"Longya's Thief in an Empty Room" from Eihei Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo

The Main Case - A monastic asked Zen master Judan of Longya (Zhankong), "When do the teachers of old get stuck?" Longya said, "When the thief slips into an empty room."

Capping verse - When the mind is empty, the eyes are finally clear. Shining through detachment and subtlety--the root of creation.


Just to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding between you, the reader, and myself, the writer, I’ll make it clear right off the bat: for me, ideas, concepts, and theory are not methods for acquiring objective knowledge but rather catalysts for subjective experience of life; my life; anyone's life. While I admit I’m not averse to being able to posit a thesis that many can agree on, what’s more important to me is to instigate reflection. Similar to the manner in which a koan operates, activating consciousness of premises, assumptions, and prejudices in a dialectic process leading to the emptiness of knowing, so I hope to illuminate my subjects, not by shedding light on them, but by casting shadows, tracing their forms in darkness, in silhouette relief, to know them only by inference, by what they are not. My tools? Arbitrarily constructed in language and consciously divided for the sake of an intellectual pursuit: my mind (reason and awareness), my body (instinct and corporeality), and my spirit (presence and desire).

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The reflex image...



In reflex photography, the shutter-mirror reflects the light from outside, from “other,” onto and into the eye, causing the faintest glimmer of its image to reflect back onto the shutter-mirror and out again.  Thus, the light-image from outside creates the light-image from inside.  Outside becomes inside.  No separation.

And in the instant of opening the shutter to register the image, pure blindness; utter darkness; ankoku.  The very image in time and space with which one chooses to fulfill their desire is inherently denied by the very technology that seemingly produces the out-of-time manifestation of such desire. 

On the surface, desire and acceptance may seem antithetical.  And since desire motivates action while acceptance instigates transformation, this may create a fundamental paradox within the movement of life itself.


Photo: Michael Sakamoto, spirit medium at faun pii (spirit dance) ceremony, Lampang, Thailand, Dec 2010
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2 comments:

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