Monday, May 26, 2014

Ground, background, grounded.


After a show is hung is a great time to reflect on what the paintings are saying. With these paintings, as I said, I didn’t really know where they were taking me, so now I'm finding that I’m learning a lot by listening to them. I’ve been thinking about the ground. It is literally the ground—looking straight down at it from a satellite. And the regular patterns are grounding, as is nature for humans. 

And then there is another level, which is “the ground” in Buddhism. From Kuntuzangpo’s prayer:

Everything — appearance and existence, samsara and nirvana —

Has a single Ground, yet two paths and two fruitions,

And magically displays as Awareness or unawareness.

So we make our own experience. The ground is there with all of the material for us to put together: emotions, interactions, jobs, people, good drivers, bad drivers, grumpy or friendly store clerks, capsized sailboats or smooth sailing, good weather or bad. It’s up to us to interpret according to our beliefs and to structure our experience into pleasure or pain.

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