David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


10 March 2022

After all, what's a good meta- for?


Yesterday :
Ouroborology : a quantum wave as a mythical snake.

Today :
The Chan Master as Ilusionist : 
Zhongfeng Mingbe's Huanzhu Jiaxun 

by NATASHA HELLER 
University of Califonia, Los Angeles 

One day when the illusory man was occupying an illusory room, resting on an illusory seat and grasping an illusory whisk, his illusory disciples came and gathered like a cloud. Someone asked, "Why is the pine tree straight? Why are brambles crooked? Why is the swan white and the crow black?" 
-  Tianmu Zhonfeng heshang guanglu

WHEN THE YUAN-DYNASTY monk Zhongfeng Mingben ( 1263-1323), or his literary stand-in, "the illusory man" (huanren), picked up what he termed his "illusory whisk" (huanfu) at the beginning of his "Huanzhu Jiaxun"  (The family instructions of "Illusory Abiding"), he evoked the performance of the Chan master and the intellectual history of the metaphor "illusion." ...


Theatre of the Actors of Regard   
 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
 someone looks at something...
   
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