”…There is no conflict between all that and artistic endeavor (or any normal activity, for that matter). Engagement with the 10,000 things - tasting so-called form with one's whole body-mind in the play of kokyu, ma-ai, and kiai (time, space, energy) - is itself the path of integrating and embodying awakening, realizing the inseparability and seamless suchness of the three times, all space, all of the serial occurrences that we call "things", and sealing one's awakening as genuine realization.
Naturally one should sit, and a great deal, with the teacher's guidance. But then artistic endeavor is an ideal activity, or should be, to integrate what one has cultivated in sitting. Viewed correctly, there is no conflict at all. In fact, what we call great art from a Zen standpoint arises from precisely this kind of approach: it requires not only technical mastery, but becomes an expression through media of the awakened state of the artist. It thus has the power to affect others, and in some cases even to cause something of that recognition to arise within them when they encounter the art. That, in a nutshell, describes what is really meant by "Zen art": it is not a genre or style, it is enlightened activity.”
Meido Moore, Rinzai Zen Discussion, 11/11/22