The other day, an artist friend took me to the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art in Staten Island. Designed in the style of the Potala Palace in Lhasa—the historic mountain monastery and seat of the Dalai Lama—the museum houses one of the most significant collections of Tibetan, Mongolian, and Northern Chinese art in the West. Quiet and contemplative, it was a place I had long intended to visit.
Walking through its verdant grounds and galleries stirred memories of my twenties, when I was immersed in Eastern traditions and art. In those years, I was deeply moved by the Tibetan struggle for Rangzen—independence—which gained considerable momentum in New York City during the mid-to-late ‘90s and carried with it a spirit of cultural preservation and sacrifice.
Still seeking God at the time, I was also drawn to understanding—and, through an Occidental lens, embodying—the ideals of Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism, Taoism, and bushidō.
Though I ultimately ceased pursuing those Eastern paths, returning instead to the Catholic faith and a tradition more fully my own, my admiration for Oriental art and aesthetics has never left me. Nor have I lost my appreciation for the many virtues that first drew me to them: asceticism, martial virtue, honor, self-mastery, and spiritual discipline.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, June 15th, Feast of San Vito
