The term ‘art’ is commonly associated with artists, but the true meaning of that word is this: giving everything its right place, putting everything in order and in harmony.

Any art form, like any occupation, can either be a self-forgetting escape or a window to self-inquiry. It may serve as a conduit for self-centered acts, or as a space for great awe, for listening and seeing.

Our body is a doorway into the miraculous, a sensor of the environment, and only through it can we become more sensitive to ourselves and to one another.

In the words of Miyamoto Musashi: “Think lightly of yourself and greatly of the world.” When we start to view our organism as a cosmos, as part of the earth, then we notice how much it reflects in the world around us, and so care for everything differently.… Setting the order around begins only with seeing the disorder within ourselves.