Karine (Karine Leroux Photography) challenges photographers to find two unrelated shots that have a striking visual similarity – composition, shape(s), dominant color(s)
photo challenge: parallels
Tag: black and white photography
six word saturday: arisings and ceasings within each ksana
The arising and ceasing within a ksana* occurs very rapidly. During any particular moment, we see flowers as red and leaves as green. In reality, they are constantly changing from ksana to ksana, and after a while, they will wilt. Within each ksana, they are perpetually growing and wilting.
In this world, how can there be any flowers and grass that will never wilt? How can there be any tables that will not be subjected to destruction? Because all phenomena and existences are arising from ksana to ksana, all phenomena and existence are therefore ceasing from ksana to ksana. There is a saying, “When a young man snaps his fingers, sixty-three ksanas have gone by.” Time goes by very fast. Youth can disappear in a flash. A ksana is indeed an extremely brief and short span of time.
*A ksana is a tiny unit of time, approximately one seventy-fifth of a second. It is an imperceptibly small amount of time, and all kinds of things happen within the space of a ksana that elude our conscious awareness. For example, it is said there are 900 arisings and ceasings within each ksana. I suspect the number 900 is not meant to be precise but rather is a poetic way of saying “a lot.”
Six Word Saturday is sponsored by: Travel with Intent
Cited: http://www.ibps.org/english/master/Time%20and%20Space.html
lookin’ back to 2016
Nikon D750 f/4.5 1/100s 85mm 100 ISO Edited: Capture One 20
green eyes peeking through green grass
Edited: Capture One 20
Hop on over to join Travel with Intent’s Saturday’s Six Word Challenge
silent sunday
our heroes within – 57th day
Our heroes must be summoned from within. It’s up to us to put them to work and to learn how to save ourselves.
“People …like the idea of someone with special powers watching over us, ready to intervene in a crisis and keep us safe from dark forces. The Buddha…spoke of ‘the two bright qualities [that] protect the world’ (dve sukka dhamma lokam palenti—Anguttara Nikaya 2.9). These are Hiri, or conscience, and Ottappa, our respect for others. …
“Today, …the greatest dangers we face now erupt from within our own hearts: human greed, hatred, and delusion, the arch villains that cause so many real-world problems. Greed, the powerful impulse to snatch whatever it can, will take even life itself from the defenseless. Hatred drives us to do unspeakable things to those we view as other. And delusion, so willingly embraced, smothers any insight that might arise about the danger we’re in or the harm we may do. The twin guardians are the crucial allies we have to foil their plots.
“The first hero, Hiri, can be thought of as conscience or self-respect. She… flies into our mental world at the moment when we are considering doing something that we know deep down to be wrong. Hiri is our personal sense of ethical integrity, our moral compass, our intuitive understanding of what is right and wrong, what’s appropriate and what isn’t. She is not a severe critic but a soft, caring voice whispering in our ear and guiding us through our lives with courage and compassion. She saves us from the demons lurking within and stands beside us when we say, ‘No, that is just not right. I will not do it (or say it or think it).’
“Her intrepid ally Ottappa is the elemental force of caring for others and respecting their concerns. It appears on the scene when we’re tempted to do something that is against the laws of propriety, is outside the social norm, or would be condemned by the people we respect. Ottappa draws its strength from the fact that we are social creatures who belong to a family or community, and that our actions are rooted in and accountable to a larger collective order.
“…The Buddha said [Hiri and Ottappa] guard the world, protecting it from getting broken by the onslaught of the worst parts of ourselves. Without them people could act like beasts, ravaging even their own mothers. We all know what atrocities human beings are capable of. For so many victims, Hiri and Ottappa do not always show up in time, held at bay by their nemeses, Ahiri (lack of conscience) and Anottappa (lack of respect). These two anti-heroes are present every time a harmful, cruel, or ignorant deed is done, blocking out the benevolent effects of conscience and respect.
“Fortunately Hiri and Ottappa have other friends, including Sati, or mindfulness, who goes first into every fray and summons the team into action. Sati is conscious awareness of what is happening right now, and Ahiri and Anottappa can only function when such awareness is absent. When people do harm to themselves and others, they are often not aware of what they are doing. They are conscious enough to act, but not conscious enough to be aware of the quality of their actions or of their consequences. Whenever a person musters even a degree of mindfulness, conscience and respect arrive there too, helping them do, say, and think what is helpful rather than what is harmful…”
cited: Andrew Olendzik, Guardians of the World Tricycle, Fall 2017
Nikon D750 f/8 1/50s 145mm 400 ISO
edited in Capture One 20 and Photoshop
sunset
Safer at Home: 8th day plus day 46
this is because that is
Stay at Home Order … day 30 plus 14 seclusion retreat days
everything is connected by causality … and if nothing else, Covid-19 is waking us up to the fact that we are all connected
Brian Boucher, CNN These ancient images of the Buddha are more timely than you think
if one comes across a person who has been shot by an arrow, one does not spend time wondering about where the arrow came from, or the caste of the individual who shot it, or analyzing what type of wood the shaft is made of, or the manner in which the arrowhead was fashioned. Rather, one should focus on immediately pulling out the arrow.
~ The Buddha
Life is short; it must not be spend in endless metaphysical speculations which will not be able to bring us the Truth.
Andres Hedman, Consciousness from a Broad Perspective
“The Buddha’s teachings can be read on many levels … at a fundamental level, all the storytelling was a way of conveying ethical values. One of them is the peaceful coexistence of all life forms, which is very germane today. We’ve wandered dangerously far from that principle in the era of climate change. Referring to the seated Buddha sculpture in San Francisco, which is inscribed with the message that all things are connected by causality (in contrast with the deterministic belief that our fate is out of our hands)… What [the Awakened One] saw when he woke up is that things don’t happen by chance, that everything is connected by causality … and if nothing else, Covid-19 is waking us up to the fact that we are all connected.”
Brian Boucher, CNN These ancient images of the Buddha are more timely than you think
All images created with a Nikon D750
sunset april 23, 2020: f/5.6 1/500 42mm 400 ISO
basketball court: f/5.8 1/800 100mm 400 ISO
spring blossoms: f/5.6 1/160s 300mm 400 ISO
a snakealope
Stay at Home Order … day 19 plus 14 seclusion retreat days
five types of emptiness:
- The emptiness of what did not exist before, pre-existence.
- the lack of yogurt in milk
- The emptiness of what does not exist upon being destroyed, post-existence
- the lack of milk in yogurt
- The emptiness of the utterly non-existent, non-existence
- the lack of horns on a rabbit’s head*
- The emptiness of one not existing in the other, exclusion
- the emptiness of an ox in a horse
- The emptiness of entityness,** separate self existence
- non-inherent existence of all phenomena
*The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore (a fearsome critter) described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns. The word jackalope is a portmanteau of jackrabbit and antelope. … The Wyoming Legislature has considered bills to make the jackalope the state’s official mythological creature. For additional information regarding Wyoming’s jackalope, visit Jackalopes of Wyoming – Myth or Reality?
**Entityness is meant to suggest something that is capable of independent existence.
The emptiness of entityness is like the nonexistence of a human in a cairn that is mistaken from a distance to be a human.
To reflect upon the human body, sensations, sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, thinking, and consciousness one finds each of these are dependent upon contact; for example, ears, bird’s song, and hearing consciousness.
Recommended readings:
D S Lopez, Jr. The Heart Sutra Explained
Red Pine, The Heart Sutra
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Other Shore
cee’s photo challenge: birds
Canadian Geese demonstrating social distancing while reclaiming their freedom to wander…where ever.
Combining Jeff’s isolation project and Cee’s black and white photo challenge: birds with my 30-day photo assignment – same lens camera wide open.
Speaking of Canada, the band Steppenwolf was formed in Toronto, and have always been regarded as pioneers of Canadian rock.
Please be safe. Breathe, smile, and seek out factual, non-emotive, and reliable information resources…
