“Meditation is a way of stepping out of the mind, putting aside preferential thinking that distracts you from living in accordance with the Tao. It is only from the
inner mountaintop perspective
that you can realize that the real treasure you seek has always been within your reach. Meditation is not just sitting on a hilltop away from others, it is also speaking and acting from inner stillness. When you get it right, you’ll feel the resonance within your every word and gesture.
Once you have known that you are not a victim of circumstance but only of your own thoughts, the entire landscape begins to shift. It’s as though there is more time and spaciousness, and life can be experienced as the extraordinary generostity that it is. As you begin to
reflect this generosity within,
even in the smallest gestures you radiate a quality of the divine.”
It’s like when you meditate and can separate from your thoughts, the pure stillness is in the background and what’s in front is all the magic that is generated by the even flow of pure s o m e t h i n g that we are all joined by. The goal is to allow this process to happen all the while we are busy doing something else.
Karen Divine has been one of my favorite iphonic artists since the very first time I saw one of her Strange Things Happening images come in to Pixels. She brings painter’s eye to everything she does and the range of her vision is amazing: nudes, animals, country-scapes, surreal assemblage, whatever captures her imagination.
I find in her work an unflinching sensuality and poetry, humor, always intelligence and a kind of wonderfully twisted delight. She is one of those artists who notices every pixel in the image and her attention to detail is always apparent. Look at the bare tree coming out of the apple, or is it a ball of energy, or fire? Whatever the red objects are, the single tree is the perfect, light touch.
Above all, her beautiful and often off-beat images are simply wonderful to behold. Cundi Bodhisattva reaffirms her place in the ethereal realms of iphonic wonder-making pantheon. I often liken iphonic art to magical realism, but in Karen’s case I would call it magical unrealism! Except that the unreal is all the more real, and magical, in her hands.
I’m sure she won’t mind if I tell you that Cundi Bodhisattva is said to have been the manifestation of the World Honored One entering into the Samadhi of Spiritual Power of Transformation of Space and Ocean.
I highly recommend you listen to the mantra as you gaze at today’s {daily pic}.
As the eighteen arms of Cundi represent the eighteen uncommon qualities, they are able to eliminate all the negative karma of sentient beings, hence the name Most Victorious Vajra. One who practices this deity yoga is able to eradicate all past negative karma and avoid all calamities. All that he or she wishes for in this lifetime, and all siddhis of worldly and transcendental practices, shall swiftly manifest.
As Cundi is also known as the Subjugation Vajra, and the practice of Cundi constitutes a special practice of Tantrayana, this practice is regarded as supreme. It is wish-fulfilling and can subjugate all maras and heretics. It embodies infinite power and merits, and through this practice the practitioner shall gain a round and perfect aura.The printing of this sutra and all other sutras will benefit oneself and others, and help to remove all forms of calamity. It helps one gain great merits and blessings, and bridges others to the teachings of Buddhism.”
“You asked me how to get out of the finite dimensions when I feel like it. I certainly don’t use logic when I do it. Logic’s the first thing you have to get rid of.”
― J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories
So it’s been weeks of reorganizing, throwing away, bookkeeping, filing and just catching up with my life. Can I create an image in the meantime…doesn’t seem like it. As most creative spirits know, there are just times when you need to plunge through the crap, the mundane and simply process whatever is appearing in the background of your mind. I keep making the effort to create an image and for the first time in a while I can hear the little “doubt” voice appear. I now know that it’s best to just let her be and not try to quiet her. She has her good side and she has appeared for some benefit, unbeknownst to the conscious mind and that is the key thing to remember. All those voices are there to serve you in some way and embracing them and allowing them their say is crucial to being able to move forward. So here it is, little Ms.Doubt. I let her make this image, throwing randomness in; notes from astrology, a clothesline in Mexico, the faceless woman I so hold onto, a bit of ferris wheel and magic. This is her story today. All her story…
“The day will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the others reflection saying sit here, eat, you will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignore for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, desperate notes. Peel your own image from the mirror, sit, feast, feast on your life.” Derrick Walcott
