The Many Arms of Humanity

Much of the art that I end up creating is

inspired by the words that I am reading.

This image arrived immediately after reading the following paragraph:

"So what is wrong with you? Are you a freak? No. You are just human. And you suffer from the same malady that infects every human being. It is a monster inside all of us, and it has many arms: chronic tension, lack of genuine compassion for others, including the people closest to you, blocked up feelings and emotional deadness - many many arms..."

from the very first few pages of Bhante Henepola Gunaratana's book Mindfulness in Plain English, (it is now available as a free download here, if you are interested!) The first chapter is titled Meditation: Why Bother?

I don't really need any convincing,

when it comes to why I should bother -

though follow through, in a formal manner,

isn't always consistent!

It helps free me

taking me deeply within

to better know myself,

past my self;

into the world,

past the world;

into a universe

where

the arms of humanity have no hold

beyond the beyond...

The Many Arms of Humanity

12" x 10.5" / 30.5cm x 26.5cm

When you meditate, invite yourself to feel the self-esteem,

the dignity, and strong humility of the Buddha that you are.

Sogyal Rinpoche

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On a separate topic, that I'm excited about but keep forgetting to share, last week I still hadn't fully gone through my Sunday NY Times, but I had been blog catching up, and while visiting Debra Eck's blog I was alerted to The Holy Grail of the Unconscious - a feature from last Sunday's the NY Times Magazine.

It's all about Carl Jung's Red Book:

The most exciting thing to me is that the original book will be displayed October 7th -January 15th at The Rubin Musem of Art, which is always worth a trip - but for this? A special one, or maybe even more!! In the mean time, you can pre-order the reproduction of this book will be available in December - my wish list has been updated :)