How Rodin’s The Thinker can help us find peace
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — Hamlet, Shakespeare, 1603 AD
Compared to other animals, humans are undistinguished in many ways. We lack the physical strength of the primates. We lack the speed of the great cats. We lack natural defense capabilities of claws or talons. We can’t naturally fly or stay under water.
And yet we are the alpha species on earth. And it is our mind that gives us this power.
Rodin’s “the Thinker” provides a lens on the power of the concentrated, purposeful mind.
Rodin was perhaps the most gifted sculptor since antiquity. His statues show depth and humanity. They come alive and evoke a deeper connection. In the Thinker, Rodin has created perhaps the single most revealing portrait of our concentrated minds at work.
We can contemplate, we can plan, we can strategize, we can invent, we can adapt — all thanks to our minds. It is an extraordinary tool and our most precious gift from nature.
And yet, the Thinker reveals something more. Something more troubling.
A gifted sculptor, Rodin could have displayed any emotion. He could have shown the grandeur of human thought. He could have evoked inspiration, joy, light.
Ifnstead Rodin reveals frustration and anguish. We can see pain and trial. We see work.
We see the deep struggle within. And like all great art, it provides a perspective on ourselves. The statue speaks to us because it evokes something deep inside us. Hidden behind our placid exteriors we all have The Thinker alive in us.
The statue was originally for an installation called “the Gates of Hell”. It is fitting. Thinking can be our portal to self-critical pain and doubt.
We don’t envy Rodin’s thinking man. We can appreciate it, we can understand it, but we don’t wish it for ourselves. It seems difficult and trying. It feels exhausting.
And yet this is our mind. Always thinking, always examining, always working.
It is also a symbol of the West. The greco roman wisdom traditions are mind-driven, a set of tools to use the mind to organize the mind.
To escape the mind, we much turn to the East.
Here is one of the earliest depictions of the Buddha from the 1st century AD. It is from the ancient marketplace town of Gandhara in modern day Pakistan.
His pose is thoughtful, pensive. Knowing but serene. How different from the anguish of the Thinker! The peace of the Buddha is from the Self. It is a peace attained from going beyond the mind to the inner stillness within. It is the mind of someone who lets life flow within and around him.
Here is a similar image of a Bodhistava dating from the 6th century AD. It also depicts deep stillness and serenity. It evokes someone who has gone beyond the mind, found enlightenment and found peace. It transmits an energy we can feel 15 centuries later.
Bodhistavas are people who have found nirvana but have turned back to help others find enlightenment. It is a courageous role. To have found enlightenment but instead engage the unenlightened takes enormous patience and perspective.
Jesus also turned from enlightenment to help others. It has been said that the true agony for Jesus was not the crucifixion but the incarnation. To devolve from infinite enlightenment to human form is a singular, breathtaking regression. Imagine descending from infinite bliss and understanding to daily interaction with unenlightened, fallible humans.
Here is one of the earliest depictions of Jesus. It was painted on a wooden board during the 6th century and is currently preserved at the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, in Egypt, one of the oldest monasteries in the world.
The image shows two expressions on his face. On the left, Jesus is ethereal, at peace. On the right, he is haggard and emaciated. Some scholars suggest this was meant to represent his double nature as both divine and human.
We can also see it as a depiction of us. The face we show to the world is perfect, composed, infallible. This is what we want other to see. Our inner world is cautious and calloused. Our dreams and innocence replaced by sometimes bitter experience.
In either expression, Jesus’ gaze is haunting. We can see inner will and perspective but perhaps not inner peace. He has the eyes of someone who has seen human complexity and suffering and knows the fate that lies ahead.
The images depict a continuum, from calm enlightenment of Self, as seen in the Buddhist statues, to the middle ground of Jesus, someone who has seen enlightenment but struggles with human reality to the Thinker, someone thoroughly enmeshed in the workings of his own mind.
Which are we? Which image would we select for ourselves? Are we the tortured thought of the Thinker? Are we the calm and serene Buddha or Bodhisattva? Or are we the knowing yet haunted Jesus?
Which are you at this moment? Which do you aspire to be? And how can we find the peace of the boddhisatva?
The 13th century scholar and Sufi mystic Rum provides a perspective.
When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety
This feels like the Thinker’s inner world. Willful. Desiring. Strategizing. Anxious.
Rumi continues:
If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it.’
What I want also wants me. Love, contentment, serenity.
It is doubtful Rumi was exposed to Taoism. But the thoughts and the admonition are strikingly similar. Here is the same concept, written more than 1000 years earlier in the Tao:
Forget how smart you think you are. Stop wanting everything, as though there is something out there that will cure or fix you. Just make things happen by allowing them to happen Then everything will turn out alright.
Flow. Patience. Allowing things to come to you. This is the message.
We must all spend time as the Thinker. Life requires effort, planning, strategy.
We all spend time being pensive and apprehensive as we see in the early depiction of Jesus. Sometimes we are in doubt or are uncertain.
But we can choose to return to serenity and flow whenever possible. We can make it our home base, our default state. We can choose to spend more of our time in the Now, content with what we have and enjoying the present moment.
But how?
One perspective is a wonderful gift from the Sufi Islam tradition. It’s to simply ask yourself, what would my heart think?
As often as you can, allow yourself to view the world from your heart. As a spiritual teacher once told me, your mind needs a break. It craves the partnership of the heart.
The lesson from the art: visit your inner Thinker when you need to, but escape to your inner boddhistava whenever possible. Give yourself permission to see the world from your heart, as often as you can.
