“Tradition Does Not Confine Us – It Guides Us”

In a recent post I acknowledged my mixed feelings  about traditional cultures. Subsequently, I came across this column by Tiffani Gyatso in Buddhistdoor Global. She writes beautifully about the tension between tradition and modernity and concludes:

Tradition sustains; contemporaneity provokes. And perhaps the future of art—of those expressions that truly touch the human spirit—lies precisely in the space where these two forces listen to one another.

In a time when everything leans toward uniformity and speed, recognizing the value of cultural diversity and ancestral wisdom becomes an act of resistance. Traditional arts, like those we encountered in the mountains of Tibet, remind us that the future cannot exist without memory, and that listening to elders, to their precise gestures and silences filled with time, is as urgent as innovation itself. Tradition does not confine us: it guides us. And young people, if they hope to create something that truly matters, must first know where they come from and who they come from. Only then can they move forward without losing themselves. The world needs roots as much as it needs wings.