The smile of Buddha

freedom from mental and emotional conditioning.
It consists of experiential practices based on a body of accumulated knowledge about the human mind that emphasizes the inevitability of change and the interdependence of all existence. The teaching unique to later Buddhism is "emptiness"; all things are empty of "inherent self-existence"; nothing exsits seperately or permanently.(p.1)

Buddha-"awakened". Being "awake" is not about transcendence; it is about seeing things as they actually are, realizing and accepting what is so.

Knowledge was understood to be the result of inner transformation-what remains when false beliefs are removed.
(Marcel Duchamp's version; There is no solution because there is no problem)

The temporal world of senses was dismissed, and the goal became escape from the cycle of rebirth and death through positive karma, or "deeds".

Siddhartha's four noble truths after deep meditation
1. our experience of life as unsatisfactory is inevitable.
2. The reason for this is that we want we don't have and want to hang onto what we do have.
3. It is possible to escape this cycle of wanting and dissatisfaction
4. This happens by cultivating attitudes and behaviors consistetn with the perception of the interrelatedness of all beings-the so-called middle way between indulgence and asceticism.(p.3-4)

THe literary theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick has pointed out that, in contrast to current academic practice, "in Buddhist pedagogical thought... the apparent tautology of learning what you already know does not seem to constitute a paradox, nor an impasse, nor a scandal. It is not even a problem, If anything, it is a deliberate and defining practice. " The appeal of the Buddhist perspective for artists is just this: like art, Buddhism challenges thinking as a path to knowing. And what both the creation and the perception of art share with Buddhist mediation practice is that they allow us to forget ourselves and thus realize ourselves. They are parallel practices. This is, with the American painter Ad Reinhardt meant when he wrote, "The fine artist need not sit cross-legged." (p.11)