With the arrival of Señor Cancer in the late summer of 2009, my fledgling art endeavor… my exploration of the sacred nature of reality… went through a decided shift in focus. Suddenly, miraculously! The main object of my exploratory study, or
The central character in my self-exploratory drama?
The prurient, perilous theme. The presupposed subject matter. The primal focus
The very hallowed ground upon which the artwork was to be erected. The ebullient substance out of which it was to be carved. The inevitable direction toward which. The esoteric road traveled by. The fraught destination. The underlying purpose…. became
DEATH.
Cancer comes in many lugubrious forms, goes by many curious names. But you know. And I know. That no matter what frightful visages, sardonic expressions, or… beloved masks… Señor Cancer puts on for the benefit of us ribald players here on the stage of life, his real, true name is
DEATH.
And so. It was time.
Time to consider the cold calling of Death. Time to look into the shifting prismatic face of Death. Time to listen to the lion’s roaring song of Death.
Time to turn and reach out my hand to my new teacher. Time to study a new chapter.
At this very point. On the yawning precipice of 2010. With six months of chemotherapy ahead of me. Having… sometimes more… sometimes less… accepted the naked fact that I was probably going to die much sooner than I imagined. I heard a feint whisper. A quiet voice.
It shaped these simple words out of empty space:
The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardos. Come. Find me. I have been waiting for you.
And so. Hello UVA. Hello Thomas Jefferson. Hello Jeffrey Hopkins. Hello Tenzin Guyatso. Hello Shambhala. Hello Francesca Fremantle. Hello Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Hello Karma Lingpa. Hello Guru Padmakara. Hello Shakyamuni Buddha. Hello Amitabha. Hello Noble Lady Tara. Hello Luminous Emptiness.
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.
The artwork, The Five Elements, then. Began as a thought study, as a creative visualization, an open-minded heart meditation upon, as an artistic consideration of… Death, the dying process, as pictured in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The artwork, The Five Elements, is not a direct telling, not an attempt to translate the images and ideas conveyed in Hearing in the Bardos. No. Karma Lingpa’s wrathful and peaceful deities are distinctly missing for such a telling. Rather
I carefully read. Reread. And reread. Francesca Fremantle’s marvelous book Luminous Emptiness. Over and over again.
And I sat.
Sat in the still deepening pool of its profound wisdom.
And allowed.
Allowed what you see. What we see. As the artwork,
The Five Elements
To arise.
Were I to carry one book to my grave. It would most certainly be
LUMINOUS EMPTINESS!!!
. . . . . .
“Trungpa Rinpoche once said that space is the Buddhist version of God. In his commentaries on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, he wrote that it is a “Book of Space”. Space is not different from mind, but it provides a different perspective; it is the environment of mind, inseparable from mind’s awareness.” p.199 Luminous Emptiness
“Instead of talking in terms of universal or cosmic mind, which could easily be interpreted as some kind of vaguely theistic notion, there is vast, limitless, open space that cannot be personified or deified in any way. One cannot pray to it; one cannot please or anger it; one cannot believe or disbelieve in it. It is simply there, the primordial basis of everything.”
p.200 Luminous Emptiness
p.200 Luminous Emptiness
“Space contains birth and death; space creates the environment in which to behave, breathe and act, it is the fundamental environment which provides the inspiration for this book.” p.202 Luminous Emptiness
“Space is emptiness and luminosity: luminous emptiness. Because it is empty, nothing exists, yet because it is luminous, everything arises from it. As Trungpa Rinpoche says, the dharmakaya arises unnecessarily out of infinite space. Here there is neither samsara nor nirvana, neither self nor other, neither buddhas nor sentient beings. This state is known as primordial purity because it is not stained or obscured by any hint of confusion or dualistic thought; it is the original, pure nature of all existence, which always remains at the heart of all phenomena.”
p.202 Luminous Emptiness
p.202 Luminous Emptiness
“Dying is described as a process of dissolving from the densest and heaviest to the finest and most subtle levels of our being. First there is the outer dissolution of the four elements that compose the physical body—earth, water, fire, and air— and then the inner dissolution of states of mind. Essentially what happens at death is that all of our vital energy or prana returns to its source: it is reabsorbed into the central nadi and then into the indestructible bindu at the center of the heart. One way of defining death is the separation of the coarse and subtle bodies. As the process of reabsorption takes place, the subtle body is no longer able to maintain the functioning of the coarse body. One by one, the five primary and secondary pranas withdraw, the knots of the chakras fall apart, and the elements dissolve; as a result, the bodily functions and the senses begin to fail.” p.221 Luminous Emptiness
“The five elements arise from awakened mind, therefore they themselves are aspects of that awareness: they are buddhas. This is their secret essence. This essence is empty, and yet it is also luminous; it shines forth with the pure qualities of the five elements. In Liberation Through Hearing, the pure essence of the elements simply appears as light of the five colors. The essence of earth is a yellow light, the essence of water a white light, the essence of fire a red light, the essence of air a green light, the essence of space a blue light. Essence is invisible, therefore these colors do not appear externally; if they did so, they would have entered the realm of the material elements. They are visionary colors, perfectly pure, clear, and luminous, like a rainbow seen within the heart.” p.87 Luminous Emptiness
“Emptiness is the realization that nothing has a permanent, substantial, independent existence of its own. Since this is so, since nothing is fixed and static, there is infinite potentiality and dynamic transformation. It is this alone that makes it possible for the ever-changing display of life in all of its multiplicity to arise. Therefore emptiness is regarded as the creative feminine principle. The five great elements, arising from emptiness, are the mothers who give birth to all phenomena. When they are perceived in this way they are known as the five female buddhas. In the tantras, they are called devis, dakinis, mothers, or queens…” p.87 Luminous Emptiness
