Depending on how a person uses these activities, it can be like the most deadly sword you can ever have in your hands, or it can be a wonderful surgical instrument that does wonderful surgeries.
Regarding some of these activities, painting, photography, writing, and music in particular, when we see some of these on the registration forms, if this is actually the occupation of the person, we go, "Uh-oh". There's a lot of ego involved in some of these activities. Now I know that none of you are professionals in these, but when it comes to the professional level in these, people often have a lot of problems here. There's a lot of ego involved. They have a lot of thoughts about what they think is the greatest thing in the world.
Photographers, painters, writers, there's a lot of ego involved in it. There's a lot of, "Look at what I've created. Look at what I can present to the world. I'm giving this to the world", and so on. So this is an area that has to be very closely watched.
Now as to integrating into our practice, in our regular retreat book, and also in the "Do you see the Diamond hidden in the Rock" book, there are some beautiful pictures in there, beautiful drawings. Rosemary did those drawings. One of our old students did a couple of them, as well, and they exemplify different teachings. Each one is on the page where there's a paragraph of whatever it's talking about, paper tigers, a flowing river, and a many other things. So every one of those drawings exemplifies a story centered around the Dhamma, centered around developing our mind, purifying, and so on. That's fine. That's an integration of art in with the actual teachings in order to help other people.
Now, seemingly, photography might be able to do the same thing, if you can take pictures in this way and tie them to a particular teaching, fine.
Writing, it depends on what you write, but some story books can be very Dhammic, can be very inspiring, can be something that can help other people. One of the most classic little children's books, most of you will probably know, is called "The Little Engine That Could". All it's talking about is trying, trying - "I think I can", "I'm going to do it", "I think I can" - and it's about effort and persistence and determination, over, and over and over. Why is this little train doing it? Because he has compassion for all the little kids who need to get their toys before Christmas.
That little book, you open it up and you read it, and there is compassion, there is persistence, there is effort, and so on. These are all good qualities that are inspiring for any little kid to read.
With music, it's very limited in the music field to find any Dhammic songs, but there are one of two out there. It's rare, but it's there.
So there are the opportunities with these avenues to integrate, but you really have to be super careful, because you can take off, and it's very easy just to be making something that has nothing at all to do with the practice, but it's "neat", it's "interesting", it's kind of something "I want to do". So, be careful in that.