Free Easy Wandering

Integration

marking four

Embarking together on a journey, Monkey learns how to integrate his absymal passion with serenity. Sage, on the other hand, illuminates and clarifies Monkey's possibilities without trying to outshine them through the light of his wisdom.

Isolation

marking one

Having abandoned enlightenment, Monkey lives in isolation with an insatiable appetite for all kinds of temporary distractions. As such his erratic thinking obstructs his breathing, making it difficult for him to live with clarity and grace. Desperate to find a way out of the situation, he asks for help and Sage appears.

Tolerance

marking three

Monkey and Sage begin to enjoy a more inclusive sense of interaction with the environment, and their passion and serenity begin to entwine.
They discover tolerance, which encourages them to express themselves more openly, without losing sight of their unique differences.

Discrimination

marking five

Working their way to a central peak in the mountains where passion and serenity thoughtfully and selflessly entwine, Monkey and Sage discriminate among many paths to find one that will help them reach the summit.

Duality

marking one

Monkey and Sage meet, but do not see eye to eye. Sage thinks that Monkey is egotistical and unprincipled. Monkey thinks that Sage is idealistic and impractical. When they relax their positions of passion and serenity, the air is cleared for intimacy.

PHASE ONE: RELATING WITH AUTONOMY

Unconditional Relaxation

marking six

Arriving at the summit, Monkey and Sage relax unconditionally. So doing, they become a Cultivator, with the meditative freedom of relating with aloneness.

PHASE TWO: RELATING WITH ALONENESS

Oneness With Space

marking seven

A Cultivator imagines the inexpressible meditative space that is not-thinking. In this inky space of equality, a Cultivator's imaginal eye slowly discerns the interdependence of thinking (passion) and meditation (not-thinking serenity).

Demonstration of Great Order

marking eight, 16” X 24,” acrylic on paper © 1992

A Cultivator has direct experience of the involutionary and evolutionary structure of the body-mind. Through right order in the four parcels of the breath cycle of inhalation and exhalation, a Cultivator sees the nonduality of passion (thinking) and serenity (meditation) in and through non- or right thinking.

Being and Acting As The Center of the Universe

marking nine, 18” X 18,” acrylic on paper © 1992

Identifying with the manifesting body of expressive meditation, a Cultivator enjoys being here and now cast-off/utmost exertion. A Cultivator becomes an immortal Hsien, which initiates the final phase of the journey, the freedom of relating with detachment.

Immortality

A Hsien realizes that from the very beginning there is only the whole body of empty space hanging in empty space.

Living Concretely at the Heart of Nature–yin expression

Without cause or agenda, a Hsien incubates the unconstrained power and intelligence of interior and exterior space.

Living Concretely at the Heart of Nature–yang expression

marking eleven

The gates of emptiness wide open, a Hsien flies in all directions simultaneously, his action a purposeless and meaningless dance without any residue of desire.

Price: $18,000

Nonduality

marking twelve

Practice-enllightenment cast-off/totally exerted, a Hsien meets everyone on the Way with the skillful means of entire being.

PHASE THREE: RELATING WITH DETACHMENT

Free and Easy Wandering: Markings On The Way is indebted to a Taoist allegory of nonduality, as well as to the nondual view of existence-time/Buddha-nature-impermanence in Dogen's Zen. While its three phases of experience – "Relating With Autonomy," "Relating With Aloneness," and "Relating With Detachment" – might suggest a progressive path, from delusion to enlightenment, enlightenment and delusion are intimately entwined as one-taste emptiness.

richard stodart free and easy wandering: markings on the way