Between Nothingness

"The beauty of wabi-sabi is an 'event,' a turn of mind, not an intrinsic property of things. In other words, the beauty of wabi-sabi 'happens,' it does not reside in objects and/or environments. [...] On a metaphysical level, wabi-sabi is a beauty at the edge of nothingness. That is, a beauty that occurs as things devolve into, or evolve out of, nothingness. Consequently, things wabi-sabi are subtle and nuanced. [...] The beauty of wabi-sabi is rooted in modesty—even poverty—that is elegantly perceived. The aesthetic pleasures of wabi-sabi depend on attitude and practice as much, or more, than on the materiality itself. Subtlety and nuance are at wabi-sabi's heart. Wabi-sabi resides in the inconspicuous and overlooked details, in the minor and the hidden, in the tentative and ephemeral. But in order to appreciate these qualities, certain habits of mind are required: calmness, attentiveness, and thoughtfulness. If these are not present, wabi-sabi is invisible."

- Leonard Koren (1948 - )
Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

Unintended Reflections

"Whenever a thought occurs, be aware of it,
as soon as you are aware of it, it will vanish.
If you remain for a long period forgetful
of objects, you will naturally
become unified. This is the
essential art of zazen."

- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157)
Cultivating the Empty Field:
The Silent Illumination of Zen Buddhist Master Hongzhi

Maya's Veil

"Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya. [...] Maya is neither existence nor non-existence. Both the Niagara Falls and the rainbow are eternally changeable. [...] Nature is Maya. Maya means name and form, into which everything is cast. Maya is not real. We could not destroy it or change it if it were real. The substance is the noumenon, Maya is phenomena. There is the real “me” which nothing can destroy, and there is the phenomenal “me” which is continually changing and disappearing.

...

Maya is not illusion as it is popularly interpreted. Maya is real, yet it is not real. It is real in that the Real is behind it and gives it its appearance of reality. That which is real in Maya is the Reality in and through Maya. Yet the Reality is never seen; and hence that which is seen is unreal, and it has no real independent existence of itself, but is dependent upon the Real for its existence. Maya then is a paradox - real, yet not real, an illusion, yet not an illusion. He who knows the Real sees in Maya not illusion, but reality. He who knows not the Real sees in Maya illusion and thinks it real."

- Swami Vivekananda (1863 - 1902)

Below Above

"Healer and psychopomp, the shaman is these because he commands the techniques of ecstasy - that is, because his soul can safely abandon his body and roam at vast distances, can penetrate the underworld and rise to the sky. Through his own ecstatic experience he knows the roads of the extraterrestrial regions. He can go below and above because he has already been there."

- Mircea Eliade (1907 - 1986)
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy

Gentle Pulsing

"Over this great expanse there is no disturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake! Again the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf and twig and stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered with dew in a spring morning."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Walden

Present Memories

"We do not experience time flowing, or passing. What we experience are differences between our present perceptions and our present memories of past perceptions. We interpret those differences, correctly, as evidence that the universe changes with time. We also interpret them, incorrectly, as evidence that our consciousness, or the present, or something, moves through time."

- David Deutsch (1953 - )
The Fabric of Reality

View Nowhere

"Powerful as it has proven to be, this bleached-out physical conception of objectivity encounters difficulties if it is put forward as the method for seeking a complete understanding of reality. For the process began when we noticed that how things appear to us depends on the interaction of our bodies with the rest of the world. But this leaves us with no account of the perceptions and specific viewpoints which were left behind as irrelevant to physics but which seem to exist nevertheless, along with those of other creatures. Not to mention the mental activity of forming an objective conception of the physical world, which seems not itself capable of physical analysis. Faced with these facts one might think the only conceivable conclusion would be that there is more to reality what can be accommodated by the physical conception of objectivity. But to remarkable numbers of people this has not been obvious. The physical has been so irresistibly attractive, and has so dominated ideas of what there is, that attempts have been made to beat everything into its shape and deny the reality of anything that cannot be so reduced. As a result, the philosophy of mind is populated with extremely implausible positions."

- Thomas Nagel (1937 - )
The View From Nowhere

Original Face

"The Sixth Ancestor was pursued by Ming the head monk as far as Ta-yü Peak. The teacher, seeing Ming coming, laid the robe and bowl on a rock and said, 'This robe represents the Dharma. There should be no fighting over it. You may take it back with you.' Ming tried to lift it up, but it was as immovable as a mountain. Shivering and trembling, he said, 'I came for the Dharma, not for the robe. I beg you, lay brother, please open the Way for me.' The teacher said, 'Don’t think good; don’t think evil. At this very moment, what is the original face of Ming the head monk?' In that instant Ming had great satori. Sweat ran from his entire body. In tears he made his bows saying, 'Beside these secret words and secret meanings, is there anything of further significance?' The teacher said, 'What I have just conveyed to you is not secret. If you reflect on your own face, whatever is secret will be right there with you.' Ming said, 'Though I practiced at Huang-mei with the assembly, I could not truly realize my original face. Now, thanks to your pointed instruction, I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. Lay brother, you are now my teacher.' The teacher said, 'If you can say that, then let us both call Huang-mei our teacher. Maintain your realization carefully.'"

 - Dajian Huineng (638 - 713)
Case 23 of Mumonkan

Nameless Thicket

"Tangled thickets of wiry bushes, without fruit and without a name, springing up among deep fissures of calcined rock, and treacherously masking them; or a parched growth of distorted cactus trees. [...] change never comes; neither the change of seasons nor of sorrows. [...] Like split Syrian gourds left withering in the sun, they are cracked by an everlasting drought beneath a torrid sky."

- Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)
The Encantadas

Nature's Tapestry

"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns,
so that each small piece of her fabric reveals
the organization of the entire tapestry."

- Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)
The Character of Physical Law

Postscript/For readers of my blog who have an interest in physics. I will use this image as a backdrop to segue my way to linking to a truly remarkable history of physics that has recently been made fully open access under a Creative Commons license through the OAPEN Library and Taylor & Francis: Károly Simonyi's A Cultural History of Physics; Amazon and Google have Kindle and eBook versions available, respectively. Before getting to the book itself, what made me think of using this image (which I captured earlier today while on a walk in a local park)? For me, the leaf is a microcosm of nature's fabric, in which the whole is encoded in every part, as Feynman describes. Simonyi's book is essentially an attempt to unweave the tapestry of physics from its individual threads strewn across history. 

I first came across (and eagerly purchased) a hard copy of this book when it was published in the United States in 2012; it is still available for purchase for about $174 in USD. IMHO (as a Ph.D. physicist) this is by far the best single-volume technical and cultural history of physics, emphasizing the interplay between physics and the humanities, but also never shying away from the irreducibly technical nature of the material. It is a rare fortune to have free access to such a treasure! I urge any and all of my readers with even a passing interest in physics to download a copy to savor, read, and study. 

The book includes technical passages, quotations, biographical information, and color plates to enrich the reader's experience. It originated from Simonyi's lecture series, which he began after political circumstances in Hungary forced him out of his academic career. ​Over decades, he revised and expanded the work, which was published in multiple Hungarian and German editions.

Additional note about Simonyi's book. I resonate on a personal level with the story behind how this book came to be (before it was originally published), as described in the book's forward and preface. Much like my mom and I spent the better part of a decade putting together the biography of my dad, the artist (as I've discussed elsewhere on my blog), it was through the efforts of Károly's son, Charles Simonyi (who is also a luminary: Charles led the development of Microsoft's first application software, including early versions of Microsoft Office) that A Cultural History of Physics was published outside of Hungary; indeed, it was Károly Simonyi's long-held dream that this would eventually happen. After his dad passed away in 2001, Charles collaborated with A K Peters (now part of CRC Press) to oversee the translation and publication process. He ensured the English edition was carefully compared to the original Hungarian text to restore its conversational tone and authenticity, provided additional material and support for the project and to the publishers, translators, editors, and family members who contributed to the book's release in the United States. ​