Painting the Dao

149 ak24.109 Clinging to Indifference Ink and watercolour on cloud-dragon paper 186 × 98 cm, Hong Kong, winter 2024 Five 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) 如如居士 Ruru Jushi (Retired scholar who believes all doctrines equal) 養石閒人 Yangshi xianren (Idler who cherishes stones) inscr iption The Three Ancients of Crying Gibbons Gorge have been dead since I first met them above my wilderness retreat long ago, but it bothers them not. Pines have no feelings. Indifferent to time and senses, their feelings are only those that we bring to them, more for ourselves than for them. If we become one with the calligraphic dragons the dead pines have become, hermit, artist and audience encounter the Gates of Wonder through which the egoic self disappears like mountain mist. Inscribed by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge, winter ’24.