Dreams, illusion, bubbles and shadows_a doctoral PLR research project

  Photos linked from artist  Qiu Zhijie's website The above photos are a part of an on-going project by Qiu Zhijie and his students. The project is called   A Suicidology of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, commencing 2008. It concerns the social intervention and art articulation on a particular bridge which is a place many people decided to commit their suicide. Through collaboration with NGO founders, social researches, Qiu is aimed at applying his Total Art therapy on the particular place and saving lives. The Chinese characters in the first photo, whether written with the blood of someone who has or has not committed suicide, means "when love is gone, the only thing I can do is to forget love" [当爱烟消云散，我剩下的只有忘情]. In the video made along the project  Where is the capital of Madagascar?  (2008), artist Qiu Zhijie wiped out the sentence, and wrote with his blood "where is the capital of Madagascar?" [马达加斯加的首都在哪里].  Some works are exhibited again in the lat...

photo linked from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Immortal_in_Splashed_Ink.jpg   The painting  Drunken Celestial  (泼墨仙人图) was painted by L iang Kai (1150-？）, a Chinese painter lived in Southern Song Dynasty. This painting is stored in the Palace Museum in Taipei now.  Referring to the Zen Buddhism, philosopher Alan W. Watts stated: For in Taoism and Zen the world is seen as an inseparably interrelated field or continuum, no part of which can actually be separated from the rest or valued above or below the rest. It was in this sense that Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, meant that “fundamentally not one thing exists,” for he realized that things are terms, not entities. They exist in the abstract world of thought, but not in the concrete world of   nature. Thus one who actually perceives or feels this to be so no longer feels that he is an ego, except by definition. He sees that his ego is his persona or social role, a somewhat arbitrary selection...

What is time? What is emptiness? Time is a powerful tool to demolish everything. Emptiness has the ability to cut through the concrete, since every object, as high as the mountain, as huge as the ocean, turns back to be empty.  Print until the color is unseen, draw until the pigment is too light to be seen Trials of writings A study of the sound wave I drew a part of the sound waves of my reading of the Diamond Sutra . It rouses my interest whether a drawing of sound waves is apt to be converted into sound. The answer is the sound waves are more  detailed than a normal drawing, so it is almost impossible to convert into sound through apps now. The waves are more meaningful than I thought, like the moment of moment.  A drawing of a part of the sound wave when I read the Diamond Sutra

  The link between history and today is strong. The mounts made by sands (I didn't call them dunes because they are more like mounts), was the site the travelers seeking Dharma stepped on. How is it related to us? When I took this translation out from yesterday's blog and put it on this photo, I found the verse worked like the beginning of a story. At the same time, this place in Dunhuang, is the start point of the travel for Buddhist Dharma seeking. Was it felt because the verse was written on-site, where the 'story' took place? Was it just look like the beginning of a story? Review of the former work  In an interesting and inspiring conversation with Jane and Aliesha, I was asked whether I had put my works on a wall or in any form that I wanted to exhibit them. I always wanted to have my works mounted, but the paper is too fragile and requires skillful technique if I want to put them together. Thus, for testing, yesterday I mounted some wasted drawings together, some ...

  The first two pages of the Diamond Sutra (868), from the idp Website             When I asked someone whether I could take some words out of the Diamond Sutra, he answered me: you should not, because this was the translation done by the effort of so many people.  It is so exciting to think about how many people have worked for this Diamond Sutra , read the  Diamond Sutra . There is a link I can sense, but so hard to tell.  A translation of a poem depicting who traveled to India for the Buddhist Dharma was made today. I am still curious about the position of a translator. 晋宋齐梁唐代间，高僧求法离长安。 In the period of Northern and Southern Dynasties and Tang Dynasty, the famous monks departed from Chang’an to travelled to India for the Buddhist Dharma. 去人成百归无十， 后者安知前者难 ? Only ten out of hundreds went back successfully, Was their arduous journey understood by the generation of later? 路远碧天唯冷结，沙河遮日力疲殚。 The trip was too long, only the piercing coldness...

以弘始五年歲在癸卯四月二十三日 。 於京城之北逍遙園中出此經 。 法師手執胡本口宣秦言 。 兩釋異音交辯文旨 。 秦王躬攬舊經 。 驗其得失 。 諮其通途 。 坦其宗致 。 與諸宿舊義業沙門釋慧恭僧䂮僧遷寶度慧精法欽道流僧叡道恢道㯹道恒道悰等五百餘人 。 詳其義旨 。 審其文中 。 然後書之 。 以其年十二月十五日出盡 。 校正檢括 。 明年四月二十三日乃訖 。(from https://deerpark.app/reader/T2145) Upon is an excerpt from the eighth volume of a book  Chu San Zang Ji Ji [出三藏记集] . What was precious in this paragraph is it rebuilds the process of how a sutra was translated. The translation of the above excerpt is seen below: In the 5 th year of Hongshi (A. D. 403),  on 23 rd April (i.e. 24 th June), this sutra was translated in Xiaoyao Garden, a place north to the capital city. The Dharma master held the original sutra in hand, speaking of the Chinese version. The other monks discussed the meaning of each sentence through their own languages. The king of Qin has diligently read the former sutras, and testified the meanings and loss of meanings, inquire about the path of practice and exposes the core concept. The Dharma master carefully analysised ...

 The work of today was reviewing. Rather than questioning myself what kind of works I want to create, I started question the idea of 'facing', a contrasting position of ego and objects. The idea of thinking without duality (Nagatomo, 2000), occurred to me. Regarding this, I stopped thinking about the staring eyes, and discarded the think of duality, but to take a position as both a creator of an artwork and an audience of this work. Thus, I started to question myself what I want to look at rather than what I want to show. In other words, the non-duality position for me is: audience = creator (artist) What was written on the left side of this paper: As an audience: 1. I want to understand something that interests me. Something I have never known before. Something that opens my eyes or deepens my understanding. 2. If I don't know the Diamond Sutra (868), what do I want to explore?  a. Its content. How does the book look like?  b. Why such an ancient work still mat...