Fossilized Marvin

"Sorry, did I say something wrong? said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life.

...

Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned,

Now the world has gone to bed,

Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see in infrared,
How I hate the night.
He paused to gather the artistic and
emotional strength to tackle the next verse.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Try to count electric sheep,
Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
How I hate the night.
...

The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."

- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
Hitchiker's Guide to The Galaxy

Photographer's note. This is an "old" image from a trip my wife I took to Niagara Falls, Canada a little over two years ago. I stumbled across it by accident while searching for something else on my hard drive, but now can't stop "seeing" it as some absurd Douglas-Adams-esque fossilization of Marvin-the-Robot - and I bet that now you won't be able to either 😊:

Original Realization

"Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles in the world of phenomena in the ten directions all engage in buddha activity, those who receive the benefits of the wind and water are inconceivably helped by the buddha's transformation, splendid and unthinkable, and intimately manifest enlightenment. Those who receive these benefits of water and fire widely engage in circulating the buddha's transformation based on original realization."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)
 Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Geometry Made Visible

"Architecture is geometry made visible
in the same sense that music
is number made audible."

- Claude F. Bragdon (1866 - 1946)

More Than the Mind Knows

"'Standing in the presence of' must be different than 'spirit taking over.' In the former I photograph my own blocks, veils, abstractions, etc. I know nothing of the latter. ... Be still with yourself. To establish condition - concentration heightened awareness with a still body and active mind ... To stand in the presence of... projection - empathy - to awareness of object and self ... Previsualization. (Become a camera. Let subject generate its own composition or impose, knowingly, yourself. when the subject presents itself as its own photograph.) Subject for what it is. Subject for what else it is ... [Written in upper margin: 'while holding firm to object and self-previsualizing its transformation as a photograph.] ... During a moment of rapport let recognition trigger exposure. Recognition of what? The thing for what it is (surface appearance and let the viewer go on if he wishes). Things for what else they are: A) inner truth or essence B) mirror of self. This means to do this at seeing prior [to] exposure and again at the instant of exposure ... The eye and the camera see more than the mind knows. Photo not understood fully at exposure. Sense of desiring of self and/or of world (by including heart and soul). Beyond verbal and visual, beyond this recognizable image rapport with spirit or depth [of] mind ... (Above delete this because it may become another Canon. Make each photograph a prayer.) ... Once a photo is a mirror of the man and man a mirror of the world, spirit may take over. Make each photo a prayer."

- Minor White (1908 - 1976)
Minor White, Memorable Fancies

Beyond Distinctions

Nishida Kitarō "...often sought to return (not reduce) oppositions and distinctions to the non-differentiated condition that underlies them, ultimately to the nothingness that gives rise to (or determines itself as) various distinctions. Although terms translating as 'ground' or 'foundation' are found throughout his works, this emphasis undermines any recourse to a founding principle or entity wholly transcendent to, and thus ultimately different from, the world or reality. 'Absolute nothingness' may be understood as the lack of any positively definable transcendent ground. When for example Nishida writes 'absolute nothingness transcends all that is, but at the same time all that is arises through it,' we may interpret him as pointing to an undifferentiated source beyond the distinctions it gives rise to, a source that is necessarily entailed by their being brought together precisely as distinct from one another."

- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Entry on Nishida Kitarō (1870 - 1945)

Returning to the Source

"Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away."

 - Tao Te Ching, Chapter 16

Poetry and Grace

"Things are either devolving toward,
or evolving from, nothingness.

...

Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.

...

The closer things get to nonexistence,
the more exquisite and evocative they become.
Consequently to experience wabi-wabi means
you have to slow way down,
be patient, and look
very closely."

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

Elaborate Complexity

"We have a way of discussing the world, when we talk of it at various hierarchies, or levels ... For example, at one end we have the fundamental laws of physics. Then we invent other terms for concepts which are approximate, which have, we believe, their ultimate explanation in terms of the fundamental laws ... if we go higher up from this, in another level we have properties of substances- like "refractive index" ... or "surface tension" ... As we go up in this hierarchy of complexity, we get to things like muscle twitch, or nerve impulse, which is an enormously complicated thing in the physical world, involving an organization of matter in a very elaborate complexity. Then come things like "frog" ... And then ... we come to words and concepts like "man", and "history", or "political expediency", and so forth, a series of concepts which we use to understand things at an ever higher level. And going on, we come to things like evil, and beauty, and hope ... Which end is nearer to God ... beauty and hope, or the fundamental laws? ... I do not think either end is nearer to God. To stand at either end, and to walk off that end of the pier only, hoping that out in that direction is the complete understanding, is a mistake. And to stand with evil and beauty and hope, or to stand with the fundamental laws, hoping that way to get a deep understanding of the whole world, with that aspect alone, is a mistake. ... The great mass of workers in between, connecting one step to another, are improving all the time our understanding of the world, both from working at the ends and working in the middle, and in that way we are gradually understanding this tremendous world of interconnecting hierarchies."

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

Nature Gazing Upon Itself

"Thus, when we look out at the world,
we are nature gazing upon itself."

- Philip Toshio Sudo (1959 - 2002)
Zen 24/7: All Zen, All the Time

Glorious Light

 "Light! Oh, how lovely, how sublime art thou!
The purest creature of the Almighty's hand,
Which human eyes behold! ...
Through unexplored immensity stretch'd out,
Perchance outspread to infinite extent
From this dark ball up to the throne of God?
O glorious Light ! how welcome to the eye !
How cheering to the earth! without thy smile,
All nature's face one pallid hue would wear,
All living things would droop, despair, and die
And this fair frame of being back return
To that chaotic state in which it lay,
Ere shone the sun, or with creative voice,
God said 'Let there be light!' - And light there was.
...
Form, though a palpable presence of—is still
A creature of the element of light;
A thing that offers converse to the eye,
And definition of all actual bulk.
By shape alone, whatever we regard
As beauty's line, through every mazy change,
With infinite delight the mind proceeds.
Nor merely man to perfect stature wrought
Nor beasts, birds, streams, mountains, fields, or trees
Nor sculptor's art, nor limner's, only please
But simplest lines and curves, transposed and join'd,
Attract, and fix the mind with wondrous charms,
As, if in the solution of their laws,
Or midst their combinations manifold,
The secret of man's happiness lay hid."

- John Holland (1794 - 1872)
Pleasures of Sight