“A new arrival came before the great Master Joshu and said ‘I have come here empty-handed!’ Joshu replied, 'Lay it down then!’”
- John Wu, from The Golden Age of Zen

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“A new arrival came before the great Master Joshu and said ‘I have come here empty-handed!’ Joshu replied, 'Lay it down then!’”
- John Wu, from The Golden Age of Zen
“Reality is the raw material, language is the way I go in search of it - and the way I do not find it. But it is from searching and not finding that what I did not know was born, and which I instantly recognise. Language is my human effort. My destiny is to search and my destiny is to return empty-handed. But - I return with the unsayable. The unsayable can only be given to me through the failure of my language. Only when the construction fails, can I obtain what I could not achieve."
Clarice Lispector “The Passion According to G.H.”
the woods embrace us as their own, and the wilderness hums softly
lhackett
"The Greeks were great seafarers, colonizing much of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and becoming familiar with a great variety of cultures. This exposure to different customs and beliefs encouraged skepticism toward their own myths. From a Buddhist perspective, however, what is most striking about the Greek experience is how much it resembles the perennial situation of the anxious individual self, which is dimly aware that it is not self-existing or 'natural' but a social and psychological construct.
According to Walter Truett Anderson, anthropology's gift to the world — the realization that human beings create different kinds of cultures, which in turn create different kinds of human beings — is a deeply subversive idea, because if you absorb it you will begin to wonder who created it and why; you reflect on what it does to you, and you think about making some changes. 'And the more people there are working their way through some such inner thought process, the more culturally diverse, complex and unstable a society is likely to be.'"
- David Loy, from The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory, 2003.
palestinian embroidery obi project
The collective works with Palestinian women (refugees and those living in Gaza) to create tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) for Japanese obis (wide sash/belt). They also participate in cross cultural initiatives such as embroidery workshops and exhibitions.
"Power wants to be used, as Gandalf realizes, 'A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it.' The Ring has a will of its own. It gets heavier. It wants Frodo to slip it on his finger. If he were to do this, though, it would corrupt him, as it corrupted Sauron and Gollum long ago. Gollum is Frodo's alter ego, a constant reminder to Frodo of what he could become.
Power is eager to test and display itself. What is the point of having an overwhelming military machine if you don't use it once in a while? When you create a new weapon (for example, a 'smart' bomb), you want to see what it can do in a combat situation. The scientists who created the first nuclear bombs during the Second World War, all the while hoping these weapons would not be needed, learned about this the hard way. Once the bombs had been made, their own wishes were of no consequence. But is there something more to learn from the Ring of Power?
Elizabeth Norton - Gentleman from Siam (ca. 1930s)
To die as much as necessary. […] To grow back as much as needed.
WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA — Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems by Wislawa Szymborska, transl. by Magnus J. Krynski & Robert A. Maguire, (1981)
Old Holland Flower
Rosi Roys
oil on canvas
"There is virtually no role for religion in Middle-earth, because 'the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism' (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien 1981, 172). Nevertheless, The Lord of the Rings can serve as a Buddhist fable because it is about a spiritual quest readily understandable in terms of the teachings of Buddhism. Despite Tolkien's demurral that it has 'any meaning or message,' his tale provides a myth about spiritual engagement for modern Buddhists.
Frodo leaves home not to slay a dragon or win a chest full of precious jewels, but to let go of something, which is what one learns to do when following the Buddhist path. His renunciation of the Ring is not done to gain enlightenment, yet it nonetheless transforms him spiritually. The suffering he experiences on the way to Mount Doom deepens him, making him stronger and more compassionate.
From a socially engaged Buddhist perspective concerned to bring Buddhist teachings to bear on contemporary social issues, one of the striking aspects of the plot is that Frodo does not want to have the adventures he has. He embarks on the quest because it cannot be evaded. At the beginning Sam is excited about going to 'see elves and all,' but Frodo is more apprehensive, and for good reason. The Ring must be destroyed, and he is the best one to carry it. In some mysterious, inexplicable way the task has been appointed to him. There is nothing he hopes to gain from the journey. By the end, he and Sam expect to be destroyed themselves soon after the Ring is cast into the Chamber of Fire, and indeed they nearly are. Their total renunciation is a powerful metaphor for Buddhist practice. As practitioners, we are sometimes willing to give up everything for enlightenment — but that is the catch. It is the self that seeks to be enlightened, that still wants to be around to enjoy being enlightened. Self remains the problem. Frodo and Sam show us something deeper. They let go of all personal ambition, although not the ambition to do what is necessary to help others. In Buddhist terms, don't they become bodhisattvas?
Frodo's quest is not an attempt to transcend Middle-earth by realizing some higher reality or dimension. He is simply responding to its needs, which because of historical circumstances (the growing power of Sauron, now actively seeking the Ring) have become critical — as are the needs of our beleaguered earth today. The larger world has begun to impinge on his Shire (and ours). If Frodo were to decline the task and hide at home, he would not escape the dangers that threaten. The Dark Lord would soon discover him and his Ring, and the Shire along with the rest of Middle-earth would fall under his baneful control. When we consider the ecological and social crises that have begun to impinge on our own little worlds, is our situation any different?
So is Frodo's journey a spiritual quest or a struggle to help the world? In The Lord of the Rings these two are the same. Frodo realizes ('makes real') his own non-duality with the world by doing everything he can to help it. Middle-earth needs to be saved, not denied or escaped. The goal is not another world but another way of living in this one, even as nirvana is not another place but a liberated way of experiencing this one. In the process, Frodo learns that this world is very different from what he thought it was. And by doing what he can to transform it, Frodo transforms himself. That is how his selflessness is developed. Frodo does not change because he destroys the Ring. He changes because of his tireless efforts to destroy the Ring. His early adventures on the road to Rivendell challenge and toughen him, giving him the courage to be the Ringbearer. His own strength of heart and will grow from these encounters, teaching him initiative and perseverance, and eventually developing into his unassuming heroic stature."
- David Loy, from "The Karma of the Rings: A Myth for Modern Buddhism?" Rethinking Karma: The Dharma of Social Justice, edited by Jonathan S. Watts, 3rd ed., 2014.
Tadanori Yokoo, drawings for Genka (“Illusory Flowers”), by Harumi Setouchi, 1974
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"The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world. But the tradesman must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away. His well-founded pride is far from the gratuitous 'self-esteem' that educators would impart to students, as though by magic."
- Matthew B. Crawford, from Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, 2009.
Knowledge needs to give way to forgetting. Forgetting, however, is an utmost affirmation. ‘You forget your feet’, Zhuangzi says, ‘when the shoes are comfortable. You forget your waist when the belt is comfortable.’ This implies that forgetting is based on an agreement that allows for non-resistance and non-coercion. You forget your head, Zhuangzi’s image could be extended, when you think in the right way. You even forget yourself, when you fully are. Complete harmony reigns where you even forget about the right way of being. Byung-Chul Han. 2023. Absence. Translated by Daniel Steuer. Cambridge: Polity. 2007.
Seed Dagger
“Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options. No narrative of any complexity can be built on or reduced to a single element. Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin (via jayemichaela)