I was walking past a piece the other day by members of Brighton graffiti outfit Heavy Artillery. For a long time, it featured Snoopy and Charlie Brown from the famous comic Peanuts (October 2, 1950 – February 13, 2000).

Then, the other day I noticed that (much like the comic) it was gone – covered up by bold and colourful MSK lettering.

It’s clearly not the first time this particular wall has been repainted by the crew. Here it is featuring futuristic themes back in 2010:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brightonrocks/4453093597

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brightonrocks/4453108017

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brightonrocks/4453115095

And so it struck me (perhaps not for the first time) that graffiti is like meditation.

How so?

Well, maṇḍala (मण्डल) is a Sanskrit word meaning circle. Mandalas have spiritual and ritual significance in Hinduism and Buddhism.

In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention, as a spiritual teaching tool, and as an aid to meditation and trance. In the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, mandalas have been developed into sandpainting.

The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates (each in the shape of a T) contained within a circle with a center point.

The dul-tson-kyil-khor (mandala of coloured powders) is a mandala made of coloured sand, carefully placed atop a large, flat table.

The creation process takes days or weeks, and the mandala is destroyed shortly after its completion: as a teaching tool and metaphor for the impermanence (anicca) of all contingent and compounded phenomena (pratītya-samutpāda).

It is a sign of great respect for a graffiti writer’s piece to be preserved in pristine condition; conversely it is a typical sign of disrespect to “go over” someone else’s piece (see for example the King Robbo v. Banksy saga).

However, just like buddhist monks, graffiti artists realise the transience and impermanence of their work.

The very medium in which the art form was most notoriously celebrated – spray paint on trains – reflects the temporary nature and sense of “just passing through” that pervades the graffiti and street-art world: peeling paint, smudged stencils and flaking wheat-paste posters all follow the same trend.

There can be no doubt that the painting and repainting of the same section of wall-space has a meditative quality. Not to mention the hours – if not years – of practice on lettering, sketches, fills, cutbacks; the stealthy sneaking around under cover of darkness, the planning, patience and meticulous skill that goes into executing an act of art that is in many places illegal.

To do all this: to risk freedom, life and limb for the pursuit of true, free, public creative expression, has something transcendental.

And both graffiti and meditation are something that you are already familiar with.

At its most fundamental, graffiti is the making of marks. At its most fundamental, meditation is a practice in which you induce a certain mode of consciousness.

You will have experienced different modes of consciousness for example when you dream or when you are absorbed in an activity and experience flow.

So go and make marks.

Be mindfuller.

More ART stuff…