New Forms

Lulu gave me a lesson on her sewing machine which I've borrowed.

I made two of these forms as pillows. Organic cotton. Organic wool stuffing.

A Mac Called Walden

 

I bought this Mac for £50 a couple of years ago from an architecture practice in Islington. It was acquired to help my son edit his skateboard videos on DV. I have my fully legal, permanent licenses of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects CS6 installed on it. Also installed are fully legal licenses of Final Cut Studio and Cinema 4D Studio. I made animations and videos for years with nothing more.

Bob Zero

Professor Robert Thurman

On Monday 3rd I followed up an invitation which came from Tibet House to attend a presentation at the House of Commons. Given by Professor Robert Thurman it was celebrating the life of the Dalai Lama, his friend and mentor since the early sixties.

In relation to my study of the counterculture, back in the USA from India in 1967, Thurman was present at Timothy Leary's LSD commune Millbrook. Renouncing his monk status for the purpose, he married the German-Swedish model and psychotherapist Nena von Schlebrügge, who was divorced from Leary. The couple are still together.

I have a copy of Jack Kerouac's "Wake Up" which Thurman authored an introduction to, and his translation of "The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti". Both were very useful in writing "Retreat" the former because it gives an educated Buddhist commentary for Kerouac's account of the life of The Buddha; the latter because it focuses on the sickness of Vimalakirti and the Buddhist response to illness. Before the start of the event I asked Thurman whether he would mind signing my copy of his book "Essential Tibetan Buddhism."

I'm a huge fan of Thurman's and so it was a big kick for me to meet him and be in his presence. Previously I had attended an online talk organised by Jeffrey Mishlove at which Jeffrey very sweetly introduced me to Thurman, and was able to ask a question about the counterculture. Thurman recommended that I read Curtis White's book "Transcendent", which I did, and when I met him on Monday was able to say that I done so.

I can't think of a more intoxicating speaker than "Bob" as he likes to be referred. Thurman is at once completely hilarious and entirely profound. At Mishlove's event, the carousel of laughter and nuttiness entirely derailed what I think Jeffrey was expecting was going to be a sincere discussion about Buddhism. And it was the same at the House of Commons, the room which was arranged by the Scottish MP Chris Law had apparently never been so full.

Inscription from 682-3 AD containing the first known zero.

The highlight for me was Thurman's discourse on zero - which he points out first appeared in Hindu mathematics before it was adopted by the Arabs. He'd evidently read the manuscript of William Dalrymple's book "The Golden Road", which he recommends, and he presented what is the most succinct and coherent description of the Buddhist conception of nothingness - Śūnyatā - that I've heard.

What NOTHING represents, Thurman said, was not a void, but INTERCONNECTEDNESS. Talk about light bulb moments! This enabled me to get my head around the concept better than anything else I've come across.

 This is how I articulated it in my own notes to myself:

ZERO as that plane of mutuality upon which all things rest. You subtract something from itself and what are you left with in its absence? Not NOTHING! The field of interrelations remains.

This led me to other thoughts about the nature of the number zero. When you add a 0 to 1 to create 10, 100, 1000 etc - you invoke the invisible architecture of the field of relations. The number zero is like scaffolding - not the edifice itself - but something which, without its presence, the edifice would not stand up.

The Razor's Edge

 

 

[Includes spoilers.] 

 

W. Somerset Maugham's "Razor's Edge" (1944) was referred to continually in my research for "Retreat". There was a lot of literature that wasn't explicitly about health which I had to avoid for the sake of focus. But in January 2019 I bought a copy; and it sat on my shelf for six years.

 

In the main I am a non-fiction reader. I'll enjoy some fiction, but as a rule I feel like I'm wasting time with it. There is a certain type of fiction, however, which transcends fantasy and ends up having a socio-historical effect. With "Retreat" the examples would be Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums", Herman Hesse's "Siddhartha", or Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Each of those three books defined a sensibility and a way of understanding the world.

 

How everyday philosophy and pop psychology are a hair's breadth away from fiction is epitomised by another book which I read, Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan". Purporting to be a documentary report of the author's interaction with a Yaqui shaman, it turned out to be completely made up. However, its effect on culture and people's lives was very real.

 

I would direct the reader to Maharshi scholar and disciple David Godman's excellent article for details on the interaction between the English Somerset Maugham and the Indian guru Ramana Maharshi. A number of Englishmen are mooted as being models for the character Larry Darrell who is so fascinated by vedic philosophy: Maharshi disciple Guy Hague, the author Christopher Isherwood, and (improbably) the scurrilous diarist Henry "Chips" Channon. Darrell is a composite. Yes, the Vedas and Buddhism came to America as early as Vivekananda's Chicago's 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions - but the English too were early adopters of these revolutionary ideas.

 

I'm so glad that I eventually read it! I thoroughly enjoyed it in a way I can't remember being so transfixed and delighted by a book since I picked up Philip K Dick's "Valis" in the nineties. I only wished I had read it sooner. In its remarkable way it sets the spiritual impulse of "the seeker" Larry Darrell against the background of affluent society. This lends perspective on both. Indeed for much of the book Larry is like a black hole at the writing's periphery. Arguably the novel works at its best that way, even if the commentary on the Vedas itself isn't too shabby. And as much as Larry is a great advertisement for the esoteric vedic values, it is the author Somerset Maugham, who plays himself as a character in the book, who holds all the cards.

 

Rather than using Larry's stringent high-mindedness to entirely undermine more obviously superficial characters like the mercurial Isabel or highfalutin' Elliot, Somerset Maugham sees them all as actors on a stage. A part of me came away thinking that Elliot, fixated upon the motion of high society, wasn't so ridiculous really - he had his own karma. Critically though, Larry is granted respect on an equal footing with those people obsessed with status and wealth, even if he has his own foibles (evangelically plotting to rescue Sophie), or blind spots (not acknowledging how his own wealth underwrites his spiritual journey). Certainly since the nineteen eighties, anyone on such a path has been eyed with fear, suspicion, and contempt - so it is both salutary and encouraging to read this powerful story.

 

It's a pity that both the movies made of "The Razor's Edge" are stodgy with wooden dialogue - but what can we expect? If you have read the book too, I'm very glad for us.

The Hollow Earth Blog

 

I recently attended an induction for a social volunteering program. Our group of twenty people was asked to create a board which defined who they were to introduce themselves. This is what I came up with. We only had a few minutes in which to pull it together, and in the way of things that created a bit of clarity.

I'm definitely entering a new phase of life, and many changes are afoot over the coming year. With the book, "The Garden", out of the way, I thought this was a good moment to step back from what I was doing with Sick Veg. I've blogged here at Hollow Earth before and so I thought I would resurrect it. Blogging is something I enjoy doing. It is the lowest rung on the ladder in today's social media landscape.

I've spent the past twelve years, since I started on my Vitamin C animation in 2013, working on a series of monster projects. Having put so much out, where I'm at right now is I have to quietly attend to the fabric of my own life. It's going to be interesting.