Rubin

I went to the Rubin. I always hope to have a spiritual experience there, and I end up with an art history lesson. Art is complicated, and there's a lot to learn about in the world.

In my aesthetics class in college, one person did a project on museum fatigue, and I always think about that when I get so tired in a museum.

There were photographs of Muslim spiritual sites, there were modern abstract paintings. I like the Buddhist stuff. I look around for a tanka that really speaks to me. I liked one from western Tibet, that had a different style to it, the Buddha had a checkered robe, on the 3rd floor. It was in an exhibit that intended to help you appreciate that different areas in Tibet have different styles. There was a small vivid one on the 4th floor that I liked, but often I can't decode the iconography, and I don't know the background, or what's relevant about that incarnation of the Dali Lama, or that spiritual teacher long gone in the past. Some of the foreignness is the remoteness in time.

I find it weird there's Tibetan temple replica and you can't meditate there. I guess I have to get myself to a temple. I bring my spirituality there, and I get a museum experience. I want to see the art through spiritual eyes, but I have so much to learn to develop the sophistication to decode and see.

My partner thinks that when I want to have a dialogue with someone at the museum, I'm asking for too much. Next time I go I'll listen to the audio tour. You can even download them to your phone! They have presentations you can watch on line. The audio is a little low on the one I watched some of. I need to go on tour with someone. I need to spend more time there to learn. I'm not sure if it will advance my spiritual life. You get what you put into it. I can be impatient.