Staying Out of the Rain

Video:  Random International, Rain Room, 2012.  Here is Artfinder's description:

The Barbican Centre's 'Rain Room' offers us the chance to stand beneath a man-made raincloud, bucketing it down in true British style. The twist? 3D sensors controlling the valves ensure that, even after being engulfed in the 100 metre square torrent, visitors emerge bone dry.

Better, I think, than being engulfed in flames [link here to another post].

And - this is art.  Not life.  I like a lot of things about art, like color and rhythm.  And that it takes me closer to the heart of life; and that it is not life.  If I wanted reality, I'd stay in it.  Life is a mess.  Dukkha is the broad, resonant Buddhist term for the way life is generally painful, unsatisfactory, uncertain.  In life you don't know when you're going to be swiped by a semi and sent hurtling to another world without a chance to say goodbye.  As a Buddhist, I don't need art to remind me of things like that, to float sharks in tanks of formaldehyde.  I know the sharks are there. 

Along these lines, I have been enjoying some short videos by Phillip Moffitt, a Spirit Rock teacher.  So here is one of them well worth watching if you ever have emotions you don't care for.