Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0507310351370.19999@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: X-Ray Fuji
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 03:52:08 -0400 (EDT)
X-Ray Fuji Fuji remains down to the silver grain; the original is sharp. But the grain dissipates; it refuses the exhaustion that height and brea/d/th can bring. As for beauty, it is only skin deep. The skin is plastic; the sheen is digital; the skin is digitized; the sheen spreads analogically across the memory of skin and its absence. The x-ray is plastic protrusion; its sheen is digital; the bones are digitized. Buddha would visit the house of this woman and clothe her with skin. The woman (who is Buddha) would visit the house of atmosphere, house of air-with-no-harm. http://www.asondheim.org/fuji.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/fuji2.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/skindeep1.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/skindeep2.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/skindeep3.jpg Though we say 'a step', this connotes te whole body; that is to say, the whole body undergoes change; the aggregates of the whole body undergo new births, new growth-and-decays, and new deaths. If a hundred steps or a thousand steps are taken in the course of a walk, then a hundred or a thousand new births, new growth-and-decays, and new deaths take place in the whody. A step may also be divided into two, as the lifting-up aggregate and the laying-down aggregate of the foot. And in each single step, birth, growth-and-decay, and death must be noted. The same holds good with regard to all the postures of the body, such as standing, sitting, sleeping, stretching out, drawing in. Only, what is to be understood here is that all tired, wearied, inflammatory, irritative, painful states are changes in the continua of aggregates produced by temperature. Both in exhaling and inhaling, beginnings, middles and ends are all discernible. The phase of continuance, of stability in the existence of the aggregates, is immediately followed by decay which, in connectioon with such matter, is called exhaustion or weariness. [...] Exposition of Tirana-Parinna The three salient marks or features are: 1. anicca-lakkhana: the mark of impernanence 2. dukkha-lakkhana: the mark of ill 3. anatta-lakkhana: the mark of no-soul. [...] Thus if we look with the mind's eye, the mark of impermanence in all the matter of the whole body will be clearly discerned. - Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw, The Manuals of Buddhism, Bangkok, 1978. (I strongly recommend this work, which is available second-hand online.)