Painting the Dao

137 ak24.90 Water, Pine and Stone Retreat Conversation, No.4 Ink and watercolour on cloud-dragon paper 143 × 79 cm, Hong Kong, November 2024 Six artist seals 水松石山房 Shuisongshi shanfang (Water, Pine and Stone Retreat) 竹虛老人 Zhuxu laoren (Old man as empty inside as bamboo) 墨者不朽 Mozhe buxiu (Let ink be my immortality) 養石閒人 Yangshi xianren (Idler who cherishes stones) 山外山樵 Shanwai shanqiao (Mountain woodcutter who is not in the mountains) 人磨墨墨磨人 Renmomo momoren (Man grinds the ink; ink grinds the man) inscr iption I have sat gazing into the infinite vistas from the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat (once one has excused mundane reality, that is) so long that personality is no longer a necessary presence. Uniting with strange stones, ancient pines and the eternal chatter of friendly falls seems a more revealing self-portrait, which is a relief, since personality, while essential in order to ponder its essence, can be tiresome as one’s only companion. By becoming the water, the pines, the stones, one steps beyond the world of fragments, of distinction, of difference, to become the cosmos and create it anew. In the domain of metaphor in the attempts of the intellect to subsume what lies beyond its reach, Ouroboros serves – the snake eating its own tail to represent the endless cycle of meaning. In the world beyond the fragmentation of metaphor, meaning exists but as undifferentiated unity beyond the words – beyond ‘beyond’, but that cannot be grasped by the intellect, nor taught, it can only be directly experienced. Only the path can be taught. Which is why the dao as a path is wholly different from the Dao as its destination. I am not a Daoist; to define oneself as such seems ultimately an ironic negation of the concept. I am the Dao – No Thing. Unless, of course, I am deluded, and in that case I am nothing. A matter of semantics that has no impact on reality. Meanwhile, beneath the exploring brush I have made myself disappear. Inscribed by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat dancing with meaning at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe in the winter of ’24.