, where old people drank tea and chatted their time away. They served as free models for Mi. Since these elderly people liked to talk about themselves, he often had the chance to listen to their life stories while making sketches. He made close observations of these country folks and found that their life experiences, harsh or easy, were all plainly written on their faces. Fascinated by their facial expressions--happiness, sadness, worry or contrition--he tried his best to capture them in his paintings. Such direct contact with people gave him extra insight into their psychology. As a result his power of observation, as well as his skill in sketching, was greatly improved.

During one such painting trip, he and his schoolmates happened to be caught in a mighty flood which was sweeping across Anhui Province. They were astounded to witness a miserable world devastated by the deluge: submerged houses, animal carcasses floating in the water, and worried-looking farmers trying to clean out their houses with their bare hands. Amid all these sad sights, a crowd of people prostrating themselves on a mound drew his attention. Curious, he made his way through the crowd and found that in the center was a wooden statue of the Buddha which the local people were worshipping with the utmost piety and reverence. Touched by the scene, he knelt down and began to worship the statue like the rest of the villagers. This experience brought up his childhood memories of his grandmother secretly praying to the statue of the Buddha. His curiosity about the religion grew still greater.

What really caused him to shift his artistic creation to religious painting was a trip to Henan Province. He had already graduated from college at that time and was working at the Shanghai Art Design Company. During a business trip to Henan, he paid a visit to a museum there. A large collection of Buddhist sculptures, wall murals and stone tablets unearthed from different grottoes opened his eyes. Before this visit, he had thought that Buddhist statues all looked the same. But now he realized that different dynasties, or even different districts, had their own unique ways of presenting the Buddha. The works of art he found in the museum not only had great religious importance, but also immense artistic value.

After the trip, he began to read books on Buddhism and Buddhist art. Through them he learned that Buddhism is actually an integral part of Chinese culture and history. Its influence is omnipresent--you can feel its presence in language, literature, art and daily life.

His interest shifted from studying and painting different types of people to studying and painting different images of the Buddha and the bodhisattvas. He always felt calm and peaceful when creating religious art. In the past, when he painted portraits, his mood would change according to the people who served as his models. "The country folks I met in the teahouses often had harsh lives. Life was not easy for them. When I painted them, my heart was often heavy. But painting the Buddha is completely different. Serenity always reigns in my heart during the creation process."

In 1989, Master Ming Yang of the Longhua Temple in Shanghai kindly accepted Mi as his disciple, and thus he became a Buddhist. He drew and designed many religious paintings for the temple. Some time afterwards, the Shanghai Buddhist Association invited him to be its art counselor. Funded by the association, he made field trips to almost every great treasure site of the Buddhist arts in China, such as the Baima Temple in Luoyang, the Longmen Grottoes in Henan Province, the Tunhuang Grottoes in Gansu Province, and the Potala Palace in Tibet. The rich legacy of Buddhist art in these places deepened his understanding of religious art and provided him with a rich source of inspiration. He carefully studied the cultural legacy, and through copying and imitating the ancient works, he tried to master the skills and spirit of his predecessors.

Since then, he has created a great quantity of Buddhist art. His numerous works have been exhibited in many countries, including Japan, France, Canada, Taiwan and the United States. His paintings never fail to capture the admiration of art lovers in these different countries.

Mi's Buddhist portraits and works are executed in various types and styles. One type of portrait is created in accordance with the required standards laid down in the canon of Buddhist art. There are thirty-two major characteristics and eighty minor features that distinguish a canonic prototype of a Buddha. Everything from the spot between the eyebrows to the tip of the nose has its own special place. The nose has its particular length, just as the ears have their own characteristically exaggerated length. This type of painting is commonly used for worship.

Other religious paintings by Mi are of a freer style. He delineates Buddhist images according to his own imaginative creativity. These works are redolent of a free, personal expression, reflecting the artist's idea that there should not be only one rigidly fixed way of presenting the Buddha. For some of these works he focuses on detailed, meticulous brushwork and precise coloring, while for others he employs spontaneous, abbreviated brushwork. The Buddhist images presented are not necessarily dignified. Sometimes they are tender, sometimes compassionate, sometimes lively. They make people feel that Buddhist paintings can be very creative and free.

Mi has also made batiks. While travelling in Guizhou, he saw women making batiks with delightful designs. Inspired by their skill, he sketched amusing drawings of Buddhist stories onto cotton and then made them into interesting and highly decorative batiks.

Mi married a Taiwanese wife in 1992. Two years later he moved from mainland China to Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. The change of environment brought about a change in his mood and inspired him to invent a new painting technique. "Taiwan's free, vigorous lifestyle made my heart grow lighter," he said. "To reflect the change in me, I created a painting style called shui hsien po tsai (blurred outlines and light colors), hoping to convey a feeling of flowing water, of cleanliness and purity." Paintings in this style are decorated with a special pigment which Mi prepares himself. This pigment is free of the traditional dark ink colors and is lighter in tone. It produces a transparent, lucid, clear feeling that gives the pictures a lighter, livelier atmosphere.

After all these years of creating Buddhist paintings, Mi has a feeling that religion can change a person from inside out. "Take me as an example. I used to have a hot temper. Whenever I had problems in my painting, I would fly into a rage and throw the half-finished paintings away. But Buddhism has taught me to be more composed. When problems arise, I try not to get irritated. I calm myself down and work the problems out patiently."

This year on October 23 and 24 in the Chinese Cultural Center in El Monte, California, and from October 28 to November 7 in the Kaohsiung Cultural Center, Taiwan, Mi is going to display the works he has created since he settled in Taiwan. These works will be presented in four series. The first is the Flower series, in which he presents images of the Buddha and the bodhisattvas along with flowers that can be found in southern Taiwan. The second is the Shui Hsien Po Tsai series, including paintings done in the artist's unique style of blurred outlines and light colors. The Baimiao series features paintings in the style of Chinese outline ink drawings, with only plain outlines and no coloring. The Old Style But New Expression series consists of paintings which are meant to invoke a feeling of antiquity: the paper used is gray in color and the composition, coloring and content all follow the ancient style.

Mi sincerely invites those who are fond of Buddhist art to share with him the joy of the dharma through his work. "Through the adventure of completing each Buddhist painting, I get to understand and appreciate Buddhism even more. I hope viewers of my paintings can share the same wonderful joy through my work." He does not expect his art to bring immediate enlightenment to his audience, but he hopes that it can bring more goodness and beauty to a not-so-perfect world. We hope that the works presented in the following sidebars of this issue of the Tzu Chi Quarterly will bring a little goodness and beauty into the lives of our readers.