Harry Dean Stanton

I had the immense pleasure of watching Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction on a plane over the holidays a few years back. I took notes....

David Lynch: How would you describe yourself?

Harry Dean Stanton: As nothing. There is no self.

David Lynch: How would you like to be remembered?

Harry Dean Stanton: Doesn't matter.

David Lynch: What were your dreams as a child?

Harry Dean Stanton: Nightmares.

   

My old man used to say, go straight ahead until you hit something.

I've avoided success artfully

It's all gonna go away. You're gonna go. I'm gonna go. The sun's burning out. The earth is going to go. It's all transient. Everything is transient, so it's ultimately not important. It's all fleeting. Passing. But it's liberating. Just everything happens. It's one connected whole that's happening. That's the Buddhist take but I'm not a Buddhist.

David Lynch: What are you?

Harry Dean Stanton: I'm nothing. When you're nothing there's no problems.

Get Busy Living

Actress Elsie Ferguson by Baron de Meyer, c.1921.

The evening chant at the end of the last sitting in a Zen temple: Let me respectfully remind you, life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed. Do not squander your life.

No Need to be Upset

An image from Portfolio 1 by Matthew Reamer

A Buddhist saying:

If you can do something to change the circumstances, why be upset about it?
And if you cannot do anything to change the circumstances, why be upset about it?

Dharma and the Dude

Aloud LA presented a conversation between Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges and world-renowned Roshi Bernie Glassman. Their new book that offers an intimate glimpse into the conversations between student and teacher, a shared philosophy of life and spirituality, and the everyday wisdom of Buddhism. This talk, Dude and the Zen Master ,captures a freewheeling dialogue about life, laughter, and the movies, from two men whose charm and bonhomie never fail to enlighten and entertain—while reminding us of the importance of doing good in a difficult world.

The sound is not great but improved by plugging into an external speaker....



An Evening with Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman from ALOUDla on Vimeo.

Sandy

  The Island Packet, Jay Karr/AP Photo

 "The first noble truth says simply that it's part of being human to feel discomfort. We don't even have to call it suffering anymore; we don't even have to call it discomfort. It's simply coming to know the fieryness of fire, the wildness of wind, the turbulence of water, the upheaval of earth, as well as the warmth of fire, the coolness and smoothness of water, the gentleness of the breezes, and the goodness, solidness, and dependability of the earth. Nothing in its essence is one way or the other. The four elements take on different qualities; they're like magicians. Sometimes they manifest in one form and sometimes in another.... The first noble truth recognizes that we also change like the weather, we ebb and flow like the tides, we wax and wane like the moon." -Pema Chödrön, Awakening Loving-Kindness  

Getty Images

Bodhisattva Vow - MCA - Beastie Boys

Bodhisattva Vow Lyrics

As I Develop The Awakening Mind I Praise The Buddha As They Shine
I Bow Before You As I Travel My Path To Join Your Ranks,
I Make My Full Time Task
For The Sake Of All Beings I Seek
The Enlighted Mind That I Know I'll Reap
Respect To Shantideva And All The Others
Who Brought Down The Darma For Sisters And Brothers
I Give Thanks For This World As A Place To Learn
And For This Human Body That I Know I've Earned
And My Deepest Thanks To All Sentient Beings
For Without Them There Would Be No Place To Learn What I'm Seeing
There's Nothing Here That's Not Been Said Before
But I Put It Down Now So I'll Be Sure
To Solidify My Own Views And I'll Be Glad If It Helps
Anyone Else Out Too


If Others Disrespect Me Or Give Me Flack
I'll Stop And Think Before I React
Knowing That They're Going Through Insecure Stages
I'll Take The Opportunity To Exercise Patience
I'll See It As A Chance To Help The Other Person
Nip It In The Bud Before It Can Worsen
A Change For Me To Be Strong And Sure
As I Think On The Buddhas Who Have Come Before
As I Praise And Respect The Good They've Done
Knowing Only Love Can Conquer In Every Situation
We Need Other People In Order To Create
The Circumstances For The Learning That We're Here To Generate
Situations That Bring Up Our Deepest Fears
So We Can Work To Release Them Until They're Cleared
Therefore, It Only Makes Sense
To Thank Our Enemies Despite Their Intent


The Bodhisattva Path Is One Of Power And Strength
A Strength From Within To Go The Length
Seeing Others Are As Important As Myself
I Strive For A Happiness Of Mental Wealth
With The Interconnectedness That We Share As One
Every Action That We Take Affects Everyone
So In Deciding For What A Situation Calls
There Is A Path For The Good For All
I Try To Make My Every Action For That Highest Good
With The Altruistic Wish To Achive Buddhahood
So I Pledge Here Before Everyone Who's Listening
To Try To Make My Every Action For The Good Of All Beings
For The Rest Of My Lifetimes And Even Beyond
I Vow To Do My Best To Do No Harm
And In Times Of Doubt I Can Think On The Dharma
And The Enlightened Ones Who've Graduated Samsara

Buddhist idea

Suffering is the difference between the way things are, and the way we want them to be.

sometimes making something leads to nothing

Francis Alÿs - Paradox of Praxis - Video - 1997

In Paradox of Praxis, Francis Alÿs spends a long day pushing a block of ice around the bustling streets of Mexico City until it melts away into a small puddle, marking the end of the "work." It is an action that meditates on the idea that "sometimes making something leads to nothing."

Bent over pushing a block of ice, referencing labor, Alÿs is just one of many going about the city doing what it is they do. "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." The anonymity of the city absorbs him. Alÿs has commented, "Each of my interventions is another fragment of the story I am inventing, of the city that I am mapping."

But the reference to labor, to industriousness, cannot be ignored. As one critic has pointed out, "The routines of manual workers are just as much of a praxis and must at most times feel just as paradoxical." Alÿs pushes his ice block. Is it work? Is it a game? When does one become the other or do they happen simultaneously? And then it all disappears.

Futility exists in all our attempts to "do" or "make." It reminds me of the beautiful articulation of this idea in Andy Goldsworthy's film, Rivers and Tides, as he spends hours attempting to build a cone of stone that continuously falls apart.

"I am so amazed at times that I am actually alive," Goldsworthy observes after the 4th collapse of his piece.

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated that that.
It is opening to or recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it.
Sylvia Boorstein

 

Yves Klein, Buddhism and Immateriality

Le Saut dans le Vide (Leap into the Void); Photomontage by Harry Shunk, October 1960.

"The shape of the body, its lines, its strange colors hovering between life and death, hold no interest for me. Only the essential, pure affective climate of the flesh is valid… Having rejected nothingness, I discovered the void."  Yves Klein from the Chelsea Hotel Manifesto, 1961

Hmm. One can't help but be intrigued by a line such as that last one! 

So digging a little deeper I find this description of art bridging modernism and Buddhism.

"A work of art stops being about an individual’s accumulation of masterpieces; it is now about the participation or the disappearance of the public. The artist puts down his gun and starts smiling. This means that the artist abandons his false noble image, competition and innovation, and the standard of value. The public will neither panic nor feel strongly about it when faced with “new” ideas and works; they regard Picasso’s paintings both as meaningless scrawls on a piece of white canvas and as artistic masterpieces. This is exactly the same way that Chan Buddhism sees a wooden statue of Sakyamuni: both as Buddha and as a piece of firewood. As “Buddha,” so as to connect with the living world; as “wood,” so as to go beyond it. At this point, “Buddha” and “art” exist only as an unchangeable meaning in the living world."  Huang Yong Ping from “Xiamen Dada—Postmodern?” (1986)

Klein's ideas of immateriality and art's ability to represent the void in his Chelsea manifesto fascinate me. What a rich text to explore. Chance, the ephemeral, natural phenomena, the circle/cycle of life, and being present through "sensibility" (which i choose to take as mindfulness) all make an appearance. It is not a perfect document and that is precisely what makes it so rich.

"All facts that are contradictory are authentic principles of an explanation of the universe. Truly, fire is one of these principles, essentially contradictory, one from the other, since it is both the sweetness and torture that lies at the heart and origin of our civilization. But what stirs this search for feeling in me through the making of super-graves and super coffins? What stirs this search in me for the imprint of fire? Why search for the Trace itself?"

Untitled Fire Painting 1961