Beg, Borrow, Steal

The assignment was to appropriate. The term appropriation refers to the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work^[2] (as in 'the artist uses appropriation') or refers to the new work itself (as in 'this is a piece of appropriation art'). Art practices involve the 'appropriation' of ideas, symbols, artefacts, image, sound, objects, forms or styles from other cultures, from art history, from popular culture or other aspects of man made visual or non visual culture.^[3] Inherent in the process of appropriation is the fact that the new work recontextualizes whatever it borrows to create the new work. In most cases the original 'thing' remains accessible as the original, without change. Sometimes it's re-contextualized by being copied and pasted onto a personal web page. (All the above text has been appropriated from Jonah Huangs website which appropriated wikipedia.)

For this assignment I was immediately reminded of doing Takahatsu(or alms receiving) with the monks in Japan. We were not technically begging but offering disaster preventing dharanis as well as other chants which speak of the receiver and giver being the same and then offering the opportunity for the people to donate. Although the people of Japan had to do back breaking labor for the little money they earned they still gave not because we needed the money more than them but because they genuinely thought we could do more with their money and furthermore they had faith in the dharanis and the transfer of merit.

I'd also put Takahatsu into practice one other time since my experience with the monks. I had ran out of money in Tokyo and having no funds to return to Kyoto let alone sleep or eat in Tokyo I had decided to make a sign which read "Parents Killed by Ninjas, Need Yen for Kung Fu Lessons." Strolling around the urban jungle a man had seeing my decorated backpack and asked me if was a painter. After a very broken conversation and use of a laptop on the street I found he had wanted me to paint his salon! He paid for all of my food, lodging, train fair and double what I asked for!!!


"Do not stand on a high pedestal and take 5 cents in your hand and say, "here, my poor man", but be grateful that the poor man is there, so by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.It is not the reciever that is blessed, but it is the giver.Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect." Appropriated from Swami Vivekananda

Thus for this project I decided to "beg" for a charity or rather offer Dharanis or didi's off my didgi(eridoo), "borrow" people patience and time and then "steal" their money. Furthermore while I was downtown performing I saw a number of people dancing in the streets with their ipods on. I decided it looked like so much fun that I to would put on my iPod and join the dancers. The trib came down and interviewed me, asking me what I was doing for which I replied the only sense to make out of change is to plunge with it and join the dance!

The value of man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving-Einstein

Homerun

For this Project I was assigned to illustrate a story written by another student that went along the lines of her and her sister were being being baby sat and getting along well for a couple of 5-8 year ol' youngens. Well the student wanted to play with one of her sisters dolls and her sister willingly obliged but began removing the shoes and the baby sitter stopped her and asked what she was doing. The sister replied that she was removing the shoes because the student would lose them. The sitter shouted "sharing is caring" and demanded the sister to not be selfish and hand over doll with accessories included. A half hour later the shoes were nowhere to be found...

I immediately thought of the wicked sisters and the ruby red slippers from the wizard of OZ. I found a  particularly interesting part of the story to be that the wicked witch of the east was also the ruler of the little munchkins, that is until the house came crashing down on her and the munchkins were thus free to do what they thought best for them.

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Paper Phoenix; Erasure

 Our assignment in Ideation was to create a piece by erasure, that is create art through the act of erasing, deconstructing, destroying...

For this project I remembered meeting the Kanin(that isthe Kancho or Head Priest's right hand man) of Eiheiji(the largest Zen Temple in the world!). The Kanin was a fascinatingly accomplished person whom was trained to die as a kamikaze pilot but given his life when the Atom Bomb dropped. Ever since the Atom bomb of Hiroshima, there had been a flame kept inside of a little red lantern. This flame was fueled by suffering, by pain and rage, and as the Buddha had said holding on to anger is like holding on to a hot coal with the intent to throw it at someone, you are the only one whom gets burned. The Buddhist monks believed that everything moves in a circle and recognized that the only way to extinguish this fire was to return the flame to the source. Organizing a group of monks together, the Kanin and crew flew to America and walked a great distance carrying the lantern to the gates of Trinity where the flame was born. The security resisted at first, but seeing the peaceful parade and the children with tens of thousands of cranes, with each containing a prayer for peace, they decided to open the gates. The band of peaceful people entered and opening the lantern they burned a specially prepared prayer on a long cloth along with thousands of cranes and a scrupulous amount of karma until the flames had extinguished themselves. The children`s prayers reached the heavens and were truly the key to getting into the gates of trinity and extinguishing the flame.

To resemble the phoenix, the bird born of ashes of old, I folded a paper crane and than deconstructed the bird to leave an empty sheet. Although the paper still carries traces of old in the creased folds, the paper is otherwise empty, not to be seeing as nothing but as a blank slate of unlimited potential where further creation can occur.

Back to School

My first illustration project was to make an illustration of a random word pulled out of a hat and make it fantastical! I drew "school" which really struck a note with me as I've been catapulted out-a-stout(University of Wisconsin) across the globe to live in the monasteries of Japan and study in a Buddhist University(Ryokoku). Returning to the United States I went to Yoga School through Corepower yoga, circus school at Xelias Aerial Arts after that and am now truly at the most fantastical school yet, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design(MCAD).

I decided for this project I really wanted to use my experience with Buddhism as Buddhism is really a school of thought, that is conditioned thought processes. I've met a number of Buddhist monks tell me they are not even religious and have no faith! but that they are merely spiritual philosophers whom verify practice in action. Even philosophically debates often come out with nothing! I decided to portray the Buddha as a sad clown because although Buddhists say that Life is Suffering primarily due to desire, attachment or the belief that they are separate, Buddhist's know that it is through suffering that we actually grow, that through the eight-fold path we find the release of desire, and the right view of being connected and thus the Buddha clown has a blissful smile under his mask. I chose for the close up of Buddha to be holding the shambhavi mudra with his eyes. The shambhavi mudra is used to synchronize the hemispheres of the brain and can be practiced by focusing on your nose with both eyes and eventually on external objects as well. At first you may experience some pain and this is from the hemispheres fighting each other in which case it can help to focus on a deity to help allow the body to surrender to a greater power and relax into the meditation.

My final piece was about movement. I found the paper and discovered the motion which suggested an upward rising motion. Immediately I thought of a man being being launched from a kannon. Everytime I've left a school I've felt as if being launched into life with a new set of skills and knowledge. The other acrobats among the composition suggest students to the teachers as well as the nature of flying through space. However this piece is not finished, it is my intention to lay a net over this piece as every-time I attend a school I build a net for myself to land in;  I guess it leaves something for me to work on...

The Final Judgement?

Many buddhist paintings contrast hells with the heavens as means of "teaching aids" and in particular depicting the hell realms as larger to show people what to avoid and grow out of as well as means to point to the heavens. The Lord of the Dead (Enma in Japanese Buddhism or Yama in Tibetan Tantra/Hinduism) lives on the border in a liminal place. This is a rare image to see in Buddhist paintings as Buddhists primarily believe that no one should make judgement of heart or mind as all things are interconnected, impermanent, illusory and further more there is the belief that there really is no such thing as good or bad as compassion that is sympathizing suffering can certainly appreciated by many whereas ignorance stemming future suffering can be rather unfavorable but what is really good and bad when all things are empty existing out of conditionally dependent origination with no absolute essence but rather impermanent potentiality? Buddhist's believe when you judge someone you only judge yourself.


Yama, the lord of justice and time, is portrayed as the mover of samsara and guardian of spiritual practice whom plays a roll that is seeing to pass judgement on those who are dead to send them to the appropriate rebirth on earth in heaven or hell. The dead will meet the judge and be asked in front of a mirror of their naked soul where their motives originated and to as whether they saw the messenger of light. Yama is a symbol of one's own karmic accumulation  and is a solidified self-reflection which will make one's karmic consequences manifest appropriately (or inappropriately) in a realm with evil doing being noting compared to the punishment in worlds after the death. The judge is  really ones consciences impartiality to that of love and righteousness and the mirror is the memory. The moral to be found is to not be so hard on yourself!

 Yama was born as a holy man whom was told if he meditated for 50 years, he would achieve enlightenment. On the final day of his meditation he was interrupted by two thieves whom had a stolen bull. After beheading the bull in front of the hermit,they ignored his pleas to be spared for but a few minutes and beheaded him as well. In his near-enlightened fury the holy man became Yama, the god of Death. Taking the bull's head for his own he killed the two thieves and than decided to kill everyone in Tibet. The people of Tibet, fearing for their lives, prayed to the bodhisattva Manjusri who took up their cause. He transformed himself into Yamāntaka, similar to Yama but far more powerful and horrific. In their battle, everywhere Yama turned, he found infinite versions of himself. Yamāntaka defeated Yama and turned him into a protector of Buddhism.


Yamantaka (Daitoku in Japanese Buddhism) is the terminator of death. Terminating death, that is ending the cycle of rebirth and samsara, can be considered the goal of the journey to enlightenment. We all can experience three kinds of death, that is the end of our physical life, the end of our inner ignorance to the true nature of non-dual reality along with our instinctual habitual grasping and aversions to the objective "real" objects stemmed of ignorance and finally the secret death of the subtlest level of clear light and illusory body. The mind of pure light is able to perceive that death has no intrinsic concrete existence and that our understanding of death is all relative to the the world. Realizing Yamantaka is realizing buddhahood and thus one gains immortality through transcending death. 

All of the realms of life are depicted between the jaws, or in the arms of a monstrous Yama. Yama is sometimes shown with a consort that is the physical manifestation of his shakti or inner feminine energy. Shakti derives of the goddess Shakta whom set forth the wheel of manifested life by bestowing her healing spirit into the womb of every species on the earth. Shakti is in all things as a man is both mother and father, he to contains an inner femenine energy. Thus the manifestation resembles the law of correspondence "as within, so without." Your outer world is like a mirror that reflects back to you what is going on in your inner world. Everything that happens outside of you corresponds to something that's going on inside of you. When we say that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world, we mean both at a conscious and at a subconscious level.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.  ~Mark Twain

Plundaarrrrrfest

Thy first year say of plunderfest got all sorts a scurvy wervy. There be a camp fer space pirates, dead pirates, regularrrr pirates, vikings, lost boys, booty bay bucaneers and a course the pirates worst enemy, the ninjas. With all sorts of sheninjagans the madness set in quite nicely. 

Tharr be a numbarrr of secret ninja missions but parrhaps the funnest parrrt was thy search for tha booty. I happened to intarrrcept the clues midway when my friend sweetness received harrr paarrrt of thy puzzle that said "bring me something sweet" I just so happened to of brought the vendor coconut bliss to the festival and was able to snag a full tub of bliss for a coconutcase. She slipped me the next clue which was to bring a musical instarrment to the prince of the lost boys. I happened to know peterpan personally and brought him a tune from my didgeridoo. The prince of plunder presented me with the next clue which was to bring a jolly roger to ase. This stalled the search for a mere minute, I wasn't quite sure where to find a jolly roger but I came to thine realization that I could simply draw one on a rolling paper. I rather suddenly then just so happened to find a ninja wearing an ace on his shirt dancing amongst the madness. He gave me a skull ring with a red bandannarrrr painted on and said this be yarrr final clue. Being as the ninjas flag had a jolly rogarrrr with a red bandanarrr covering is grin I knew I would needs ta find my ninja Justice. When I ran into my mate he laughed and said he hadn't even given out the first clue yet, how ye be arrrready at the finish? I decided then that I would be a humble ninja and give the booty up and become a piece of the puzzle. I told him to give the clue, find the stingers of the sea and yer plunder shall be as I was camping amongst the jamfish and I would then give the hint to say "Justice and power must be brought together so that whatever is just may be powerful and whatever is powerful may be just"

I alas regret to say that I had to leave the festival due to a misunderstanding...  It is not love that is blind but jealousy. Love sees sharply, hatred sees even more sharp, but jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time and yet it is nothing but fear of abandonment which lives off doubt. However doubt is just as important as faith or we will always be limited by our beliefs and thus we need to doubt our limitations and doubt our doubts so that we may have the faith, which is not blind but a willingness to try, faith in action is realization, faith is stronger than destiny. Jealousy is a dragon which slays love under the pretense of keeping it alive. The tiger who devours its pray and its own heart, troublesome to others yet torment to one self.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. 

Satnam



Plunder Fest 2010 : LED jellyfish installations from Mallory Lighter on Vimeo.


$10 T shirts
$5 Bandanarrrs
$15 Jamfish or 5 for $50


Installation designed by Mallory Leider, Chris Lyle and Ben Wuest

Fireworks and Works of Fire; The big bang made me do it!

This Independence day Chris Lyle and I decided to celebrate by painting with fireworks and fire by blowing up paint bottles, melting crayons and colouring with smoke grenades. Which was followed up by fireworks and a fire performance by Justice Draconis of Dragons Fire Theatre. Justice and company is available for booking on facebook or by e-mail at justiceofdragons@gmail.com. Some photos also feature Ashley Sweetness whom can be booked at sweetpadiddle@hotmail.com

Independence suggests the nature of free will, but in an interdependent self organizing structure is their really such a thing? The world consists of basic physical laws that govern the entire universe. You are built of an electromagnetic, carbon based life form which is  subject to the laws of the universe. Matter, such as a seed or semen, comes with an inherent set of properties from an ancestral chain which dictates how we will grow and we can thus not really call our structure ours. How well we grow is dictated by outside forces such as our family which we cannot choose and thus stems a chain result of conditioned responses to whether we agree or disagree with these outside forces. It would seem the only way to influence these factors is the choice of surroundings that determines the environment of conditions.

 You can't control the nature of the universe but merely arrange the laws to benefit all sentient beings. A human being is part of the whole, one with the universe. Feeling separate is not freedom, but an optical delusion that actually works as a prison trapped by our own personal desires. In a dream for example you believe your dream self to be separate from other characters however when you awaken you realize that you were in fact both the same consciousness existing in an infinitude of possible dream worlds. Realization is true freedom. Once the normal checks imposed by the conscious mind are abolished by sacrificing the ego, the unlimited scope of unconscious mind comes to play which can appear as a chaotic riot and be very frightening in that the illusory freedom of the Ego is eliminated which reveals our own transubjective reality. AnAtman or no-self is not to say that you don't exist but that you don't exist as a singular form. We are empty in that we may make use of this space and be a selfless being, one with the interdependent arising surroundings. This is borderless borders that can be perhaps best described by trying to define the end of the sun being as the heat and rays of light extend far beyond the fluctuating surface. Free yourself of this cage and embrace the universal energy.

Every object is a particle and a wave, existing in a "set place" as well as all over. The uncertainty principle states that we may not know an object speed and placement at the same time, which points to the mirage of reality. The double slit experiment reveals that unobserved particles have infinite potential where as the observed has only one possibility. A particle is not determined but by the mind that perceives it and thus all that we are is the result of what we have thought. Our mind-matrix actually creates our worlds,  reality does not exist except as unlimited potential of the mind, reality is a projection of the mind. By simply observing the world we change it and when you change the world changes. 


The main factor that distinguishes human beings is the large frontal lobe in the brain that enables us to focus attention and concentrate which is essential for making decisions and holding an intention. The frontal lobe enables us to draw information from our environment and storehouse memories to process and make decisions different from past choices. Although many actions are far from free and consist of habitual conditioned responses such as the flight or fight response, or lighting a cigarette, or reacting to a friend you know. These responses can barely even be considered choices, however there is a second way of making choices and that is to consciously separate ourselves from our environmental stimuli and stand back from our habitual and biological behavior in the roll of the observer. The brain then has the opportunity to reason from a quiet vantage point and can process experiential as well as intellectual knowledge to build a new design. The observer has tremendous amounts of power, although it may seem that observations are also subjective to repetitive habitual conditioning to the point where they can barely even be considered observations, but once recognized, you can discover that by your choices you can actually alter, restrain, and change what you see "out there" By turning off this "autopilot" one begins to discover possibility and be enabled to use the brain rather than be used by the brain, turn response into creation, reaction into action. 

To hear the sound of one hand clapping is to hear the sound that already exists before you make it. Do not try to listen to it, the sound is all over. If you try to see the quality you have no quality. Before you take the form of a human being, you are already there, always there. Because you are already there, you are here. Similarly it is not possible for something to disappear which does not exist. You may think when you die, you no longer exist, but this is impossible. If we are looking at something it can vanish from our sight, but if you do not try to see it, that something cannot vanish. If someone is watching you, you can escape him, but if no one is watching, you cannot escape from yourself. So try not to see something in particular; achieve something special, because you have everything in your own pure quality. Understanding is to be without fear, as you cannot lose anything, there is nothing to lose.


Atoms are 99.999999999999% empty space but appear solid by their force. Thus you are not really sitting on your chair but are in actuality levitating slightly above it. Although all dharmas are ephemeral, changing, and empty they are real just as they are. The phenomenal and the void are equally real and codependent. Emptiness is an infinite field of potential which every possibility arises. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. The signified and signifier are both dual and non-dual. The emphasis is form, not minor or universal but all forms inner-reflecting the interdependent nature of reality which is not to be seeing as an illusion but real as is.