VISITING EMPTINESS

This work draws from the concept of the Heart Sutra and the fullness of emptiness. 

Thich Nhat Hanh explains that in a piece of paper we can see the clouds that watered the forest that grew the trees that became this piece of paper, we can see the sun that provided nutrients for those same trees, and we can see the lumberjack who cut down the trees that became this piece of paper. "Your mind is in here and mine is also, so we can say that everything is in here in this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper."

According to Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, however, this sheet of paper is empty. Before we make any assumptions, however, we must ask what the sheet of paper is empty of. Avalokiteshvara will answer that it is "empty of a separate self." 

"When Avalokiteshvara says that our sheet of paper is empty, they mean that it is empty of a separate, independent existence. It cannot just be by itself. It has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud, the forest, the logger, the mind, and everything else. It is empty of a separate self. But, empty of a separate self means full of everything. Avalokiteshvara looked deeply into the five skandhas (the five elements comprising a human being) of form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, and discovered that none of them can be by itself alone. Each can only inter-be with all the others. So they tell us that form is empty. Form is empty of a separate self, but it is full of everything in the cosmos. The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness."

A twelfth-century Zen master of the Ly dynasty wrote that “the entire cosmos can be put on the tip of a hair,” and “the sun and the moon can be seen in a mustard seed," in other words, one contains everything, and everything is one. 

My 3-dimensional tapestry visiting card abstracts the shape of a sphere. The sphere; round and encompassing, representing totality and wholeness. My visiting card represents the inter-being between us all, across countries and archaic borders. My visiting card invites the viewer to perceive my mind, my country and my sun inter-being, and existing with and because of their mind, their country and their sun. My visiting car invites the viewer to become empty of the idea of a separate self, and become full of everything in the cosmos.