CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (99)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Orientation and Significance 導向與意義

Posted November 10, 2021

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Bill Reid, Dog Salmon, silk screen print from THE SALMON – CANADA’s PLEA FOR A THREATENED SPECIES . . . five portfolios designed by Robert R. Reid for presentation at the 1974 United Nations Law of the Sea Conference, Caracas, Venezuela. [Commission: Environment Canada, Fisheries and Marine Service, Ottawa.]
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Art is a genuinely human medium for revolutionary change in the sense of completing the transformation from a sick world to a healthy one. In my opinion only art is capable of doing it.
— Joseph Beuys (1982)
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bill bissett

(2021)

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writing n painting is my life he sd

as well as life is he addid realizing a
fullr implikaysyun uv his first statement
was it th ride thru dsperaysyun pass th
ride n sojourn at desolaysyun sound in
handcuffs sum sd life cudint happn that
way but it did n duz running th gamut from
hektors laneway n th artifice n th orafice oftn
requird as yu embrace th life yr not living
2 fall asleep well within th breething tapestree
falling in2 all th aztek lettrs weev making home
4 th nite gravitee still holding n yu dont get
suckd out th veree small above yr shouldrs
windo th liquid e poetree melting in yr aura
all th storeez in th lettrs around yu surround
yr breething n its th rest time blessing th
magik all th way its wundrful 4 evreething
n not careing abt th line not developd or 4gottn
in th transmissyun its rememberd heer can yu
find it humming it in th deepning dark 2 th tune
uv th melodee uv have

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” … ‘Five Steps’ …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.
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The Buddha-mind is calm in the Great Void.
— Kukai (Kobo Daishi: d. 835 CE)

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HERE ONE IS

Mokurai

(2018)

There (once again)
something suggested
a refusal to comply.

Complication?

Start again.

Refutation?

Not yet.

And here the advance.

To succeed?
No (perhaps never).
And/then not again.

Yet what ‘if’ is neither
evermore or more
and more and more?

And when will implication
ever be more than merely
transformed (as such)
into more than ‘never’ …
complete and true?

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9Smil

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (98)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Orientation and Significance 導向與意義

Posted November 4, 2021

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Jain Tirthankara in Meditation – India (Gujarat or Rajasthan), first half of the 11th century. Marble. H. 39 in. (95 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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Curatorial Record:
At the heart of daily Jain religious observation is the veneration of the image of the jina, the conceptual basis of which is the pan-Indian ideal of the yogic ascetic. This ancient practice, celebrated in the Vedas (the most ancient Hindu texts), equates the acquisition of spiritual wisdom with the pursuit of advanced forms of meditation and withdrawal from material comforts. In Jainism, the twenty-four liberated souls who are recognized as having attained this elevated state are worshipped as tirthankaras (ford crossers).

This jina-tirthankara, seated on a bejeweled throne cushion, was probably intended to represent Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, a near contemporary of the Buddha Shayamuni/Gautama Buddha in the fifth century BCE.
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“… ‘Looking’ … ‘Deeply’ …”. Photo [Nitobe Memorial Garden, UBC, Vancouver]: M. Cynog-Evans.

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You should be attentive today,

For waiting until tomorrow is too late.

— Gautama Buddha

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(NO) CHANGING (?)

Mokurai

2020

for self-isolation to be (become)

becoming … as well as having

been useful (usefully used) …

with poise and poignancy (if

purposive): the borders of ‘right

and wrong’ must be ‘returned and

reported’ … at the verge of ‘least

and most likely’ … in momentous

(unfathomable) meanings of every

contradictory self-aggrandizement:

there … beyond ‘equal and the same’.

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Look at the universe as universe.

How do I know the universe is like this?

By looking!

— Lao Tzu (sixth century BCE)

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (97)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Orientation and Significance 導向與意義

Posted October 27, 2021

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Guo Xi, Early Spring – hanging scroll,

ink and light colour on silk – completed 1072. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

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Jacques Ellul (1988):

I believe that life has meaning. We are not on earth by chance; we do not come from nowhere to go nowhere. That is a statement; it cannot be proved. Meaning implies both orientation and significance. Not every event or act or word has meaning, but everything is set in that orientation and signification.

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Push far enough towards the Void,

Hold fast enough to Quietness,

And of the ten thousand things none but can be worked on by you.

— Laozi (sixth century BCE)

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Alexandra Witze, Nature (London), 5 January 2021

Will increasing traffic to the moon contaminate its precious ice?

With its lunar-sample-return mission [December 2020], China kicked off a new surge in visitors to the moon. At least eight spacecraft from nations including Russia, China, Japan and the United States are set to touch down on the lunar surface in the next three years.

For the first time ever, several of the upcoming missions will explore some of the Moon’s scientifically intriguing, yet sensitive areas – those at the poles. Researchers are excited about studying water that lies frozen in shadowed craters in these regions. But they’re also worried that increased traffic to the moon might contaminate the very ice they want to study.

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Ma Lin (c. 1185 – after 1260), Scholar Resting and Watching Rising Clouds – album leaf, ink on silk. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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Curatorial Record:

Artists of the Southern Song Academy were often trained in illustrating poetry. Here, Ma Lin responds to a poem by Tang poet Wang Wei (701 – about 761): “I walk unto where waters end—And sit down to watch when clouds arise.”

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Untouched Resource

Mokurai

2021

from there and then and

all at once partial again …

somewhere/somewhat (so)

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” … “Angle of Totality” … Autumn …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans, 2019.

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Activity expressing the ancient road,

I don’t fall into passivity.

— Chan/Zen master Kyogen (d. 898 CE)

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Tea bowl with Crescent Moon, Clouds, and Blossoming Plums—stoneware painted with white slip on brown glaze (Seto ware). Japan, 17th century.

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A BLACK BLOT

Hedd Wyn

(d. 1917)

The stars are never ours owned,

And too the mood-creating moon,

And a gold-washed cloud bathed

Amid a vast blue blueness.

We have no right to anything

Upon the ancient aged Earth,

And she is but chaos mere

Within bright Illumination.

[Translated from the Welsh by Mokurai and M. Cynog-Evans.]

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Nitobe Memorial Garden – 26 October 2021. Photo: Ryo Sugiyama.

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MEMO

From:

Ryo Sugiyama, Curator, Nitobe Memorial Garden, University of British Columbia (Vancouver).

To:

CAUSA Research Curators

Re:

‘Mount Fuji’ Cherry Tree:

All the leaves will be gone in the next few days.

26.10.21.

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Northrop Frye

(1968)

Time is what enables being to appear as the world, and the world is eternity so far as we see it extended in space. But time itself is also death and illusion, the power that carries everything into nothingness. . . . As the world is what we see of eternity, the rest of eternity, the world of death that we cannot see and so assume to have been annihilated, is mostly the part of it that has been carried away by time.

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“Not all sounds can be produced.”

— Guo Xiang (d. 312 CE)

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NATIVE (sonic meditation by Pauline Oliveros), 1974:

Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (96)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

CONVERGENCE/DIFFUSION 匯合/擴散

Posted October 20, 2021

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Mahaprajnaparamitra Sutra *

Buddha said, “Basic ignorance does not exist inside of us nor outside of us nor elsewhere or inside and outside of us. It does not come from the previous life nor go away to the next life. It is neither born nor perishes. But basic ignorance exists, and basic ignorance causes everything of the phenomenal world. When basic ignorance is exterminated, everything of the phenomenal world will be exterminated too.

* This is often the first sutra within the different versions of the Chinese Buddhist Canon

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Ernst Bloch

(1959)

Man everywhere is still living in prehistory, and all and everything stands before the creation of the world, as a right one. True genesis is not at the beginning, but at the end, and it starts to begin only when society and existence become radical, that is grasp themselves by their roots. But the root of history is the working, creating human being who reshapes and overhauls the given facts.

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When we see truly, there is nothing [no thing] at all.

— Zen master Yoka Genkaku (d. 713 CE)

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EcoWatch

October 13, 2014

The waste electrical and electronic equipment forum, or WEE forum, has published an alarming statistic.

In 2021, human beings will discard an estimated 57.4 million tonnes of electronic waste. That waste will outweigh the Great Wall of China, the world’s heaviest known construction.

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‘Mt. Fuji‘ Cherry Tree + Coyote—18 October 2021.

Photo: Ryo Sugiyama, Curator, Nitobe Memorial Garden, University of British Columbia (Vancouver).

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Katharine Hayhoe, atmospheric scientist and chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy

2021

We have built a civilization based on a world that doesn’t exist anymore. . . . We’ve never seen the climate change this fast so we don’t understand the non-linear effects.

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Don’t ignore cause and effect.

— Zen/Chan master Dahui Zenggao (d. 1163)

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bill bissett

2021

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (95)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

CONVERGENCE/DIFFUSION 匯合/擴散

Posted October 14, 2021

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Autumn Landscape, by Lü Ji (d. 1279 CE).Hanging scroll – ink and colour on silk. Collection: The Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Curatorial Record:
A professional painter from Zhejiang [a province in eastern China], Lü Ji produced scrolls in a Southern Song ink-wash style.
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Japan Today

[Tokyo]

October 13, 2021

BEIJING—During a key UN conservation summit on Tuesday [China Standard Time], China pledged to inject $323 million dollars into a new fund to protect biodiversity in developing countries.

Beijing –the world’s worst polluter– has sought to play a more prominent role internationally on biodiversity in recent years.

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” … ‘Uji/Being-Time‘ …”. Photo [Nitobe Memorial Garden, UBC, Vancouver]: M. Cynog-Evans.

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Just actualize all time as all being; there is nothing extra.

— Eihei Dogen (1240)

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Mushrooms on Mars

Mokurai

2021

of no interest

if (when) as if (out of reach)

… neither null nor not

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (94)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

CONVERGENCE/DIFFUSION 匯合/擴散

Posted October 7, 2021

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” … ‘Being-Time’ …”. Photo [Nitobe Memorial Garden, UBC, Vancouver]: M. Cynog-Evans.
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The mind and the word are equally being-time. Their reaching and not-reaching are being-time. Even when the time of their reaching is not over, the time of their not-reaching is come.
— Eihei Dogen (1246)
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bill bissett

2021

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China Could Mount Full-Scale Invasion by 2025, Taiwan Defence Minister Says

The Guardian, 6 October 2021

China will be ready to mount a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025, the island’s defense minister has said, describing current tensions as the worst in 40 years.

. . .

Speaking to the China Times [Taipei] on Wednesday, Chiu Kuo-cheng said China was capable now but would be completely prepared to launch an invasion in three years.

. . .

Beijing claims Taiwan as a province of China and has vowed to retake it, by force if necessary, and accuses the democratically elected government of being separatists. Taiwan’s government says it is a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence.

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Incarnate Cosmos

Mokurai

23.01.21.

Start with the sun, and the rest

will slowly, slowly happen.

— D.H. Lawrence

composed in (a) disarray …

with (the) prepositional

sense of (some) proportional

proposition of (an) ‘and’

if not (just) yet a ‘no more’ …

incomplete/unfinish(ed) …

finitude can(not) connect

time and tide (and) back again

without (some) reach/retraction

that (still) moves itself onward …

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (93)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Form and Actuality 形象與現實

Posted September 29, 2021

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How many satellites are orbiting Earth?

Supriya Chakraberti [Professor of Physics and director of the Center for Space Science and Technology, University of Massachusetts, Lowell]

20 September 2021

Since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik—the first human-made satellite—in 1957, humanity has steadily been putting more and more objects into orbit every year. Over the second half of the 20th century, there was a slow and steady growth, with roughly 60 to 100 satellites launched yearly until the 2010s.

But since then the pace has been increasing dramatically.

As of September 16 [2021], roughly 1,400 new satellites have already begun circling the Earth, and that will only increase as the year goes on.

The majority of satellites are used for observing Earth and for communications and internet.

. . .

With the huge growth in satellites, fears of a crowded sky are starting to come true. A day after SpaceX launched its first 60 Starlink satellites [this week], astronomers began to see them blocking out the stars.

. . .

As low-Earth orbit gets crowded, concern about space debris increases, as does a real possibility of collisions.

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Time-Being (Own-Being)

Mokurai

(2021)

thoroughly thorough …

(t)here … and k(now)n all at once

(again) … this with that

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” … ‘Planet Polluto’ …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

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I truthfully believe that the book of philosophy is the one which is permanently open before our eyes; but because it is written in different characters from those of our alphabet it cannot be read by everyone: and the characters of this book are triangles, squares, circles, spheres, cones, pyramids and other mathematical figures which are highly suited for just such a reading.

— Galileo (1641)

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We are on the edge of an abyss.

— Antonio Guterres (21 September, 2021)

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (92)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Form and Actuality 形象與現實

Posted September 24, 2021

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An atmospheric test conducted by the United States at Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, on 1 November 1952.
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UN News
UN Chief appeals for countries to sign nuclear test-ban treaty

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday [23 September 2021] again urged eight key countries which have not yet signed or ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), to do so without delay.

His request came in remarks to the latest conference to promote the treaty’s entry into force, which were delivered by UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu.
The CTBT was adopted in 1996 and has been signed by 185 countries, and ratified by 170 of them, including three nuclear-holding states: France, Russia and the United Kingdom.
However, for the Treaty to come into force, it must be signed and ratified by 44 specific nuclear technology holder countries, eight of which have yet to ratify the Treaty: China, Egypt, India, Israel, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Pakistan and the United States.
“We have remained in this state of limbo for too long,” he said.
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J. G. Ballard

(1974)

Will modern technology provide us with hitherto undreamed-of means for tapping our own psychopatholgies? Is this harnessing of our innate perversity conceivably of benefit to us? Is there some deviant logic unfolding more powerful than that provided by reason?

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (91)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Form and Actuality 形象與現實

Posted September 17, 2021

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” … ‘Basically Perfect’…”. Photo [Nitobe Memorial Garden Probe]: M. Cynog-Evans.

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Bodhidharma * (flourished 6th century CE):

To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.
* According to tradition, this Buddhist monk is credited with establishing the Zen branch of Mahayana Buddhism.

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Outside World

Mokurai

2020

In a memory back not far

Or less than that upon a star

There could remain another wish

Flung far too far for the self(ish)

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MEMO

to CAUSA

from Gary Lee-Nova

12 September 2021

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Subject: Spelling & Casting

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♟*♟*♟*♟*♜*♞*♝*♛*♚*♝*♞*♜*♟*♟*♟*♟

1. Spelling

Learn How To Spell.

2. Casting

Learn How To Cast.

3. Learn How To Cast Spells.

4. Cast Spells.

♟*♟*♟*♟*♜*♞*♝*♛*♚*♝*♞*♜*♟*♟*♟*♟

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Watanabe Seitei (Japan, 1851-1918), Birds on a Branch – watercolour on paper. The Clarke Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Provenance: Edgar Degas, Paris.

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Richard Huelsenbeck, Forme dada, 1945. Gouache on paper on board.

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Bertrand Russell

(1956)

I think the perceptual world is part of the physical world. I do not think that the physical world consists of bits of matter. I think that a bit of matter is a logical construction which Physicists used to find convenient and it is a construction made up of events. […] The world is full of all sorts of events and sometimes two events have their relation to each other which is called ‘one of them knowing the other’. Sometimes this relation is a direct one, and sometimes it proceeds by intermediaries. These cases differ in the same way in which PARENT differs from ANCESTOR.

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CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (90)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西)

Form and Actuality 形象與現實

Posted September 9, 2021

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Mari Yamaguchi, Japan Today Newsletter, September 7, 2021

TOKYO — Japan’s defense minister on Monday [September 6, 2021] welcomed the British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth as it made its first Japanese port of call, saying the involvement of European nations in the Indo-Pacific region is key to peace and stability as China’s military strength and influence grows.

. . .

The Queen Elizabeth participated in a joint exercise with warships from the United States, the Netherlands, Canada and Japan before arriving [at the U. S. Navy Base] in Yokosuka [near Tokyo].

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