DUST TO DUST
The Bodhi is not like the tree;
The mirror bright is nowhere shining;
As there is nothing from the first,
Where does dust come and go?
In Zen Buddhism, the sixth patriarch HuiNeng said, "Originally, there is not a single thing. Where does the dust arise?" Its roots go back to Indian teachings concerning the tathagata-garbha (“womb/embryo of Buddha”). essentially this teaching comes down to a positive articulation of basic Buddhist views on emptiness (shunyata) and the thoroughly interrelated nature of existence. According to tathagata-garbha teachings, although all beings are mired in ignorance and suffering, our true natures are always pure and luminous – defilements are merely adventitious. The dust that clings to us is not from the external world, but from within ourselves - our desires, attachments, and perceptions. Awakening occurs when we pierce through the defilements and allow our original purity to shine forth.
Fireworks, are made of dust before they bloom and return to dust after a brief brilliance. As I witness everything transform from ashes to ashes and dust to dust, suddenly I am reminded that nothing is truly lost or created, but rather everything is transformed, this cycle of birth and decay is not exclusive to fireworks but extends to everything in the universe, ephemeral and the eternal, material and non-material entities, life and death, that all things exist in self-nature.
photo series .
2009 - 2013
Fireworks, are made of dust before they bloom and return to dust after a brief brilliance. As I witness everything transform from ashes to ashes and dust to dust, suddenly I am reminded that nothing is truly lost or created, but rather everything is transformed, this cycle of birth and decay is not exclusive to fireworks but extends to everything in the universe, ephemeral and the eternal, material and non-material entities, life and death, that all things exist in self-nature.
photo series .
2009 - 2013