The last time I checked the Buddha never went toa Zen center to meditate. Jesus never talked to his fatherin a church or ate the bread ofhis own limbs at the altar. Moses never needed permissionfrom a rabbi to climb mountains,talk to burning bushes, or read tablets to the masses down below, those whoare always looking […]
The Art of Being
We do not paint. We are the pigments,resins, solvents and additives the soft animal bristle andhand-assembled metal bands. We do not write. We are the molecules linked together in crystalline structures, soaked into paper, allowingour thoughts to bleed at the edges. We do not make music. We are strings vibrating,communicating rhythmic visions hanging in air, that feeling of wanting […]
Suffering the Process of Decision-Making
Several years ago, I went through a period when I struggled with unemployment—no matter how many job applications I submitted, nothing seemed to come of my efforts. That is, until one day (as it often happens) I got two job offers at the same time. The offers were both appealing to the same extent, with […]
If the World Falls Down
What happens if the world falls down? If Atlas is no longer around to hold it,is anything or anyone strong enough? When Atlas gave up his burden we allpicked it up like a cannonball until ourshoulders began to hurt, and our back gave out, and we began to ask: What if I should drop it? Each […]
I Searched Back
Becoming many-celledfrom whitish to pale tan, consuming the soft crystalof my confiscated skin,the alien searched me. Like a probe sent into the outerhemispheres of my consciousness. I searched back. I wondered intoits yucca-sized eyes, and the room became calm, a cream-colored scent of smokerising as the holy spirit does for Baptistson Sunday mornings when they really need […]
Before Words
By the time it is written down it hasalready passed. Even the animals,the brute beasts of the fields, dumband blind to the ways of poetry in books, feel it in the soul of their hoovesand the simple sensations of their tonguestouching the grass, or a pig rolling in the mud, as birds sing for no reason […]
Rima Fujita: Art and Action
Rima with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. ©Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL An enlightened, ineffably wise face deep in contemplation of the bottomless realities of the cosmos. Yet the colours are so vibrant as to have an almost childlike, playful quality. This vibrant and vivid aesthetic is Rima Fujita’s instantly recognizable artistic style, which has captured the attention of […]
The Teacher Who Dispels the Darkness of Ignorance and Brings the Light of Wisdom
28 October marks one year since the passing of my beloved teacher, Professor Alexander Fedotoff (1956– 2018). He was an outstanding erudite, a polyglot, and professor of Korean, Mongolian, and Tibetan literature. He was born in Novosibirsk, Russia and graduated from the Department of Mongolian Studies and Tibetology in the Faculty of Asian and African […]
A Sacrament
Consuming the soft crystalthe alien looked like a probe sent into the orbit of my brain. I gazed wondrously intoits big, Texas-sized eyes. The room became calmlike twilight. The oak trees,the ones outside, felt destroyed, as if they were knocked over,and placed on an 18 wheelerheading out of the great forests. As the scent of sandalwood […]
A Yellow Cardinal
Genetics could be the sole factor the same way roots of hemlocksthirst for affection like toddlers, some say it is an obscure type ofhermaphroditism, or some other theory perhaps the reason pumice smellsthe way it does, or the words surface to life from the lips of the newly awakened shining like a natural sermon, burning phosphorous and strikingthe earth, beneath the polar auroras yes, a yellow cardinal isno rarer […]