Chao-Hu Huang
President of Federation of Taiwan Tsai-mo Artists

In the developmental history of all times and all countries, religion and art are inseparable. Their pursuits of spiritual purity and the realms of truth, goodness and beauty have unceasingly interflowed, surged, and evolved in the spiritual civilization of humanity in both the east and the west, and thereby many distinguished philosophers, thinkers and religious leaders started their own sects to preach distinctive doctrines and unique practices.

Along with the scientific advances and opening of minds, most religions have tended to become diverse, integrative or ethnical in their worldly thought developments. Some emphasize regionalism, and some emphasize global perspective. Some step into folklore customs, and some step into phenomena of the spirit realms, or even culture and politics. Mostly they intervene in the human oriented spiritual activities from different aspects, intending to change the disturbances, quarrels and challenges brought to human beings by the material world.

I don’t have any religion. My only conviction is to spread love and art. When I read the information about Supreme Master Ching-hai, I was deeply moved by her, because she made love the basis of conviction, arts the core of life, and environmental protection her ambition. The highest state humans can reach in life has been, and always will be art and love. Life is so wonderful with love. And Life is wonderful with arts.

According to my observation, it is quite common to promote artistic activities through force of religion, but it’s rare to advocate one’s doctrines with loving and artistic life. Supreme Master Ching-hai can paint, write poetry, play the piano, dance, and design landscape and jewelry. She is a vegetarian who takes environmental protection seriously, and practices the lifestyle of health and sustainability. These must originate from her extraordinary thinking and her incomparable wisdom.

The subject matters of the art pieces of Supreme Master Ching-hai since the 90s include humans, animals, plants and sceneries. They were either created impromptu, or after an immediate enlightenment, telepathic experience or an epiphany. And her art works, regardless of her paintings, painted fans, stones, or porcelain, contain the wisdoms of Zen and innocence. Her manipulation of strokes and colors exhibit a leisurely and unrestrained state of mind, brimmed of an undertone of confidence. Her work is not about demonstrating techniques, but internal insights and realizations. The unsophisticated compositions and liberal strokes form a distinctive style, and create a heavenly delight. She believes her inspiration is from heaven, and I think the meaning of “heaven” should refer to the mixture of enlightenment, wisdom, creativity and love. She must have gained the true wisdom to be extraordinarily uncommon, and lead her disciples to walk with her.

Hsihu is a center located in the mountain of Miaoli, Formosa. It is a religious center as well as an artistic area full of wonders. Its radial worldwide influence covers every corner of the world. The disciples devoutly believe the Supreme Master’s conviction of love, and constitute together a spiritual kingdom teeming with beauty and gratitude. They do not have monotonous uniforms, formal rituals, or religious criticism and comparison. What they have is good deeds and thoughts. They are vegetarians who keep a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, and take environmental protection seriously, because Master tells them that each of them is the Supreme Master, and that everybody can dress beautifully to spread the holy love, and to find the truth of wisdom.

The publication of Celestial Art of the Supreme Master Ching-hai is not just an account of Master Ching-hai’s achievements in life, touching stories and anecdotes. It is also a record of the interactions and conversations between the Master and her disciples, and their deep and insoluble love. There should be many “Hsihu”s in the world, not only in all the fields of the Supreme groups all over the world, but also in the heart of every disciple, because there is love in Hsihu, because there is beauty in Hsihu, because there is faith in Hsihu, and because there are dreams fluttering in Hsihu.

I sincerely wish Hsihu a happy twentieth anniversary, and best wishes to the publication of the Supreme Master Ching-hai’s Celestial Art.

Dr. Walter Dorn
Associate Professor at the Canadian Forces College

I’d like to express my congratulations to Master Ching Hai for this exquisite book. It’s a magnificent achievement in the art world and spiritual world.

The art has inherent expression of great beauty, and depth and wonderful array of colors that are in such a perfect harmony that I can only say that it must come from a deep inner reservoir of beauty and inner capacity.

Real art comes from within and has an element of spontaneity to it. And training in the arts is of secondary importance to the expression of what’s within. This is clearly what’s happened here. There is a deep source of inner inspiration and inner reservoir of joy and love that’s come through in the magnificent paintings.

Cheng, Fang-Ho

Celestial Art is a combination of Supreme Master Ching Hai's intuition, emotion, art and spirituality.

Supreme Master Ching Hai is not a professional artist, however, her works of art are very natural and real, it shows beauty that is both fresh and pure.

Supreme Master Ching Hai's art works are different to those of artists who have graduated from art institutions. The lines, colors and structures, etc. are all totally natural and form a unique style from the heart and soul. Her international perspective and spiritual experience from Her travels all over the world are also different to the ordinary artist who grew up in the country that does not possess any official artistic education.

Supreme Master Ching Hai is not bound to any artistic forms. The subjects of Her art works are boundless, not limited by anything. A child like heart with purity and joy are full expressed through Her art work. While Supreme Master goes out for fun just like any normal person, She is not attached to any rules or regulations, and plays out everything with great freedom. Just like at Hsihu Ashram, the pure land on earth that Supreme Master Ching Hai began and constructed, luxurious halls are not seen, only a small bridge, flowing water, a bamboo forest, flowers and trees. It gives people a deep feeling of the beauty of the spiritual realms full of divine happiness. This art creation actually shows an Aesthetic life in reality. 

Though the art work of Supreme Master Ching Hai is spontaneous, be it the  Celestial Jewellery series, Celestial Clothes, poem compositions, gentle singing, dancing or playing musical instruments, they are all works of art coming from a liberated soul who is expressing Her love for heaven, for earth and for all sentient beings. They are perfect and complete, and offer not only beautiful visions for people to see, but also bring peace and joy to the soul.    

As Supreme Master Ching Hai said: [All my works are inspired by Heaven]. From this we gain insight that the inspiration of Supreme Master Ching Hai's art works are totally from heaven and are not from any acquired or deliberate cultivation. Therefore, the biggest inspiration I've received from this book Celestial Art is that every one of us can create, as long as we are alive, and can realize that we are full of life and have such a pure heart. Everyone of us can draw, can paint and can sing, and can dance out our own works of art and change our life into a most wonderful bloom of flowers. So, when we live as a human, we're already gifted with the talents of creativity, they are just waiting for us to explore them.

Supreme Master Ching Hai is herself, a work of art. No matter whether She dresses simply or elegantly, there is no frame, no confines just the radiation of great beauty and Light around Her.