LIght in the Temple

The above photo was taken during the Buddha's birthday in Seoul about six years ago. It was quite a big deal that day and I am fond of this photo because it seems to capture the actual moment. Often times a photo captures a moment but it is not characteristic of what was happening when the photo was taken, take Cindy Sherman's movie stills as an example. However, this photo does, I feel it captures the event, there simultaneously solemnity and festivity. The temple was overcrowded with people but it was not the normal gawkers that turn up for a high holiday, it was an accumulation of all the people who go to the temple as a matter of lifestyle arriving on the same day. At that point of my life I was going to the temple several times a week to meditate, and my life, despite being totally out of control, had a simultaneous sense of peace. That is why I like this photo so much perhaps, the day it was taken, what is happening in the photo, and what my life was then are all the same.

Several time I attempted to make a painting of this photo, and it only worked once, then I tried to add black to my spheres and ruined it. So from here on in I will leave it a photo.

I went to a Lama temple today, in part because it is nearest to my home. In Northern China there are not so many temples and in China I have been somewhat turned off by the Buddhists. It is far more supersticious and most people are praying for things, normally money. I find the most devote Buddhists are old people (like any religion) followed by business men and then recent college grads looking for jobs. But I am bitching here and I really shouldn't, it is not my point.

Part of my reason for going to the Lama temple is because in meditation I felt I needed to go. Also Since I am ever on a quest for light I thought I might find some light, or enlight if I was really lucky. Sad to say I brought my distaste for Chinese Buddhism with me and in the end I didn't find any light, but I did find what I had been missing many times out of the year, and that was a sense of peace. Going through the inscense burning and kowtows quarantined my mind from distractions. I didn't notice the BMW's or the tourists or the college kids, I only noticed peace, my thoughts were quieted and to paraphrase David Lynch, the pool of my mind was deepened. And for the rest of the day I have been in a fine mood.

Seing as my visual art has been about light and its effects, I had the idea to look through the Bible, The Quran and other sacred texts for the word light, cut them out, and then paste them onto a canvas. My trip to the Lama temple today was a ploy to gather material and more ideas. However, God/Buddha or whoever it is calling the shots had thought otherwise.