buddhist monks

Between March and September 2019 I painted a number of ‘Monks’, both ‘Zen’ as well as ‘Tibetan’. The meditating monks are brought back to triangles, the most stable position to sit in mediation; in Zen-Buddhism this is called ‘zazen‘, meaning ‘just sit’. In some of the paintings, sometimes a little hidden, I used stamps, which I did cut in linoleum; they are reading Tibetan calligraphy prayers, mantras or sentences from sutras

Buddhism, especially Zen-Buddhism, has my personal interest. But as a painter I am more interested in Tibetan Buddhism, for its colorful expression / form. On the other hand there is my engagement with the Tibetan people, who since October 7th 1950 suffer under Chinese rules and see their culture, their language, religion and sovereignty broken down, their mines emptied and their water polluted by the Chinese government.

Buddhist meditation, performed by monks and nuns and many lay men and women, is an expression of ‘BEING in‘ in the world. I guess this is just what Buddhist meditation is all about….

In Buddhism 108 is a holy number, you may see it in the large painting called ‘108 Tibetan Lamas chanting Refuge Prayer‘, as well as in the painting called ‘die Himmelsleiter‘, German for ‘Ladder to Heaven’, which counts 108 rungs.

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