Painting the Dao

85 ak14.65 The Philosopher’s Stone Ink and watercolour on cloud-dragon paper, laid down on xuan paper 97 × 179 cm, Sussex, summer 2014 Published The Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, Beyond the Stage of Time , ii: Staff Masters and Stone Fools (Hong Kong: Rasti Chinese Art, 2020), 206 inscr iption The Recluse of Received Sagacity was a stone fool who limited himself to a single stone. If he found a replacement, he said he would return the old one to the wilderness, or give it to the next stone fool who admired it. This had never happened, however, since the first stone he took home to his retreat in the mountains of Zhejiang embodied, he felt, everything one could expect of a strange stone. He named it ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ and claimed that it alone was sufficient in order to unravel all the secrets of the universe, including those of the self. ‘Why bother an abbot and study Sutras for years, mortifying the body and rising at an unreasonable hour to sit uncomfortably in ranks in order to find the self, when one can enjoy the delights of a decent night’s sleep, eat a good breakfast and then enjoy the wonders of the stone to the same end?’ He said the self is always there; all you need do is recognise it as neither separate from you nor from the universe, which is more efficiently done as a stone fool than as a fool sitting on a stone floor. Inscribed at the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe in the summer of 2014.