Today, one of the visitors is a professor who is an expert on Shakespeare. He and Ajahn Dhammasiha engage in an interesting discussion about art, beauty and it's relationship to Dhamma practice as a Buddhist monk.

Ajahn shares that his favourite works of art have always been those that induce a sense of 'nibbidā' (disenchantment) and 'semvega' (spiritual shock/urgency). Art that is not just celebrating life, but instead points us to the fundamental truths of impermanence, disappointment and suffering inherent in all conditioned phenomena.

Ajahn recites one of his favourite quotes of Shakespeare to illustrate this point:

"Tell me where is fancy bred,

"It is engender’d in the eyes,

The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 2, Lines #65-74

If we take 'fancy' in the sense of 'craving', 'desire', Shakespeare uses the same approach as the Buddha. He's asking for the origin, the cause of craving. Where does craving come from, and how does it grow?

And just like the Buddha in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, this little ditty points to the 'eye' and the act of 'gazing' as the source of suffering.

"Cakkhu loke piyarūpam sātarūpam, etth'esā tanhā uppajjamāma uppajjati..."

(Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta)

And then Shakespeare even suggets to ring the 'death-knell' for fancy/craving, i.e. to kill/abandon craving.

Where did Shakespeare get that from?

Was he perhaps a Buddhist in a past life?

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