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it struck me that the people you choose to work with, to surround yourself with in life and those you choose to love –these people say as much about you as you could ever hope to express in your own words.” –Kindness



se parece a ti.


via gorillavsbear

Marking Infinity, Lee Ufan

I recently had the opportunity of visiting Lee Ufan´s show at the Guggenheim in NY, anyone who knows what I´m into knows the following:

A. How the abstract blows my mind.
B. The abstract-conceptual linked to any sort of philosophy is a shoe in for my own -mind fucking- experience.
C. Anything with the word "infinity" makes my heart skip a beat.

Beginning with this Frank Lloyd Wright sculpture - the museum itself -, has always caught my attention in its effectiveness in showcasing art. A bit ignorant i sometimes feel, when i don´t know exactly where the curated show begins or ends, or if I´m missing something in between, or if i should move clockwise or counterclockwise.

So, as a reaffirmation to Lee Ufan´s Marking Infinity discourse, the show was curated from the bottom-up (in contrast to how it´s usually curated, from the top, down), mirroring a spiralling seashell, (reminding me of Fibonacci´s golden ratio).





The Reflexion:

Revolving around the notion of encounter- seeing the bare existence of what is actually before us and focusing on "the world as it is".

"Expressive action begins with sensing a rupture in existence. The desire to eliminate this gap and become fused with existence itself becomes the will to create art"

"Perpetual passing of the present"

"Form is not static but a phenomenon of becoming"

Lee understood process as a system of connectivity between distinct components. " Each moment.. Occurs only once, but everything is a continuation of single moments, it is necessary for them to resonate with each other"

"The phenomenon of encounter is momentary.. In discontinuous, momentary flashes of light, it liberates human beings from one-sidedness and seclusion of the ego, if only for a moment . Unlike the human will, which always desires to define things and give them meaning or a place in history, the state of the world unto itself always teaches is that things are uncertain and indefinite"

Kierkegaard and Heidegger describe encounters as events attending the point of rupture between self and the other.
Nishida Kitaro as "pure experience".
Bachelard as poetic moments and
Baudelaire as correspondence.
A unilateral way if thinking is not involved in any ot these approaches.

The metaphysical relationship between being and nothingness.

"We can simultaneously sense existence and dissolution, genesis and extinction".

"Empty resonant space"



Conclusions:
As objects manifest themselves as something pure and/or repeat themselves, there is an opening to a finite yet endless possibility of possibilities. A "pure" form, is just a pure form. A tree is evidently a tree. A rock, etc...
By seeing things for what they are is where this "finite" comes in, because the object is the bottom line, there´s no more room for word, image or text, which is beautiful to its own extent, but the opening of possibilities comes through exchange. What type of tree our mind links to the word or image of it, on the other hand, is never finite. This was what essentially attracted and moved me, how Ufan´s representation is so simple yet so mind expanding complex, evoking the pure form itself, and still taking us to many realms beyond it.

Kandinsky said in "Concerning the spiritual in art", that no form is formless. That nothing is shaped out of nothingness. What interferes or plays a crucial role is the context, the spectator, and the object(s). When one becomes unmoved by whatevers in front, we´re either lacking in context, space, time... Or, soul.

1+1=2

"If you refuse to let your own suffering lie upon you even for an hour and if you constantly try to prevent and forestall all possible distress way ahead of time; if you experience suffering and displeasure as evil, hateful, worthy of annihilation, and as a defect of existence then it is clear that [you harbour in your heart]...the religion of comfortableness. How little you know of human happiness, you comfortable...people, for happiness and unhappiness are sisters and even twins that either grow up together or, as in your case, remain small together"

The Consolations of Philosophy
Alain de Botton
via radicales libres

Nuestros días pasan como suspiros...

Nuestra vida terrenal es frágil y corta ante El Creador eterno, que no padece cambios.

Antes que nacieran las montañas
y apareciera la tierra y el mundo,
tú ya eras Dios y lo eres para siempre,

tú que devuelves al polvo a los mortales,
y les dices, "¡Váyanse hijos de Adán!"
Mil años para ti son como un día,
un ayer, un momento de la noche.

Tú los siembras, cada cual a su turno,
y al amanecer despunta la hierba;
en la mañana viene la flor y se abre
y en la tarde se marchita y se seca.

El tiempo de nuestros años es de setenta,
y de ochenta si somos robustos
La mayoría son de pena y decepción,
transcurren muy pronto y nos llevan volando.

¿Quién conoce tú fuerza
y quién ha sondeado el fondo de tu furor?
Enséñanos lo que valen nuestros días,
para que adquiramos un corazón sensato*.

....

Que la dulzura de Yahvéh nos cubra
y que él confirme la obra de nuestras manos.

Salmo 90

*(Sensatez) Buen juicio, cordura , prudencia o capacidad de sopesar las consecuencias antes de actuar.

A place called anywhere

Of course the Dalai Lama's a Marxist

The Dalai Lama has a refreshing tendency to confound western caricatures. As a cuddly old monk, he could comfort fans by fuzzily connecting us to an imagined Shangri-La that contrasts favourably with our own material world. Only he won't play the game, regularly making ethical, political, scientific and (ir)religious statements that rudely pop the projections laid on to him.

He was at it again the other day, telling Chinese students that he considers himself a Marxist. This wasn't just playing to the crowd – although it was reported with surprise (at least in the US), the ideological alignment is longstanding. In 1993, he said: "The economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis ... as well as the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and [it] cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons, the system appeals to me, and it seems fair."

There are a number of caveats (he's not a Leninist, believes compassion rather than class struggle is key, and doesn't consider communist regimes such as the USSR, China or Vietnam to have been true exponents), but the dissonance between image and reality remains – the Dalai Lama is not the comforting Oriental pet that consumer society might like.

Neither does his tradition match the capitalist fantasies attached to it. Perhaps because Buddhism came to the west on a wave of post-war hippy soul-searching, and was then co-opted as friendly religion of choice by new ageism and the self-help movement, its radical economic and social messages have been lost under an avalanche of laughing fat-man statues, healing crystals and copies of The Secret.

The very idea of self-help in Buddhism is an oxymoron – relief of suffering can only come from the realisation that pleasing ourselves doesn't bring happiness – instead we must try to work skilfully and compassionately with others, as part of interwoven systems of connectivity that bind us together. A "western Buddhism" that prioritises solipsistic focus on the individual is so great a misconception as to be unworthy of the name – or at the least the Buddhism part – as anyone who pays it more than passing attention knows. It's also largely a media invention – many western Buddhists are serious, deeply committed practitioners. That commitment means choosing to follow a path that leads against the stream of materialism and selfishness. Of course, we don't always manage it, but that's why it's called a path of practice.

Buddhism goes way beyond the confines of the personal – realising the truth of interdependence implies taking up the challenge of engaging with others in the wider world. This isn't missionary zeal – proselytising is hardly the Buddhist way – but it does mean social action that embodies dharmic principles, and western sanghas are increasingly prioritising community involvement. As they do so, Buddhism may start to look less like some nice bit of calm and relaxation and more like a radical, uncompromising critique of the status quo.

This critique has already begun to influence the UK mainstream. It's 45 years since EF Schumacher published his Buddhist Economics essay in Small is Beautiful, which the Times Literary Supplement listed as one of the 100 most influential books since the second world war. Though the male-centric, mechanistic world it describes now seems dated, Schumacher's outline of a world driven mad by consumption (and his Buddhist-inspired remedy of sufficiency and sustainability) has informed everything from the climate change debate to the happiness agenda – particularly through the influential New Economics Foundation (NEF) thinktank, which grew out of Schumacher's vision.

The well-being indices enthusiastically taken up by David Cameron have grown in part from NEF's links with the kingdom of Bhutan and its policy of favouring gross national happiness above gross domestic product. Is the prime minister aware of the Buddhist foundation to his plans for the nation's mood?

Of course, we're a long way from a government that looks even remotely dharmic. From a Buddhist perspective, only a revolution in our collective mind can counter the momentum that keeps us grasping for happiness in all the wrong places. And that would involve more than measuring whether someone with a job and a family in sunny Cornwall feels more upbeat than a lonely, unemployed Londoner on a rainy day. It would require systemic transformation on both an intimate and a huge scale, bringing the path of personal practice together with much broader societal shifts. Could this be what the Dalai Lama is thinking of when he describes himself as "half-Marxist, half-Buddhist"?

Article Via The Guardian By Ed Halliwell

Hoy el Dalai Lama en México

rhyming steps

The beginning and end I want to begin

moments of always within a never

"She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."
_______________

Thus, Speak the Chromograph by Eleni Sikélianòs

Saying: One night in a cloud chamber
I discovered a thing: that a thing (I used to have a crown
of light) a thing could be more
than True, and more again

than False, a thing
could carry its name

with a ticket of lights
called Possible: In a cloud chamber, particles are betrayed
by movement and water vapors

leave trails. Discovered: when matter and its antithesis come
together, a disappearing
flash of light: (our share of night to
ear) (I mean what I say): In contempt

of the Law of All
Excluded Thirds: laws are not
symmetrical in the forward and the back
(of time). On which side
are they stacked? and the sky also

(is what made Hart Crane
so crazy in the heart) continued to pile up
clouds without account, a mass of gasses with nothing

scribbled under them; a song in the middle

of the crystal
cavatina. We hardly had any bones then. Did
Hart Crane have bones? If so, which kind? AndD

run toward the sea)

_____

___________________________________

"Don’t worry, Renée, I won’t commit suicide and I won’t burn a thing.
Because from now on, for you, I’ll be searching for those moments of always within a never.
Beauty, in this world."

___________________

Where You Are by Mark Doty


2. Everywhere



I thought I’d lost you. But you said I’m imbued



in the fabric of things, the way

that wax lost from batik shapes

the pattern where the dye won’t take.

I make the space around you,



and so allow you shape. And always

you’ll feel the traces of that wax

soaked far into the weave:
the air around your gestures,



the silence after you speak.

That’s me, the slight wind between

your hand and what you’re reaching for;

chair and paper, book or cup:



that close, where I am: between

where breath ends, air starts.
________

thanks andy for this.
poetrys´ been floating heavily lately, landmarking september.