1. How do you define “spirituality”?

I think spirituality is a kind of power that comes from people inner. It is a kind of consciousness. It is beyond the physical power. Spirituality is free so it would not be limited by anything. The spirituality can help people to understand the world, the universe, and the nature better. I believe that everyone has spirituality because it is an inherent power for human when we born. Because it is inherent so it cannot be made by acquired behaviors.

2. Does spirituality differ from religion?

The spirituality absolutely is different with religion. First of all, as I mentioned in the first question, spirituality cannot be limited by anything. However, the religion can be limited by something, like culture, region or race. We can see each religion has each main popular region, race and culture. Moreover, not everyone believe in religion but everyone has the spirituality. Finally, each kind of religion has own special principles or rules but spirituality does not have specific principles so everyone’s spirituality is really different.

3. How do you define “creativity”?

I think creativity is the ability to create new things. Only human beings have creativity and it is unique just for us so it is an important factor to distinguish human and animals. I think the most important feature of creativity is the novelty of the things that be created by creativity. The things that be created by the creativity must be new which means it is the first time to appear in the world. I think our modern society is developed by the creativity.

4. What is the source of creativity?

I believe that creativity mainly comes from our curiosity but also be influenced by other factors, like personal experience and knowledge. First of all, everyone has curiosity. When we feel curious to something, we will want to know the truth about it. Therefore, we will find way to explore the truth. During the process of exploring the truth, our creativity just be generated. For instance, Newton create the law of gravity because he feel curious about why apple fall down from the tree. In addition, personal experience and knowledge also are very important to generate creativity. If Newton does not have much physical knowledge, he cannot create the law of gravity.

I feel the reading “Art as Spiritual Practice” is really inspiring for me. As we discussed before, art can express artists’ emotion; in this reading, the author Grey proposed that art is a kind of spiritual practice and this argument is similar with that art can express emotion. I agree with Grey that art is highly relative with spirituality which is a kind of intangible thing. Grey related this to the theory of three eyes which was proposed originally by Saint Bonaventure. Three eyes mean “the eye of flesh sees the ‘outer’ realm of material objects: the eye of reason sees symbolically, drawing distinctions and making conceptual relationships; and the mystic eye of contemplation sees the luminous transcendental realm” (Grey, pg.73). After I read this definition, I just spent several minutes to think about what eyes that I have been used in my life. I found that I just can use the first two kinds of eye in my life. Generally, I would not going to think about more upon the appearance of an object so I almost never use the mystic eye of contemplation. I believe that the mystic eye of contemplation is not very important for me and most of other ordinary people, however, the mystic eye of contemplation is necessary for artists especially for those excellent artists. As Grey mentioned, “artist need to be able to see on each level in order to bring technical beauty, archetypal beauty, and spiritual beauty” (Grey, pg.73). It shows that artists need to explore more rather than only see the surface when they see an object. In addition, the mystic eye of contemplation “only in the deepest art, a condition of the soul is revealed, one’s heart is opened, and spiritual insight is transmitted to the eye of contemplation” (Grey, pg.82). It shows that the mystic eye of contemplation should be connected with soul.