0:00

[Music]

0:10

okay so we’ll get started it started again I hope you’ve all had a chance to

0:20

witness choez performance and while

0:26

everyone’s gonna while everyone settling in I’m just gonna quote cha wave briefly

0:32

about the piece she says and this is not quite how it works but I’m gonna say it

0:38

anyway and give you something to think about as the panelists discussing speaking I view this performance as a

0:46

kind of group meditation the presence of the audience definitely makes a difference

0:51

I’m quoting Chow Wei I can feel their focus while observing the writing process and it helps me to concentrate

0:57

more in these situations I can sometimes visualize each character from my heart

1:04

through my arms to my hands followed by a manifestation on paper in Russian ink

1:10

the process of making the work has always been the most important part of my practice so I’m always glad when

1:17

people are interested in participating in the process so chai way thank you so

1:23

much for the Heart Sutra for us

1:28

[Applause] so our next panel looks at modern

1:35

Buddhism contemporary art and the Asian Diaspora and by modern Buddhism I’m

1:40

referring to those forms of Buddhism that are adapted to the contemporary context and contending with forces of

1:47

globalization and various issues in modern society so we’re no longer so

1:52

easily able to talk about Buddhism and national or cultural identity but we are

1:58

witnessing a time where Buddhism and its modes of practice and its cultural expressions are being reconfigured so as

2:05

to be transnational plural syncretic or hybrid and transcultural to use a term

2:12

from anthropology that’s graining gaining greater relevance in the field of art history and curatorial practice

2:18

so this panel looks at how Buddhists to cultural and philosophical influences have informed the work of artists of

2:25

Asian background working in the North American context the panel examines

2:30

immigrant and diaspora practices generational and intergenerational shifts in practice producing new

2:38

communities of practitioners adapting Buddhist concepts and values to new

2:44

cultural and creative contexts a moderator is the year choong-soo yi is a

2:50

cultural and social historian broadly interested in transnational migration in Asian Diaspora in North America within

2:57

the historical context of artistic cultural and economic exchanges between North America and the Asia Pacific

3:05

Buddhist practices have been an integral part of seized cultural upbringing she

3:10

is a curator of history at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria just

3:16

down the street and her curatorial project the center of arrivals is part

3:22

of the museum’s long term commitment towards the representation of intercultural community histories and

3:28

museum engagement thank you

3:34

afternoon thanks everyone for being here and thank Seema and our gallery of

3:40

greatest Victoria for this really unique forum for only steppers participants

3:47

over the past months I had pleasure of going through the artists portfolios and

3:55

some of their ideas these artists have already exchanged some of the ideas in writing as well and I’m not going to

4:02

read their full BIOS because they have specifically asked to have more time

4:07

with the audience so we are hoping that we can open up the last half an hour at least to encourage you to have a full

4:15

discussion with these artists um I would say one thing though these are really

4:21

accomplished artists who have worked across different continents so I’m gonna go over a little bit of basics in case

4:28

you haven’t read their BIOS but their full BIOS are in the program but also they each have their own website that I

4:35

would encourage you to check out because I really enjoyed checking them out so

4:41

going by the most boring alphabetical

4:46

order burring hack is a South Asian Muslim Canadian artist and she’s been

4:54

living here on unseeded in the quantum territory for 20 years she was born raised you know

5:00

Shoni territory in the Niagara region in Ontario among a tight knit Muslim

5:07

community and her national international

5:12

engagements have included place basically for artworks have trouble to leave your parents with way knows Aires

5:19

Lahore Hungary Romania and recently in Columbia New York Vancouver Island Miami

5:25

and of course a lot of other places so if you want to check it out um check her website and she received her Fine Arts

5:34

Virant in the MFA training in Canada the

5:41

second artist Timon Haniyeh she was growing raised in Japan and she

5:49

became a resident of Canada since 2000 and again she has very well she she she

5:57

received her full artistic training in Canada and then went around in different

6:02

places across different continents in India Mexico Thailand the US Canada Taiwan South Korea and most recently

6:10

very much engaged with India as well and other than these places she lives in

6:16

Vancouver the third artists like one

6:24

she is my intercessor a artist writer educator she was wrong in Zimbabwe to

6:32

Chinese parents and they emigrated to Canada in 1977 she received her fine

6:40

arts training also in Canada and her she

6:45

has done work in Canada u.s. and Zimbabwe and she also does a lot of

6:52

urban and social engaged art in all kinds of different places and I would

6:59

encourage you again to check her website there are some really interesting urban engagement projects that I was really

7:05

intrigued by the last but not least

7:10

Charlie ty that we just saw performing she was born in Taiwan and currently

7:16

lives in works in Taipei but she received her education in North America

7:21

and also Paris and of course her works have taken her to all kinds of different places but could Hong Kong London mumbay

7:29

Paris Singapore’s that need high pain Tokyo and a lot of other places and there are a wide variety of arts

7:37

projects that are listening her BIOS and again I encourage you to check out her

7:43

more in detail on her web site but today we are going to start with a simple

7:51

question of the artist practice of art and practice of Buddhism

7:57

so as a way of introducing yourself if you can speak to us about your practice of art and is that an extension of your

8:04

practice Buddhism or how would you describe their roles in your life and their relationship we’re gonna start

8:11

with a different artist for each question so Salaam alaikum it’s loud

8:22

such a pleasure to be here amongst new friends and old friends and thank you

8:28

for the introduction suey and thank you Hema for the invitation and for organizing this convening so the

8:38

question is okay so the perfect so thank

8:46

you just needed to hear it again so that my practice is pretty much when I come

8:52

to the kind of foundation of what drives or informs my work it would be this

8:59

question of like Who am I or this the the kind of the big questions of personal inquiry and I’ve been

9:10

practicing Buddhism actively for about the last fourteen years and I came to

9:17

Buddhist practice with my first pregnancy I have two children and it came at a time when I was there was a

9:25

big body change for me and it was a big life transition and I was called to

9:31

practice in a intense way and that’s when I went to my first of a pasta retreat but that embodiment and ability

9:41

to practice and go on retreat marked the beginning of a way of deepening kind of

9:49

my contemplatively informed my work so coming back to that question of like Who

9:54

am I what does it mean to be here what does it mean to be Muslim what does it

10:00

mean to be human what does it mean to be a woman what does it mean to be a mother

10:06

these are the questions that I was grappling with and that I brought that I bring into the

10:12

studio with me these are the questions I still grapple with and I have found my

10:18

contemplative practice whether it’s through Islam and mystical practices

10:24

from my family around Sufism and chanting or integrating in the last sort

10:32

of fourteen years Buddhist practice the ability to embody a practice and

10:40

encounter ritual have helped me immensely in how I work so I often use

10:47

my own body in my work as a way to understand and kind of probe these

10:53

questions and so the ability to sit with

10:59

myself to examine gesture whether it’s through repetition whether it’s through

11:05

prostration and touching the ground it’s it’s that kind of being able to

11:13

detach and watch myself inhabiting gestures that’s what I do in my

11:21

meditation practice and my prayer practice and in my art practice so

11:27

they’re completely intertwined and and one informs the other informs the other

11:37

yeah and I think it’s the ability to be really embodied and particularly within

11:45

Buddhism the languaging around embodied practice and awareness of senses and and

11:56

the way that I’ve learned from my from teachers and the there’ve Aid and tradition around watching the body and

12:03

watching thoughts have been a huge complementary sort of gateway into understanding how culture lives in the

12:11

set of conditions and experiences which I’m trying to understand through my work

12:16

so in consideration of time I’ll pass it along but at the beginning

12:24

hi so I’m from Taiwan and so like I

12:30

guess my I Taiwan is mo when I was

12:36

growing up in Hawaii I was mostly a Buddhist country so I was I grew up in

12:42

the Buddhist environment but in Taiwan is also very mixed with Taoism and

12:48

Confucianism like all religions or three religions or philosophical traditions

12:54

are very much mixed so I think while I was growing up

13:01

I I was more interested in the mystical and like the more superstitious aspects

13:08

of like the rituals and prayers and the temples and also like in a lot of our

13:16

Taoist temples there some shamanism and and as I was as I moved to the west

13:25

house studying in the West in in the US and I came across tibetan friend and I

13:33

was really intrigued by his presence and his liveliness so after I graduated from

13:41

school I volunteered for Tibet house in New York then I got to study Buddhism

13:47

like a different side of Buddhism then I I realized like the more I learned about

13:55

Buddhism the more I was started to be interested in the logic part of the

14:01

tradition and so my and it became easier

14:07

actually for me to study in both languages in both Chinese and in English

14:13

because in Chinese since it’s a thousand over a thousand year old tradition a lot

14:20

of the texts were translated in a very ancient way of writing so and some parts

14:27

like in sutras some parts are translated literally and then some parts are translate

14:33

phonetically from from Sanskrit so in

14:39

English I’m able to understand it in a more colloquial way and and then my

14:46

practice and art is kind of intertwined with my study of Buddhism so I had the

14:53

Heart Sutra memorized since when I was a kid and so when I was when I was younger

15:00

I the way I learned the heart I was more like if I was scared then I would recite

15:07

it and in the more like superstitious way I didn’t really understand the meaning at all and and then later on I I

15:17

was working in New York for a Chinese artists psyche watching and I was

15:23

writing I told him about an idea of writing the Heart Sutra on a piece of

15:29

tofu which is a femoral material so I

15:37

wanted to kind of visualize the text about impermanence on info material so

15:47

so he there was an exhibition opportunity where an older artist or

15:54

established artists were young I recommend a younger artist in Paris so he recommended me for this

16:00

exhibition I got accepted and because Thai people who know him he likes to

16:06

work on really large scale so he encouraged me to write find like as big

16:12

piece of tofu it’s I could well in Paris in China in Paris and I had a custom

16:19

made and then to write let her write the sutra for this artwork and because it

16:30

was so big that I couldn’t finish writing at opening so it became so

16:36

people started walking in and there are all our Chinese women doing a performance so

16:43

then I started to get invited to do these performances and that’s how yeah

16:49

on different ephemeral things so after this repetitive act of writing

16:56

I started be more and more familiar with the Sutra and I feel like as life goes

17:01

on like it’s my life experience increases I’m understanding the text even more so is it’s through my art

17:08

practice I feel like I’m going deeper into my understanding of Buddhism and

17:15

then yeah and then since then evolved into social practice which I’ll talk

17:21

about later my name is Tomoyuki hiya and

17:34

oh thank you him for inviting me here we being having a wonderful time

17:40

the thank you for everybody who helped to bring this event together I feel very privileged and fortunate I grew up in

17:49

Japan in 70s and I did grow up with my

17:55

Buddhist family and I bring up normally

18:01

as to metaphor but you know we need to poo and that you know you are so I was

18:07

your since I was born I was a very sad and introvert the little bit pessimistic

18:16

and I remember when I was little I was

18:21

always wondering why am I here what I’m doing why I feel so sad

18:27

yes and I thought what is to leave I I remember it’s not at a normal idea but I

18:33

was always wondering because it was not comfortable for me to be to be alive

18:39

seriously and not that I were the suicide but I was a melancholic so only

18:46

what to defuse for me where I find my soft spot in my heart were drawing and

18:55

reading books was my mother was a librarian so we got a lot of books from different countries

19:02

and then they didn’t give me toys they give me lots of paper crayons color

19:09

pencil so to me it’s an inquiry about

19:14

the reasoning of my existence and drawing the camera like this it was not

19:22

a separable because if I didn’t draw I go I become your so so not to feel like

19:31

that I had to keep drawing and then about the Buddhist you know Japan is known to be to have so many beautiful to

19:39

import and beautiful tradition or the history of Buddhism but around me my

19:45

grandparents are Buddhist but they’d be wrong with a particular sect which and

19:51

also kind of more Buddhism adds just how

19:57

can I say just form more like only right so not about teaching about or only

20:03

about the custom so flow for example if my great-great grandfather died I was

20:11

very sad its first time I saw somebody dying at home and then monks come this –

20:20

monks came to give a prayer and then I still remember I was very upset because

20:27

all the adult people meant sit in front

20:33

of the altar after funeral and we may have to offer food yeah and they even

20:40

drink a beer and I remember the little child why they are drinking beer after

20:47

my great-grandfather died so that’s just one example and I’m not saying all

20:53

Buddhist monks or nuns are like that but in a little community the customs

20:59

remains pressure of doing that custom remained more than teaching itself

21:06

rather than doing in a crack this you know in a Buddhism we walk on pass along supporting each other with

21:14

your Sangha right but it wasn’t directed so I feared such a rejection to Buddhism

21:20

actually and then it was not till I went to university in total that I learned Eastern philosophy talking about

21:27

emptiness sense of border that I start being more curious about obscure

21:34

teaching and when I came to Canada in 1994 and I came to America for just one

21:40

term in 1996 luckily I met this soul sister who who are still wonderful

21:48

artists and she was a meditator so she dragged me to Dharma talk and meditation

21:55

and I started inquiring inside so like when when I was a child little

22:03

ear you know when to draw in an art

22:09

school that such an eye-opening experience for me because I could express whatever happening inside but

22:17

also this friend introduced me to meditation and that’s when teaching of

22:24

Buddhism about transient nature loving kindness and if we believe in past and

22:32

future life all this gave me this big opening about how to live and in a

22:40

Chippenham Buddhism or even – Mahayana

22:46

but also she introduced me to be personal in a prayer it’s always include

22:53

may we get enlightened in sake of all other beings it doesn’t it’s not about

22:59

one’s diffuse but it’s also thinking of every sentient beings because we are

23:05

interconnected so it’s really helped me to make art not only philosophically but

23:13

also in terms of the attitude because there’s lots of you know competition or

23:19

ego or you know to assert if expression and I didn’t

23:24

you comfortable to push myself as an artist because it’s it didn’t feel good

23:33

so making art we start along with learning Jerry helped me to keep my mind

23:41

rather saying yes and then am I talking too much and then now I went to India to

23:50

make a long story short after that to do meditation and artist residency and that

23:55

changed my life like 360 degree because I met a Tibetan refugee people and I

24:01

learned the compassion sharing of suffering together by their direct

24:07

action by my grandmother’s I carry them around with me whenever I go and they

24:14

told me the language I’m a ninja means I feel you are suffering I feel your pain

24:22

compassion let’s share this even I cannot understand your pain on the

24:28

person I still feel your pain so that’s how I do what I’ve been doing the seven

24:35

years become kind of sorcerer activism

24:40

[Laughter]

24:46

thank you to my fellow panelists and Jaime for inviting me and all all of you

24:53

here today let’s see I was born in in

24:59

what was called Rhodesia and it was governed by apartheid my grandfather

25:05

arrived in Rhodesia at the turn of the 1900s and sent for my father who arrived

25:15

soon after now the Chinese in Rhodesia weren’t allowed any to own any land and

25:21

they weren’t allowed any occupation other than being storekeepers my father

25:27

was a very bad storekeeper and it’s because he liked ideas he didn’t like

25:34

being practical and so there’s something that was passed

25:39

on to me which was the love of poetics and the love of philosophy and I thank

25:45

my lineage for that within Rhodesia and

25:52

apartheid and about the violence of apartheid I became very aware of say

26:04

colonialism and I want to take a moment to acknowledge that I live in Vancouver

26:10

which is the unseeded territories of the Musqueam suelo tooth and Squamish and

26:16

I’m very thankful that I was given refuge in 1977 when we left the war in

26:22

Rhodesia my interest is really rooted in

26:28

poetics and philosophy and so the question for me is in this moment in

26:35

this crisis that we’re in environmentally politically how can we

26:43

move forward living the best way we can so

26:49

philosophically I came to Buddhist teachings through that

26:56

my key the key thing that drives my work is liberation and in what ways can we

27:07

become free to free ourselves from the various commerce that have constructed

27:14

who we are today I decided to focus my

27:25

work on urban environmental issues because it came apart a point in my

27:32

practice where I had nothing left to say and I really didn’t know whether to stay

27:40

an artist I actually gave up being an artist a couple of times so for me the

27:49

question of land and acknowledging that land the land that we’re on the colonial

27:56

constructs in our relationship to land and this is also in relation to our

28:02

bodies now within colonialism growing up in Rhodesia within apartheid as a girl

28:09

of color as a queer girl of color there are constructs that will remove me from

28:15

my body so a lot of my work has been how to come back to this body love this body

28:20

and learn how to make peace like an

28:28

internal peace with perhaps even generational trauma and so working

28:38

through also chronic illness coming to terms with a great sense of inner peace

28:47

and emptiness I’m now at a place where I’m wanting to listen to urban

28:52

environments and see what surfaces so

28:58

there’s a piece that’s one of the slides called fountain so around like 2012

29:06

there was an image that was haunting me for no good reason I wasn’t researching

29:13

it and it was a bridge over some water in 2014 I got invited to do a artist

29:22

residency at CBC for the Vancouver Foundation and I went into the CBC

29:27

archives and I said do you know what this bridge is and the archivist came

29:33

back and he gave me a film called summer afternoon and the bridge is the Georgia

29:39

viaduct and the Georgia viaduct in Vancouver when they used to be water under the viaduct many of us didn’t know

29:49

that there was water there I never knew there was water there but in this 1956

29:54

film two boys are running down the dock behind Chinatown and there is this water

30:01

under this bridge for me I was very interested in how we cover all of these

30:07

waterways and in what ways can we make cities flow out in what ways can we

30:13

bring by bring back the livelihoods of say salmon that are living who’s who are

30:22

born to these streams that are now paid over in a city so the project fountain was really about what are we conscious

30:33

of in the city and what are we trained perceptually to to see what is not there

30:40

when actually it is there it’s hidden beneath the concrete I’m gonna end there and to the next topic actually that when

30:52

you actually touched upon the question I was hoping to get to later but I think since you brought it up the social and

31:00

political impacts of your work using referencing the fountain project I think

31:05

maybe we can just go there for now tomorrow and Charlie and furring I

31:11

wonder if you can also talk about how do you think your experiences and your

31:19

practices of working and living in all these different places cross continents inform the practice to

31:27

have the type of social and political impacts that you are hoping for and what

31:33

are those impacts what I’ve been doing

31:42

wasn’t intended to be so sorry a saucer of a political it just happened by all

31:50

the meetings like this this you know

31:55

Tibetan elderly because many people say hi Japanese person is doing about this

32:01

particular project it’s not even project it does happen to me I explained briefly so in the these

32:09

people escaped Himalayan mountain 1959 and they experienced such a hardship

32:18

till they established back in India and they really shared sense of compassion

32:28

and gave me lots of stories of the hardship but what amazed me was just to

32:35

have a lots of sense of humor probably if you hit the bottom only thing you can

32:40

come up again is you keep your sense of humor so they would laugh at the yeah we

32:45

try to reserve this twigs for to make a fire at the market we didn’t save

32:53

anything and she said we had nine kids and I told C told her husband well you

33:02

know because we don’t have education we don’t we can we don’t we can to get a

33:09

good job in India we don’t speak Hindi no English so let’s and all the children to school as much as possible so she

33:19

would talk this kind of very painful story to me but smiling and then many

33:27

times this elderly ability baton pass and I met many younger people too but

33:33

what I astonished to me not only you know I know logically about

33:39

this teaching of compassion wisdom thinking of others in a prayer but the

33:45

dare is showed it in action so if there is a piece of bread and there’s a five

33:51

people everybody’s hungry every single person of them would say identify the

33:58

pieces or separate the four pieces and this person might skip eating that piece

34:05

of bread then it’s just permeated me astonished me how much they carry out

34:13

the core teaching of Buddhism or any religious tradition I believe everything

34:19

is the same it’s about the sharing on the feeling as if other people are your

34:25

sister and brothers okay so because of them I become very sensitive to what is

34:31

happening in Tibet but I hear news in India then one year 2012 there was a lot

34:39

of protest called self-immolation happening in Tibet and I wonder I just

34:46

went to little cyber cafe I was doing artists in residence in Orissa eastern

34:53

India and I was at the cyber cafe and it

35:01

was my customer to check Tibetan social political situation online often after

35:07

2008 Beijing Olympics many Tibetan people did a peaceful protest and they

35:13

were killed so after that I was always checking and I saw this picture of the

35:20

one monk Kosala in a frame on a computer screen and I started shaking

35:26

I couldn’t bear I started shaking at the cyber cafe in a little fishermen

35:33

business and I had to rush back to my residence room and I draw one figure

35:41

over half white half red and I had to do stitching with white thread and the red

35:48

Fred I had in I know that I felt so close to this particular group of people

35:56

because of these people who took care of me but that time has a really dramatic

36:02

but it didn’t stop I had a breakdown so after that time I start drawing about it

36:12

I couldn’t help but drawing and I still don’t know the reason and then gradually

36:21

2012 83 people died in self-immolation in Tibet every time I had a news I

36:29

stayed in Dharamsala for six months that’s here in toto whenever I had a

36:35

news I did a story and I draw for this person because I felt such a strong

36:43

sense of sadness and I wanted to feel

36:49

their pain even a little bit I know I can never understand their pain in a

36:54

heat and then I also felt quiet anger actually I thought it’s not fair

37:01

this is happening I want the world to know about that and I want them to be remembered because

37:08

this wrote the body not only for themselves screaming please bring peace

37:14

to my country for other people Dalai Lama come back you’re about input

37:20

you know please come back like that so it had mixed feeling but if

37:27

I hadn’t done it I would have gone to I would crush again so it was for me too

37:34

but to draw one thing was my tribute my little contribution for each person

37:42

because often I felt they are not strangers I felt they are my close

37:49

brothers sisters and that was my beginning before my seemeth about cycle

37:55

of dying and living but not so particular

38:01

and it’s changing direction of how I make out and the highway deep and

38:11

because of that drawing I’ve been doing for seven years now I’m involved with

38:16

Taiwanese and the you know Korean social history where many people also mascot in

38:25

a protest and all these things I don’t

38:30

know how much impact you know what article make but at least I think

38:35

because my activism comes from totally personal place it’s happened because I

38:42

felt to something so personally but personal is universal and if we try to

38:50

find topic social political like from indirect or a bow it doesn’t speak same

38:57

way yeah so it’s just interesting coincidence that I happen to make art

39:04

which touches lots of issues yeah thank you

39:09

[Music]

39:16

[Music] for me I guess they gradually evolved

39:23

this when I was a student I guess I was not some exposed to social political

39:31

issues as much as I but more I was more focused on environmental issues so I had

39:38

a chance to go back to Taiwan in around 2012 where I was working with I wanted

39:49

to film the this tribe in this group of

39:56

indigenous people in an island is called

40:01

Orchid Island that is in the east coast of Taiwan and the the group there the

40:10

community there they’re more they’re actually closer linguistically to the

40:15

Filipinos and then to Taiwan and it’s a very remote island with very it’s very

40:23

small population so I think when when the Guangdong government with Chiang

40:31

kai-shek when they came to Taiwan and they started to want to develop I guess

40:37

they started to lose hope to go to conquer or to get back China so they

40:44

started make a lot of developments within the island of Taiwan including building nuclear power plants and then

40:51

so while they were looking for a place to store the nuclear waste they decided

40:58

to store it on this small island that’s mostly inhabited by indigenous people

41:04

and finding out this I understand this happening all over the world in the US and in different places where indigenous

41:11

land get people gets used for this but I

41:17

was really shocked as a Taiwanese because our island sorry he’s so small and we’re bullying an even smaller

41:24

Island and when when the government went on this island they they lie to the

41:30

local people and said that they were building a fish cannery for to support their economics because because the the

41:39

nuclear waste storage the container it

41:44

looks like kind of like a cannery and but but this island is probably one of

41:50

the worst place geologically to to place to store the waste because because the

41:57

constant erosion from the sea so eventually the waste these cans erode it

42:02

and then the waste seeped out to the ocean and now their generations of

42:08

people that are born disabled because of the contamination and so together with

42:16

the tibetan friend i met in college we made a small video work on this project

42:21

on this issue and then later on I had

42:27

more opportunities where we also filmed

42:33

because my Turin friend he is also from the refugee community in Dharmashala so he grew up with this very strong

42:41

sense of community and and also people

42:46

going through very like similar situations so we we did a series of

42:53

projects where we which started in Nepal after the earthquake it was two years

43:00

after the earthquake in 2017 and then we came across a camp a really huge camp

43:10

with 3,000 people so that people are still like the government actually received two billion dollars of foreign

43:17

aid but then the money was never distributed to these victims so we came

43:23

across this camp with 3000 people that are still living in really horrible

43:29

conditions in the winter so we started to record songs from

43:36

and and then using songs and as an expression of their situation and then

43:43

from this Nepal earthquake issue I guess

43:48

this work was seen by a curator in London so so I worked on another project

43:54

in London with asylum seekers a woman asylum seekers they’re detained at

44:01

detention centres outside of London and because in the UK the biggest detention

44:09

centers are privatized to like multi-billion dollar corporate companies

44:14

and the companies they really don’t care about the well-being of the asylum

44:19

seeker and kind of the longer they can keep them the better it is for their business so so we ended up getting a

44:27

rare access into the detention center and they also record songs from this

44:33

woman and and I remember one song it was

44:39

saying by a woman from Kazakhstan and I could just hear the mountains in her

44:45

voice even though I had no idea what she was singing about and later I had it translated it was indeed about the

44:52

mountains from her hometown and and then

44:57

so these sounds they were in the end we projected very publicly on the London

45:05

Royal the Royal Festival Hall on the walls of the Royal Festival Hall so that

45:11

people from these different countries like from Indonesia or from from it I

45:18

trained in Africa and many many different countries when they walk by they could hear the voices of this woman

45:25

and know that they’re in this kind of situations and and then another really

45:31

valuable thing I learned from this experience was going into the detention

45:37

centre I was thinking that together with the charity groups I were thinking that somehow

45:42

we would be helping or supporting them in some ways and then going in I

45:49

realized that this woman they have so much more life experience and I had and

45:56

there is so much stronger and actually that I was and I learned so much from this exchange so from this experience I

46:04

realized like also that’s taught in Buddhism that it’s much more of an

46:10

interdependent relationship and less of just like one you know like people China

46:16

or like once I trying to empower the other side but it’s a it’s a more mutual

46:22

exchange so so my practice in in my art practice is kind of it appears to be two

46:31

parts where I have one part that’s more introspective was like my own personal understanding of Buddhism and studying

46:38

through the sutras so try writing and then the other side is more social I

46:45

guess they’re all integrated and I feel like I keep learning through the

46:50

opportunities I’m getting with these exhibitions like I want something you

47:01

said really struck a chord for me which is you’re interested in liberation like I’d love that bird and it’s so

47:08

aspirational for me but I think coming back to that kind of question around like Who am I why am I here what is the

47:15

human condition those yearnings to kind of dig into those questions are an

47:23

aspiration and a yearning to for liberation to something kind of bigger

47:28

and one of my teachers that I’ve been kind of studying and I’ve sat with Reverend angel Kyoto Williams is a Zen

47:35

teacher queer black teacher from New York City she talks about liberation

47:41

that like we can we cannot have liberation for ourselves my liberation actually hinges on everyone else being

47:50

liberated so it’s not like I can get to the finish line and I’m good that we actually all have to undergo the

47:58

process of liberation together and for me that’s such a great reminder of the politics of Dharma and the social

48:05

justice being woven into practice and so when I think about you know my work and

48:15

these kind of inquiry questions and this yearning the best place I can start is

48:21

with myself it’s not you know it’s that you know like this is this is their

48:27

relative reality like this is I have this form this body but the hope is to get so personal that it actually it

48:35

resonates on a universal level and that’s the tricky balance and that’s the

48:40

work I think whether it’s aesthetically in the art or spiritually in how I move

48:47

in the world it’s – it’s it’s to be in that place you know as I think

48:53

remembering like Kay’s lecture last night like that zero right between like that empty place between the two

49:00

different realities and what that’s looking like in my practice I’m just by

49:06

example is so these questions like what does it mean to be here politically for

49:13

me the TRC Commission’s the TRC Commission and this moment of

49:20

reconciliation that we’ve been in in Canada these conversations have been a huge part of my practice and so I ask

49:31

myself what does it mean to be here as a settler on the Konkan territory as a Muslim a Buddhist and what did these

49:38

practices how do they intersect with with practices here and how do they

49:43

emerge and take shape and so a few years ago I started asking like how can

49:49

conversation be my medium because I was finding I was just wanting to talk to people and listen and recently I did a

50:00

collaborative piece with Charles Campbell and Bradley dick both Victoria

50:06

artists Campbell is Jamaican Canadian Bradley Czechoslovakian artist and knowledge

50:11

keeper and we were interested in being

50:17

basically just present on the land seeing what arrows and just asking the

50:23

question how do we arrive here in this moment how do we arrive in our practices

50:29

and kind of keeping a very open-ended container in question and that resulted

50:35

eventually in a piece but there were a few iterations where we gathered

50:41

community to come and sit in contemplation on the shoreline using the

50:48

shoreline of Dallas Road as a metaphor as a place of arrival and after sitting

50:55

in silence listening kind of deeply listening to each other around what

51:01

comes up and then you’ll see the copper slide with a copper installation hanging

51:08

and Cree created this opportunity for people to come into the gallery space

51:13

and either sit or lay down and to look

51:20

up at the ground that piece was called the ground above us and and to listen to

51:26

this audio track that was a composition of the various conversations that took

51:33

place over the course of six months which have included probably but 45

51:38

people various seals and sea lions and

51:44

birds and Hawk and Hawks and water and that’s an ongoing project and then the

51:51

other example I’ll just give quickly is there’s also a slide moving in the

51:58

rotation around with me uncovering like a white shroud and this the question of

52:07

what does it mean to be here and this kind of moment of reconciliation has also really led me to self

52:14

reconciliation which i think is the Dharma and Buddha’s practice really a

52:20

for its us and is such an amazing generous container to do this work in

52:26

and also personal and familial reconciliation for me so the piece with

52:33

the white shroud is a hundred forty pound sculptural floor work that I

52:38

performative Lee install in the gallery and it emerged from work that I did with

52:44

my mother over the course of a year around the grief and kind of lost time

52:54

in the ways that I’ve internalized patriarchy and basically failed to see

52:59

her and to honor her and uphold her and it was a way and is still a way for me

53:06

to kind of make amends to acknowledge the pain and the kind of

53:12

intergenerational kind of ways that I kind of carry on the violence

53:20

particularly around women in our world and I feel like art is my kind of

53:28

encapsulating thought is like those are just some examples but the politics can

53:34

be global and personal and I can see how this kind of work that I’ve been able to

53:41

do through meditation practice and social justice work is weaving is like

53:48

working through my family and through myself and thus my community and it’s

53:54

art that’s allowed us to kind of come to these hard places so like in my family I

53:59

was only able to do this work because I was like mom do you want to like have some conversations and can you can we

54:07

explore this stuff and everybody wants to be involved in our project right and so I could have some really difficult

54:13

conversations with my mom and ask her questions but there was this like safe

54:19

third space to work in and even with the ground above us asking you know these

54:25

are hard conversations what does it mean to be here amongst you know as

54:31

racialized bodies mixed-race folk settlers those of us who are forget like

54:37

we have this huge reclamation work to do and this kind of remembrance that we

54:43

want to do together and so the place of art and creation it’s just such a huge

54:49

potentiality and a place where we get to rebuild as opposed to deconstructing you

54:55

get to reimagine our world I think so um

55:00

we’re gonna open that for a soon but before we do that can I ask each of you just use two minutes to talk about going

55:08

back to the theme of this panel and just to talk about how you came with different Asian cultural backgrounds

55:14

where Buddhism had a very different presence than and deep presence then what is usually in the West and but you

55:23

yourselves have very rich experiences of being trained and then working and

55:30

exhibiting in North American and all these other continents so I was

55:35

wondering in these increasingly transcultural and globalized context how

55:41

do you feel like you have integrated practices of Buddhism in a western setting with your reconnection or

55:49

modification of your traditional or cultural upbringing of Buddhism or other

55:55

type of understanding so each of you has two minutes except for like one who can have who can reference one more work

56:05

that I can reference one more work did you say thank you I don’t think I’ve

56:18

always been I’ve I don’t think I’ve ever been a good Chinese person because I was

56:23

raised in the colonies and I wasn’t raised Buddhist but I was raised with

56:32

spaciousness and slowness and familial love and I think those

56:41

things carry through the other thing I was raised with was a really Taoist

56:46

understanding of flow and how do we really kind of listen to what is flowing

56:54

so in relation to a project perhaps recently in summer I was invited to do a

57:03

show at art speak which is a gallery in Vancouver and I really try and listen to

57:12

the site-specific specificity of each project so I’d speak is in a is in a

57:21

corner a square that’s called maple tree Square and so maple tree Square is when

57:28

the first City Council meetings happened of the first settlers in Vancouver that

57:34

tree no longer exists but it’s a very old maple tree that was there so in

57:40

honor of that tree I created a project in my mind called maple tree spiral and

57:47

my idea was to access the City of Vancouver database of all the city trees

57:54

because I wanted to do a project that acknowledged the work of city trees and

58:00

from the database create a map of in a spiral of all the maple trees what

58:09

happened was somehow the city was sending leaflets saying we’re going to

58:15

cut down this maple tree on Water Street and I said I want that tree you know I don’t want them to cut it down but if

58:22

they’re gonna cut it down I want the tree so the project it’s it’s

58:27

one of the slides that were there it’s the there were 18 19 pieces from that

58:32

maple tree and then the project evolved from that deer tree so often with a

58:40

project I don’t know what’s gonna happen I just follow with what

58:46

arises and it arose that that tree was

58:51

being cut because of the angle that was growing it was considered dangerous to two pedestrians and cars so part of the

59:00

work was to work with the city arborists and to work with the city of vancouver

59:06

and i see that relationship building

59:11

that site specificity also working with indigenous artists cease weiss who told

59:20

stories about the Squamish in that area before it became gas town etc there was

59:27

a how do we reconcile these spaces and

59:32

how do we listen to these stories that surface that counters perhaps the

59:40

colonial stories so so one of the things that came out of that or not because it came out of that but one of the things

59:45

that arise arose was the statue of gassy jack so gassy jack was a a saloon owner

59:54

who’s now being he’s named gas town is after him and there’s a statue there so

1:00:00

one of the questions with the cultural services department of the city

1:00:06

vancouver is should gassy jack stay there should that statue remain there so

1:00:11

I think part of the meditative practice that I invite audiences to my projects

1:00:18

is is to consider the site-specific questions that arise and in what ways

1:00:24

can we make peace with not only this tree that has lost its life but also the

1:00:31

deeper history the deeper the deep time

1:00:36

the deep space the deep bodies that have lived here from millennia and it’s not just about you know our rushing around

1:00:45

in this spot so that’s I don’t know that that answer the question the question

1:00:51

reads about

1:01:01

all the all the custom okay as I follow

1:01:08

like well I’m not really good to Japanese person and I I basically came

1:01:15

to Canada to get out from there and the thing is when I came to North

1:01:23

America it’s especially Canada is mosaic it had so many people with so many different history so it helped me to

1:01:31

open up and also gave me capacity to study Buddhism but in Japan if we study

1:01:39

something religious people might think oh she’s like a bit weird yeah New Age so North America was tubing

1:01:48

channel that was I think necessary for me to be to to open up to have a totally

1:01:58

open ending and to whatever the good to

1:02:03

value comes in so rather than going back to my own identity I fear I don’t have

1:02:10

any identity actually I become kind of borderless and also because I travel around and people

1:02:17

call me back a bond so that’s how I feel but I’ve been going back to Korea and

1:02:25

Taiwan to deal with their own social issue and it’s Taiwan and Korea have

1:02:34

lots of similarity with where I grew up in terms of the body about the community

1:02:39

the body about how to think of others and it’s quite it’s not individualism

1:02:45

it’s about group mentality in a good about the way so by being go back there

1:02:51

after going back to India so many times I went to India 20 times before I went

1:02:58

to Taiwan and Korea I find my old value

1:03:03

of being in a group and the harmonious in a good old way and

1:03:11

also I see the critical part in Japanese

1:03:18

society now it’s not always positive but often I find a good value which might

1:03:24

have been lost in Japan in the other country that I being although I don’t

1:03:29

know how much how deeply I understood so

1:03:35

I did good to part anything from each culture yeah but I see more problems in

1:03:41

my own society right now way I grew up and I have lots of a concern too but I

1:03:48

cannot make art yet about there because I don’t have direct direct personal deep

1:03:55

experience yet for me it’s it’s been

1:04:05

really helpful to study Buddhism as I mentioned before in in the u.s. in

1:04:12

English because a lot of words that we take for granted it helps me to like challenge it

1:04:20

again for example like even the most important in Chinese its well in when I

1:04:28

read in English I always associated with the head the brain and then but in

1:04:34

Chinese is already it’s written as heart so then it helps me to question and what

1:04:41

what is mind and and or like the word emptiness in Chinese comb it also means

1:04:49

spaciousness so it expands on these definitions that’s like seems to be

1:04:56

obvious and simple words but actually there are many layers in the Buddhist

1:05:02

context and also with my practice of calligraphy IFL i am i could have much

1:05:10

more freedom here because why I’m writing in Taiwan there’s such a sophisticated tradition of Chinese

1:05:17

calligraphy are that people really focus on the

1:05:23

correctness of each character well of course like when I write it it’s it’s

1:05:28

correct but it’s not a traditional like a very precise way of learning it but

1:05:36

since my interest is not in the craft of calligraphy but it’s more the expression

1:05:43

the writing of contemplating on the sutra ephemeral materials and

1:05:49

contemplating on impermanence so I’m not focused on the art of calligraphy which

1:05:56

I feel like I have more room to explore working in the West and so so that’s

1:06:05

kind of my yeah my experience working here I find it very exciting to be

1:06:15

practicing Buddhism as a Muslim here in

1:06:23

Victoria on the Colombian territory this is it like I the the complexity and

1:06:31

intersection of experiences is so available in the the way that the Dharma

1:06:41

and the sort of the lineage that I’ve been studying under there’ve a didn’t Buddhism which was brought over by like

1:06:48

Jewish draft like you know teachers who went to Burma and India in the 60s and

1:06:55

then brought it back to Barry Massachusetts and then to Marin County and through that lineage has taught

1:07:05

teachers that I’m kind of studying kind of the third and fourth iteration kind of teachers who are like queer black

1:07:13

Muslim Hindu just the range queer trans

1:07:21

and so to me that is the most exciting and rich place of practice you know my

1:07:30

like I’m not a very good Gaston your Indian Muslim according to my parrots they tell me that all the

1:07:36

time and yet they also there’s something

1:07:41

in the like because I can study with

1:07:47

teachers kind of this broad array of teachers that kind of reflect my experience of being here and being kind

1:07:54

of like you talked about being borderless Tamayo I think that’s more and more everyone’s experienced so many

1:08:00

of us are either displaced or have been settlers from many generations like it

1:08:06

is it’s very rare and it can be a privilege to have generations of of

1:08:12

connection to a piece of land but that’s rarer I was having a conversation

1:08:17

somebody here earlier today with Paul about that and I think this is the

1:08:23

potentiality of the kind of borderless and the conversation that happens

1:08:29

between practices and it’s like the the image that comes to my mind is like

1:08:35

indras net that beautiful kind of web where each intersection is this facet

1:08:42

this jewel and it reflects every other facet within it and that’s what I hold

1:08:52

on to and think that’s weird like we’re in this moment and I think in this kind

1:08:58

of the more there is sharing like it

1:09:03

it’s kind of sparkling and it’s possible

1:09:17

okay I need to stand up because we’re gonna open open this to the floor and these are the four fabulous artists here

1:09:25

we have about twenty minutes for questions anybody hi thank you I thought

1:09:44

this was such an exciting panel because of the sort of the effortlessness of the

1:09:50

diet Dysport body to navigate all of these experiences you know I’m also just

1:09:57

picking up from what you said for in also as a Muslim who practices Buddhism

1:10:06

I’ve been questioning a lot lately the boundaries that we work within you

1:10:15

know on one hand there’s a struggle between let’s say a felt notion of

1:10:24

syncretism of like you know as artists we have the capacity to make connections

1:10:30

that go beyond very siloed academic

1:10:38

historical analyses of religion but on the other hand there’s there’s there’s

1:10:43

critique and pitfalls of becoming like for example like a theosophist who you

1:10:49

know would wildly combine you know different you know different traditions

1:10:56

so I’m just curious and it’s more of a question to help me work work that out

1:11:02

as well have have you struggled with notions of authenticity in the face of

1:11:11

authenticity to Buddhism in the face of a desire to make these connections with

1:11:19

your larger very diverse religious and migration

1:11:39

thanks for the question Samir absolutely I have struggled so yes and my evolution

1:11:47

around like so I’m picking up like around authenticity to Buddhism and yeah

1:11:53

you know we worry about like you don’t want to dabble and like just throw things together and what what where I’m

1:12:02

at and I’ve been having recently some very open and very difficult conversations with my staunchly Orthodox

1:12:09

father around my practice and what it looks like both Muslim and Buddhist and

1:12:17

I just keep thinking about like I dunno from my and I feel like a newbie in my

1:12:24

study in my learning around Buddhism but

1:12:29

and even though I had grown up with Islamic teachings I what I do know that

1:12:35

I feel like through and through is that there’s the spaciousness and ability and

1:12:41

actually it’s woven into the teachings of of both Buddhism and Islam around

1:12:48

around the spaciousness of truth this like Buddhism is for me anyways a

1:12:56

philosophy it is a way of practicing and within it like I have no worry that I

1:13:04

anymore that I can’t be Buddhist and Muslim because the the my meditation practice and the way the psychology of

1:13:13

Buddhism has space for various rituals and practice and the less legalistic

1:13:22

approach to Islam also holds that my family has a history of Sufi practice and that is there is such a connection

1:13:31

and the same kind of spaciousness that is afforded that can hold the little

1:13:37

legalities within it thank you for anything that was very well said I think

1:13:44

that and thank you so much for the question I think one of the things that I wrestle with within say a spiritual

1:13:53

practice is the logical intellectual mind that questions our deepest good and

1:14:02

in what ways can we keep reaffirming that we are a shining light that just

1:14:10

needs to allow the light to shine and rather I personally approach Buddhism

1:14:17

not as a religion as a philosophy but

1:14:23

something that is I think the most one of the biggest challenges say as a

1:14:28

teacher is how to provide students with

1:14:36

an agility with being at peace with

1:14:41

their whatever can bring the light forth or whatever if we look at all the good

1:14:47

books of all the different religions they all advocate for you know a deep

1:14:52

abiding love for life but also how to how to just celebrate your brilliance

1:15:00

brilliance in the most humble way in the sense that we need more light in the

1:15:06

world there’s a lot of darkness and that seems to be the teaching with nearly

1:15:12

every religion which is in what ways do you bring forth the brilliance and and

1:15:19

again I say that in the most humble way to remind where the abundance is like

1:15:27

there’s so much about colonialism and capitalism that’s all about scarcity but in any given moment there’s millions of

1:15:34

miracles happening you know you can look at a little caterpillar there’s a miracle happening so how do we remind

1:15:40

ourselves of that and how do you remind others of that so for myself to

1:15:45

reconcile some of the questions that often I have saying that oh but I’m not

1:15:52

an expert in this I always have to just go back to what is what is the real

1:15:57

spiritual quest here and the spiritual quest is to shine and to be reminded of the abundance of

1:16:05

miracles that happen in any given moment

1:16:11

yes thank you for the question about

1:16:20

struggling about being authentic in Tamil Buddhism that’s other question right

1:16:25

yeah I I don’t practice deep enough and

1:16:31

I always thought that I don’t how much I have practiced but I’m very simple about

1:16:40

strategy of making all right number won’t have to come from heart it has to

1:16:46

be honest and as I once said I agree it’s about finding little light in the

1:16:54

most humble way humbleness is really important to me to the point people

1:16:59

don’t realize my name it’s okay but whatever I can do in a subtle way can

1:17:06

open up somebody’s heart I don’t know I don’t think it’s so important to be so

1:17:13

authentic and I don’t approach Buddhism in the intellectual or logical way too much because it comes and it’s cops I

1:17:22

listen to Dharma talk I were like sometimes I like this yeah

1:17:28

and then also what was something I really wanted to say I forgot well

1:17:38

anyway if I stick to what is authentic too much in a Buddhism each person have

1:17:45

a different path who are teaching me the same so as every spiritual religious

1:17:51

tradition it’s all go always going back to liberation light sharing equanimity

1:17:58

so I try not to think if I’m authentically Buddhist or not too much

1:18:05

then I go back to my childhood experience over how to be very behaved

1:18:12

Buddhist in Japanese standard to which I wasn’t and that is how can I say it is about

1:18:23

talking about the subtlety it’s a subtle mind and subtle personal

1:18:29

experience which lead to everybody so then authentic authencity well

1:18:38

Buddhism is about liberation and open ending so it’s it doesn’t really matter

1:18:45

to me that it makes sense okay for me

1:18:54

recently I’ve been somehow invited to three very different places like in in

1:19:02

Mongolia to do projects so in Mongolia in Indonesia and in Kauai in Japan so I

1:19:10

was trying to kind of figure out how these three places connect with my own

1:19:16

practice and then I found this map that traces the spread of Audrianna

1:19:25

from which is the tantric Buddhist tradition from Nalanda University in

1:19:33

India and I found on this map that the furthest north of the influences to

1:19:40

Mongolia and the furthest south is to Java and Sumatra Indonesia and the

1:19:47

furthest East is to towards koyasan in Japan so so the way I find but for

1:19:58

example in Mongolia Buddhism is very much mixed with shamanism and in

1:20:04

Indonesia it’s now mostly a Muslim country but they still have some

1:20:11

Javanese like ancient wisdom tradition

1:20:16

that are still being practiced so I guess there are two factors I look into

1:20:24

trying to understand their connection with their ancient wisdom connection with

1:20:30

Buddhism for me it’s the non-duality and compassion so these are the two

1:20:38

major areas that I look to connect into these ancient wisdoms in the different

1:20:46

areas and working in

1:21:03

hi um just a follow-up on what Samir was talking about and it’s kind of a general

1:21:10

question not directed at anyone on the panel it could be for everyone to discuss but I’m kind of thinking through

1:21:18

what are the responsibilities and protocols that we need to take on when

1:21:28

we claim to represent these ideologies

1:21:35

I work in Richmond BC and so to do a

1:21:40

Buddhist project in Richmond is in

1:21:45

certain ways a political act that Buddhism is a institutional religion

1:21:51

that is harnessed by capitalist and governmental forces and within richmond

1:21:59

there are many temples that have been built by some of the most rich and

1:22:04

powerful people in the world and are used as at times to I don’t know what

1:22:14

the proper word to clean money like to launder money or to use as a site of propaganda so I get

1:22:24

a bit antsy sometimes around just though

1:22:30

yeah thinking about you know what an institution are an artist what are our sort of responsibilities to and end

1:22:39

protocols when kind of engaging with these very complex ideologies that are

1:22:44

harnessed in very positive ways but also

1:22:50

there are communities that may have very traumatic responses or experiences in

1:22:57

relation to ideas around Buddhism

1:23:34

if I could say something I think the question of protocols and ethics is

1:23:40

always an important one in terms of the responsibilities particularly as

1:23:46

visitors to unseeded land so the question about what are the protocols is

1:23:53

– as an administrator in a institution like the Richmond Art Gallery I think it

1:24:00

would be wise to get many council

1:24:05

councillors and counsel to advise you on how to proceed with with such a project

1:24:12

but also indigenous councils but I I’m

1:24:17

always learning about protocols and this protocol is I think really important –

1:24:26

in terms of truth and reconciliation in all ways because I think in every

1:24:32

institution there are the launderers and the appropriators and how do we work

1:24:41

past that and get back to truth and just

1:24:49

to ask that question and to keep asking it is also part of the process so if one

1:24:57

doesn’t know then like you’re saying I want you we ask around I think part of when when and how we get stuck is we

1:25:05

think oh I should know and then if we don’t know we just don’t do anything so

1:25:10

reaching out asking the communities that are involved or may be impacted by you

1:25:20

know that’s what elders do and did in many cultures and continue – and we

1:25:27

don’t know so I think the the question in itself is maybe the answer like and and once we think we know what the

1:25:32

protocols aren’t we keep revisiting because they do because protocols change as well

1:25:40

I think the the problems when spirituality becomes institutionalized

1:25:46

is actually very similar to an art becomes institutionalized and I guess

1:25:53

it’s on the one hand the institution’s they give more access to more people

1:26:01

that who can be involved in art or in spiritual practice and but under the

1:26:09

down the down side would be like power abuse or corruption and so I guess it’s

1:26:18

also up to the individuals to to be really careful when they enter into an

1:26:23

institution and again that’s improper to question it

1:26:39

um it’s a response to your question Shawn it’s um I think people will find a

1:26:46

way to political size any thought the ideas anyway let’s give an example I I I

1:26:53

was invited to do a tea ceremony for kids like elementary school students

1:26:58

so I sir Cueto Ian Kwai five combined class together it’s sixty of them and I

1:27:04

know I was wondering because kid like to drink tea and so I have a helper and did

1:27:11

a tea ceremony and it turns out they love to drink tea they can not have him in love of it so part of my tea parties

1:27:19

is I I saw also can buy a bit of a meditation because you need to be aware of the present moment when you receive

1:27:26

the sensational and at the end we get complains by the parents that’s a

1:27:32

religion so there’s a religions event and it’s so so that that’s that’s what

1:27:39

we get so the the short question is short answer is I don’t know how to

1:27:45

address this sort of polarization of you know political do I think people have a

1:27:52

tendencies turn this into political thing but so the political the portico

1:27:59

is a bit of tough questions but maybe to do this kind of show which just do it

1:28:04

they like kind of a my dear the thing is something

1:28:11

it’s Universal and Buddhism so whatever way you look at it there’s because

1:28:18

that’s why it’s so popular because address basic universal human emotions

1:28:23

and especially in the area of suffering and compassion so I think that it’s that

1:28:30

is impregnating all religions so what

1:28:35

they say is a Buddhist show you know something else yeah thank you for that

1:28:44

comment um I’m just gonna conclude by saying that sure there’s no one fit for

1:28:50

all like no polical no set of rules that apply for all but our artists here have

1:28:56

demonstrate the flexibility easy and also you know the opening up of mindsets and frameworks to work with in a lot of

1:29:02

different time complex projects and also in different contexts across different continents I think that’s very

1:29:08

impressive so can we have a round pause to thank our artists

1:29:18

and to think Hema in the art gallery marina Janelle for putting this together

1:29:23

so successfully for us [Applause]

1:29:32

so that concludes our proceedings today and thank you all so much for being here

1:29:40

we’ll be starting back again tomorrow morning in the chapel and Tina Pearson is going to take us through a deep

1:29:46

listening workshop which I think will be really amazing to reset ourselves but

1:29:54

thank you all so much for a wonderful panel and some great conversation and I

1:30:00

look forward to continuing again tomorrow thank you [Applause]

1:30:31

you

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