Print - Palace of Fish

Original 24x36 inches. Oil painting on canvas, available as a print on enhanced poster matter paper, preserving vibrancy in colour saturation, and the crisp fine details of this piece. 

Inspired by Dōgen's Mountains and Waters Sutra. Dōgen was a Zen master who lived in Kyoto during the 13th century, and is credited as the founder of the sōto zen school, which is more gentle and rustic compared to the other predominant school of zen called rinzai. Zen comes from the Chinese Chan Buddhism, which is taken from the Sanskrit word dhyana, meditation. It is described as a practice with “special transmission” outside the scriptures, that the truth isn’t based in the realm of words or language, and that by pointing directly to the human mind one can see into their own nature and attain buddhahood. Zen is the character of an everyday mind, being both devoted to the everyday, ordinary affairs of life in nature that is still profoundly mystical. The Mountains and Waters Sutra is considered one of the beautiful texts from the shobogenzo, which translates as ‘Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”, and in this section Dogen is writing about mountains walking and a stone woman giving birth to a child at night, and that if we do not understand that mountains walk and flow with the wind and ride in the sky, we cannot understand or know our own ability to walk. Nothing is fundamental or fixed, but everything is interdependent on other things; there is a harmonious cooperation of wholes amongst wholes which follow their own nature, abiding by their own nature and yet never permanently bound to one place. Obey the cosmic pattern (li) of your own nature to find harmony amongst all other beings.

"Now when dragons and fish see water as a palace, it is just like human beings seeing a palace. They do not think it flows. If an outsider tells them, "What you see as a palace is running water," the dragons and fish will be astonished, just as we are when we hear the words, "Mountains flow." Nevertheless, there maybe some dragons and fish who understand that the columns and pillars of palaces and pavilions are flowing water. You should reflect and consider the meaning of this. If you do not learn to be free from your superficial views, you will not be free from the body and mind of an ordinary person. Then you will not understand the land of Buddha ancestors, or even the land or the palace of ordinary people. Now human beings well know as water what is in the ocean and what is in the river, but they do not know what dragons and fish see as water and use as water. Do not foolishly suppose that what we see as water is used as water by all other beings."