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Most joyful antique haori patterned with colorful daruma (tumbling doll representing Bodhidharma).
Auspicious tokens, daruma have a blank eye meant to be painted when a person's wish is granted. Here, all the dolls have both of their eyes drawn, meaning that they brought a lot of good luck around them ;)
(Those would be more than ready for the burning ceremony happening each year around New Year day!)
The Moon through a Crumbling Window (Bodhidharma), woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi from the series One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, 1887
If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both. Bodhidharma
Source details and larger version.
If you see the Buddha on the roads of yore ... contemplate my vintage Buddha gallery.
Bodhidharma - Agriculture (2025)
Young Geisha with a Yukidaruma 1907
Yukidaruma (literally, snow Daruma) is a traditional Japanese snowman representing Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. It is regarded as a talisman of good luck.
Winter solitude –
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.
Matsuo Basho (b. 1644 – d. 1694)
Utagawa Toyohiro - Daruma (Bodhidharma) Looking in a Mirror at the Reflection of a Woman behind Him (c.1820s)
“Bodhidharma's Vast Emptiness"
Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma: "What is the highest meaning of the sacred truths?" Bodhidharma replied: "Vast emptiness, nothing sacred." The Emperor asked: "Who are you, standing before me?" Bodhidharma replied: "I don't know."
Meaning: The ultimate truth is beyond concepts of "sacred" or "profane". It is emptiness (sunyata), a non-dual state. Bodhidharma's "I don't know" is the perfect non-dual answer, transcending the idea of a fixed, conceptual self. This exchange marks the beginning of the Zen lineage in China, a transmission of "nothing sacred" but a direct experience of reality.
