Creativity & the Poetic Spirit
A truly beautiful person is one who is good at discovering beauty.
[Josei ni okuru kotoba sanbyaku-rokuju-go-nichi (tentative title: Daily Encouragement for Women)]
Great art is created only through diligent and painstaking effort to perfect and polish oneself.
[Speech at Young Women’s and Women’s Division Joint Executive Conference, Tokyo, December 3, 2004]
It is important that we have the inner richness to be able to look up at the stars or the moon and compose a poem once in a while. When we open wide our minds and fix our gaze on the universe, we fix our gaze on our own life.
[The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra]
Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. . . . The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.
[Discussions on Youth]
Music could perhaps be called the most truly human form of dialogue we are capable of. . . . Though people may differ in the color of their skin, the language they speak, their customs and ways, or the material culture which surrounds them, the power of music makes it possible for them to instantly communicate and respond to each other’s innermost feelings.
[Ikeda Daisaku Zenshu (The Complete Works of Daisaku Ikeda), Vol. 18]
Never for an instant forget the effort to renew your life, to build yourself anew. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway of life itself. This is not an easy task. Indeed, it may be the most severely challenging struggle there is. For opening the door to your own life is in the end more difficult than opening the door to all the mysteries of the universe.
[Speech at Soka University Entrance Ceremony, Tokyo, April 18, 1974]
The emotion generated by a work of art, be it poetry, painting, or music, may be that tangible, unquestionable feeling of a broadening of the self. It is a feeling of fullness, borne from a mysterious rhythm, a kind of flight toward the infinite, lived as a sharing, an exchange, whose source is our interior world.
[Lecture at the Institute de France, June 14, 1989]
The eyes of a poet discover in each person a unique and irreplaceable humanity. While arrogant intellect seeks to control and manipulate the world, the poetic spirit bows with reverence before its mysteries.
[Essay, “Restoring our connections with the world,” in Embracing the Future]
The institutions of human society treat us as parts of a machine. They assign us ranks and place considerable pressure upon us to fulfill defined roles. We need something to help us restore our lost and distorted humanity. Each of us has feelings that have been suppressed and have built up inside. There is a voiceless cry resting in the depths of our souls, waiting for expression. Art gives the soul’s feelings voice and form.
[Discussions on Youth]
The life and essence of art—whether it be painting, music, or dance—lies in expressing through a wellspring of emotion the universal realm of the human spirit. It is a melding of the individual and the universal. That is why great art reaches out beyond ethnic and national barriers to move people all over the world.
[The New Human Revolution, Vol. 7, “The Flower of Culture” chapter]
This thing called life―
with sweat and thoughtfulness
as a novelist writes a novel,
with sweat and perseverance,
as a painter plies his brush,
seated before the blank paper of the instant and the future,
one creates a new portrait of oneself―
it is a vigorous task to be engaged in.
[Ikeda Daisaku Zenshu (The Complete Works of Daisaku Ikeda), Vol. 39]
To strive even higher, to do even better—the creative process is a desperate struggle to go beyond what we were yesterday. It is a battle against resting on our laurels, against the fear of losing what we have. It is an adventure into unknown territory.
[Essay series, “Recollections of My Meetings with Leading World Figures,” Seikyo Shimbun, April 22, 2000]
Unless we view things with our hearts, we can see nothing. But if we look at the world with a love of life, it will reveal its beauty to us.
[Ikeda Daisaku Zenshu (The Complete Works of Daisaku Ikeda), Vol. 122]
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