What Have I Done Today To...

Saw this walking home from the train station yesterday after work. Corner of Centre and Huguenot.  Says (on the left) "What Have I Done Today..." (and on the right, after it is finished) "...To End Climate Change". Relevant question.  Go here for more information about this wonderful mural. [NOTE: And so, what have you done?]

Teaching Buddha

One year ago today, I was in San Francisco at the De Young Museum standing in front of this exquisite Gandhara, 2nd–3rd century, statue of a Teaching Buddha (schist with traces of gilt and pigment). To point out some of the finer details of the piece: "Holding his hands in the teaching gesture, the Buddha is seated on an inverted lotus throne supported by two elephants and a lion. He is flanked by a pair of columns with bull-shaped capitals that support a balcony of female figures, two figures kneeling by his head, a pair of bodhisattvas in niches on either side, and two parakeets atop the arch".  Lot going on here.

Instruction For Poem No. 81

The Museum of Modern Art currently has an interesting show of Yoko Ono's art. The MOMA's first exhibition dedicated exclusively to Yoko Ono, the show includes 125 of her works ranging from texts, objects, music, films, performance art, and installations. I was particularly touched by her "Instruction For Poem No. 81 (shown above). "Give birth to a child. See the world through its eye. Let it touch everything possible and leave its fingermark there in place of a signature". [NOTE: I assume that the handprint is from Sean]. 

Colors

Beautiful short film by The Mercadantes (see Words) about color. I love the seques (e.g. 1:04 and 1:24).

Making a Plant Drier

Still life of the tools and nails and sheet metal and boards needed to make a plant drier at the Htamanthi Forward Station (see Sorting Specimens). [NOTE: My sketch of what the finished product should look like is on the paper to the right of the box of nails].

Specimens on Display

Beautifully-pressed specimens of historical collections on display at the Forest Research Institute Herbarium at Yesin (see Forest Herbarium). Nice to pull these out of the cabinet and present the artistic side of plant systematics. 

Calligraphy

Myozan Dennis Keegan (See Myozan) explains the characters on the beautiful scroll that the Empty Hand Zen Center received from Shodo Harada Roshi (原田 正道 Harada Shōdō?, c. 1940) in memory of Jion Susan Postal (see Happy Birthday, Susan). The calligraphy says "empty hand temple". Lovely, lovely gift (thx, Jon and Jeff and Harada Roshi).

Wise Words IV: Wendell Berry

And, finally, Wendell Berry. This from The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture:

"We are dealing, then, with an absurdity that is not a quirk or an accident, but is fundamental to our character as people. The split between what we think and what we do is profound. It is not just possible, it is altogether to be expected, that our society would produce conservationists who invest in strip-mining companies, just as it must inevitably produce asthmatic executives whose industries pollute the air and vice-presidents of pesticide corporations whose children are dying of cancer. And these people will tell you that this is the way the "real world" works. They will pride themselves on their "sacrifices" for "our standard of living". They will call themselves "practical men" and "hardheaded realists". And they will have their justificaitons in abundance from intellectuals, college professors, clergymen, politicians. The viciousness of a mentality that can look complacently upon disease as "part of the cost" would be obvious to any child. But this is the "realism" of millions of moden adults."

And, once again from Zen master Yunmen:

Medicine and sickness heal each other. The whole world is medicine. Where do you find yourself?

[NOTE: My last four post are shared for the inherent wisdom they convey. Not as harangues to generate anxiety, or resignation, or a sense of helplessness. Rather, more as pointers toward The Great Work that we so desperately need to start].   

Wise Words III: Thomas Berry

[NOTE: Go here for a brief explanation of what this series of posts is about].

And now for Thomas Berry. From The Dream of the Earth:

"We have before us the question not simply of physical survival, but of survival in a human mode of being, survival and development into intelligent, affectionate, imaginative persons thoroughly enjoying the universe about us, living in profound communion with one another and with some significant capacities to express ourselves in our literature and creative arts."

"This description of personal grandeur may seem an exxageration, a romantic view of human possibilities. Yet this is the basis on which the human venture has been sustained from its very beginning! Our difficulty is that we are just emerging from a technological entrancement. During this period the human mind has been placed within the narrowist confines it has experiences since consciousness emerged from its Paleolithic phase. Even the most primitive tribes have a larger vision of the universe, of our place and functioning within it, a vision that extends to celestial regions of space and to interior depths of the human in a manner far exceeding the parameters of our own world of technological confinement."

"The human community is passing from its stage of childhood into its adult stage of life. We must assume adult responsibilities."

I recommend this book to all members of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens (Latin: "wise man"). We need to hear and carefully reflect on these words.   

Wise Words II: Susan Murphy

And then Dr. Susan Muphy Roshi. From Finding the Earth, Mending the World: Zen and the Art of Planetary Crisis:

"...we are all caught in a ridiculous posture right now. The posture of living 'normally' as we destabilise climate, trash seas and earth and atmosphere and decimate species, while chanting a mantra of perpetual growth and unrestrained human population increase and watching all these accelerate in a runaway chain reaction. It is ridiculous to pretend it is not happening, and almost equally ridiciulous to mention it, since no one can personally hope to change its course, and no one much wants even to hear about it. Our position as a species is now so untenable that it verges on rudeness to mention it in polite company".

"The crisis facing us all right now is a tremendous koan set for us by the earth, speaking to us plainly but in words we cannot yet fully comprehend, caught as we are in the frame of the past that cannot conceive of this emergency. To respond we need to free ourselves from a too narrow sense of self and an unquestioned assumption of self-entitled priority as a species." 

"Medicine and sickness heal each other. The whole world is medicine. Where do you find yourself?
 – Zen Master Yunmen, 9th century China".

Lovely, lovely book. [NOTE: I have been working with Murphy Roshi (thx, Susan) since January of this year on Case 1 from The Gateless Gate: Joshu's Dog, aka "the Mu obstruction" (see Mu, and then start carrying this koan around with you 24/7)].