Awake Art
Awake Art
Awake Art is a comprehensive system derived from the essence of traditional wisdom and practice, designed to offer methods for mental cultivation and a lifestyle suited to modern people. These practices are deeply integrated into daily life, making them easier to apply in everyday contexts. It is not about faith or religion but about truth—aiming to help us better understand life and live more fully, enabling people to rediscover the value of life and living.
If one’s inner self is not awakened, life is inevitably confusing. Everyone in the world encounters worries and negative emotions; without understanding one’s own mind and lacking the strength to transcend these afflictions, one is bound to frequently become lost within self-imposed limitations. Awake Art opens a door, revealing the inner connection between life and awakening, allowing individuals to rediscover tranquility, beauty, and freedom through art.
Maha Ruba, the advocate and practitioner of Awake Art, studied under the internationally renowned Tibetologist Professor Namkhai Norbu. Combining two decades of learning in traditional wisdom and meditation, he has developed a curriculum system for mental growth tailored to modern urban dwellers.
From being a painter and artist to founding Awake Art, Maha Ruba reflects: “Each person’s life is their own masterpiece.” He says, “I am an explorer of life’s awakening, a beneficiary of this path, and inevitably, a sharer of this journey. I hope more people can gradually open their understanding and training of the mind, ignite their inner potential and creativity, and thereby achieve balance and harmony in body and mind, attaining genuine insight into the true nature of life. Together, we can transcend the troubles of life and reap its abundance and joy.”
Art, makes one become his true self. Awakening, brings the heart back to itself.
Dharma, is the art of awakening. Art, is the skilful means of Dharma.
Awake Art employs art—a free expression that transcends concepts—to fully reveal the innate wisdom within the heart. By transcending the illusions of life, it gradually liberates one from the shackles of emotions and afflictions. In a state of complete relaxation and focused awareness, it guides us back to our originally clear and awakened nature.
Within ancient wisdom traditions, many artistic practices—such as mandala creation, mantra, walking meditation, and others—have long been used to discover and enter the ultimate reality of phenomena. Through visual, auditory, and tactile experiences, these practices directly immerse us in the truth of wisdom and illuminate the true nature of life.
Awake Art distills a complete set of practices from these traditional methods, tailored for modern individuals. These artistic exercises remain grounded in daily life and are designed for practical application. It is not about belief; it is about truth—helping us better understand life and ourselves, so we may live more fully.
For example, the practice of mandala painting cultivates inner balance, enhances concentration, and sharpens awareness.
In a world saturated with labels and judgments, where everything is conceptualised, stress and tension make us increasingly restless and fragile. We attempt to fill infinite desires with finite material possessions, only to find greater suffering. Not only do we drift farther from the truth, but we also move farther away from genuine happiness…
There is an urgent need for a way to fundamentally reshape our understanding—to free us from self-constructed illusions. Just as a dream naturally dissolves upon waking, so too can life transition from passive escape to active blossoming.
Awakening is an achievable path
Though art, we wake it up.
Maha Ruba
Awakening does not belong to the religious vocabulary, despite the fact that many words that we use now have religious origins; like the word “World”, for example.
Did you know that the word “world” originally came from a Buddhist context? But today when we talk about the “world” or use the word, it has a very different meaning from its original meaning.
So what is awakening? It is the state of fulfilment that each one’s life is inherently full of. It can be said that awakening is the truth of the world, which not only covers everything, but also far from all stains and at the same time has unlimited freedom and creative potential. For such a self-contained, all-encompassing state of intellectual perfection, would there be any possibility for it to be created by a being? Be invented by someone? Obviously not.
Awakening is not created by anyone, nor can it be created by anyone. It can be discovered in some of the great spiritual traditions of mankind. Even the Buddha himself could only discover the truth, not invent it.
There are many ways for people to explore and connect with the truth, and Art is one of them.
In this present era, I think art is more acceptable for people than those complicated and dogmatic paths, because it is unconstrained, and it is also a capability we all have. Art is just like breathing, you don’t need to learn it because it is part of your potential.
Even when we talk about painting practices, what we are talking about here is not the skill of painting, but the ability that each of us has. You can relax yourself while painting, and this is achievable for anyone. At the same time, whether you have a religious belief or not, does not restrict you from becoming an experiencer of your vibrant life. And also you don’t necessarily need to say you’re going to believe in anything, or drop into any particular religion traditions.
My teacher, Professor Nankai Norbu once said,
“Comparing to believing, or the so called faith, it is far more important for you to discover it, and that’s the truth.”
In the practice of the art of awakening, through the help of painting, dancing and all these relaxation practices, we practice concentration, awareness, and all the capacity that you already have in your life. It isn’t something being taught to you, it’s just being awakened through art.
During this process of awaking, you will touch the secret of your own life in your own experience. This is also a process of stepping up, with clearly stated stages of progress, starting from concentration, to awareness, and even to the wisdom of buddhata. And when that happens, awakening it is no longer a concept or a creed, but a path that can be achieved because of we are what we are.
It’s like a wild dream. You will realise that it was just a dream only after you woke up from it. However, all these plots would feel so vivid for people in that dream. It’s just like what we have experienced, and what we are experiencing now, all sorts of miserable and dramatic plots keep unfolding one after another, playing out this colossal dream scene after scene. Sometimes you are full of hope, and other times you fall in despair; sometimes you feel like drowning in unbearable loneness, yet other times you are thrilled to bits as if pumped full of adrenaline. In this dream, all these “living” feel like a farce. Being alive is nothing but an exhausting ordeal.
Yet we live a life not knowing what we live for. We never know if it is ourselves or the whole world that has lost its way. You are now feeling more and more confused about yourself, and the world makes diminishing sense to you—so does life. We come for no reason and leave in utter confusion. And all these stems from the perplexity of life itself, the confusion rooted in the fundamental blueprint of existence and life.
What does awakening mean?
It means that you can see it all, like turning on the light in a dark room, like waking up from a big dream. The six Gati feels so vivid in the dream, yet the void takes over the cosmos after awakening. Now you can see through all these appearances and the essence behind, and knowing that it was just a game, making us playings of fate.
All these happenings are just like a huge playground, yet we live like an toy, be played by the very game we were meant to play. We were played by life and tricked by our destiny, and this is the exact confusion. Awakening means that you can see it all, and see through it all. You know where you are, you know who you are, you know where you came from, and where you will eventually go to.
In that way, the ignorance or the so called confusion means you not knowing all this. This is different from the “ignorance” of concept or mind. Instead, this is describing the state of you being passively caught in the torrent of life, unable to control your own life and your own heart. And that’s exactly why you live a passive life.
So what is awakening? Awakening is to enable us to live with fully active agency, while to be lost is to drift in passive wandering.
When we talk about all this, you should know that the purpose is to let us be able to transcend beyond the anguish and affliction, and be away from the the pain created by ourselves. So where does the pain, the suffering, and the trouble come from? Are they from the pain itself? Actually, it is from our persistent breeding of delusion, and the clinging and insistence generated from that delusion. We cling to our external senses as well as to our internal experiences. Your emotions, concepts, thoughts, and these internal and external perplexities are pieced together into the illusion of our suffering.
Because of our fundamental ignorance and lost, we keep creating insistence and clinging, which continuously produces the illusion of pain. Therefore, I also wouldn’t believe when some people say that it is possible to live a great life with such confusion still hanging. Because even if the life is “good”, it is still like a dewdrop on the tip of the grass.
Can you stay like that for good? Obviously not.
Our internal and external perceptions are always changing. Change means impermanence, impermanence means arising and passing away, arising and passing away means illusion. We have no control of our lives. Yet at the same time, just like what I have said, what really pushed us into trouble and suffering is not any of our external or internal feelings, but the clinging and insistence crated by confusion and ignorance.
Mandala – The Mirror of Life
The greatest sorrow of living is the inability to recognise real life. We spend our whole lives chasing after joy, happiness, and even enlightenment, but we often mistake the conditions that lead to happiness for happiness itself. For example, catching new dolls, acquiring more wealth and power, sensory stimuli, a surprise, a temporary sense of existence, and a fleeting sense of security… Are these happiness?
They are just certain conditions that lead to happiness. The more material condition progress, the more our desire grows. When a long-awaited goal is achieved, our attention is gripped by the next one. Similarly, we are always preparing for life, but not good at leading our life; we are good at preparing for happiness, but not good at tasting happiness. Inner numbness deprives our ability to feel the world and experience our lives, and we take everything for granted. We are willing to fight for our cars, houses, and faces, but we hardly remember the very moment in which we are living . People who lack perceptibility cannot feel the beauty of paradise even when they get there. Those who yearn for enlightenment and liberation are always enchanted by the illusion of the smell of ghee or agarwood. They mistake the road as the destination, the process as the result, and fall into a deeper loss without self-awareness.
If these problems are not answered, we will live in the trap of hope and fear, forever, conflicting either with the world or with ourselves. In the self-created story of life, we have lost over and over again. Life is like an enormous drama, in fact, each of us is the director of our own life. However, often because we are too addicted to the scenarios, we all live as protagonists. I often joke with my students, “You are obviously the creator of suffering, but you pretend to be the victim of it!”
I have been seeking a way to help us penetrate the mist of life, see through the layers of illusion of afflictions and find the truth of wisdom. This approach is not about the matter of faith and culture, but is a way that every being who thirsts for joy and happiness can apply to their daily lives. Just like the great arts, it is simple but enlightening. It is a way of recognising the perfection of the world as it is, so that we can live more joyfully and freely.
In my nearly two decades of study and teaching, I have found that Mandala is a wonderful tool for cultivating and observing the inner mind. Unraveling the veil of mystery, Mandala has been the path to truth and the inner mind in the origins of wisdom for various human civilisations. We can no longer practice like the hidden practitioners of a thousand years ago. Especially in today’s increasingly hectic pace of life, we are stuck in the imaginations of enlightenment recorded in biographies and legends. Notice that I am not talking about insights, but methods. The insights of wisdom were never changed, but the methods are constantly adapted to the demands of the times, and so is Mandala.
In recent decades, with the New Age craze, Mandala has entered the public’s vision. Unfortunately, it often remains on the body-mind-spirit level of integration and healing to soothe and repair the beautiful scenes of reincarnation. Even descending to colouring books like Secret Garden to amuse the boring time in the afternoon. This is far from the real meaning of Mandala, even out of context and fabricated, due to a lack of understanding of its real referent. In the ancient wisdom system, there are still many interpretations, applications, and principles preserved about Mandala. This is a complete set of mental transformation paths, but also an incredible art of awakening.
Certainly, you do not need to worry about your foundations of painting. Art is not a technique, but an instinct and a potential of life, just like breathing. Whether you can paint or not will not prevent you from becoming an experiencer of true life.
What is the reality of the wisdom of Mandala? In this book, I will share with you, stage by stage, various stories about Mandala. More importantly, how to help ourselves through Mandala. In fact, the real change is what we should really focus on. Mandala is like a mirror of our mind. We can observe our inner mind through it to find out the causes and answers to all the problems we have encountered and to improve our ability to concentrate and perceive effectively. While relaxing and painting, we will have the opportunity to return to the audience from the protagonists in the scenarios through the power of awareness to penetrate the drama of life. Once seeing clearly, we would no longer blind, so we can take back the initiative of our lives. The integration of the inner order will also occur naturally in Mandala and manifest in real life. From the edge of the samsara’s division, we could return to the primordial and complete mind.
Meanwhile, this book is more like a practical manual. The first three chapters act like maps and guides, explaining the insights and applications of Mandala. The last nine chapters are specific exercises on different topics. I have to honestly tell you that these exercises will not change your life instantaneously. Yet I assure you that they can solve the annoyances that life gives you.
After all, I am an artist, full of interest in experiencing life and exploring truth with little knowledge in my head, not even mention erudition. I just want to offer you the precious experiences of my life. They have nothing to do with the head, only with the heart. We are used to defining concepts with knowledge and covering the precious present experience with our past perceptions and future imaginations. On this occasion, let us open the gates of our hearts that have been closed for so long, fully feel the enlightenment that Mandala brings, and find your true face in this “mirror of the heart”. Maybe we have missed a lot in this world, but the only thing we cannot miss is the true selves.