The Deliberately Non-Straight Path

Buddhism consists of a vast number of lineages branching outward like an enormous fractal. It is a dynamic, constantly changing landscape of teachers, students and philosophies that have grown and changed over time. Every new student and teacher adds their experience and understanding to the path. Numerous cultures have contributed to the color and form of the practices. This is the strength and merit of Sangha. This is the evolving nature of Dharma.

Buddhism is not a static dogma written in stone at some ancient point in time by a single teacher and then passed on in memorized, route fashion from teacher to student down the ages. Students are not taught to blindly follow a predetermined map to travel from our land of confusion to the Pure Land. We travel together towards of goal of mutual fulfillment and benefit.

As I stated previously, everyone has their own dream that they must awake from. Our dream is our personal mythology filled with our own metaphors, signs and symbols. We can utilize the metaphors, signs and symbols from other person's mythologies and from shared religious mythologies, but ultimately, we must awaken ourselves. This is the nature of Buddha within.

The very profound point of the teaching Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness as instructed by the Venerable Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche is that the Buddhist understanding of Emptiness has progressed through several stages over time. Buddhist thought regarding Emptiness was not the same at the time of the historic Buddha Shakyamuni as it is today. In addition, today there exist numerous Buddhist schools with differing views all over the world. All these different schools and lineages offer a huge diversity of approaches. None of these schools are static, they are all in a constant state of change. This is the precision of the deliberately non-straight line.

From Synergetics Fig. 522.09

We do not have the option of blindly following predetermined paths mapped by any particular lineage. The idea of an external path is an illusion. Path is only a word, a metaphor, for something that happens inside us. How can there be an external path leading to a Pure Land located in some distant realm, if we accept the statement by the Buddha that samsara and nirvana are one? 

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says about the Fourth Noble Truth, the Truth of the Path:

In this context, 'path' does not mean an external path that leads from one place to another, but an inner path, a spiritual path that leads to the pure happiness of liberation and enlightenment

Can you see the possibility of the Pure Realm existing here, in this very moment?

Mantra for Rebirth in the Pure Land

In my previous post "How To Reach a Pure Land" I mentioned that I received the empowerment and training for the Tibetan Buddhist Pure Land practices or Phowa.  In this post I would like to provide a high-level overview of the practice of reciting mantra in order to attain rebirth in the Pure Land. I strongly encourage anyone seeking to practice the mantra to obtain instruction and direct transmission (empowerment) from a qualified teacher before proceeding.

At the time of my training, I was taught:

Om ami dewa hri

However, I am very fond of the Indic form:

Om amitabha hrih

Amitabha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light, is the center of a number of mantras in Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana practices.

The Indic form of the mantra of Amitābha is oṃ amitābha hrīḥ, which is pronounced in its Tibetan version as om ami dewa hri, while the Sanskrit form is oṃ amideva hrīḥ

Buddha Amithaba in Tibetan Buddhism, traditional Thanka painting

Very similar to one that I have hanging in my meditation room

Pasted from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Buddha_Amithaba.jpg

The specific Tibetan Practice that I received the empowerment for is called Phowa 

Phowa (also spelled Powa or Poa phonetically) is a Tibetan term for a Buddhist meditation practice that may be translated as the "practice of conscious dying", "transference of consciousness at the time of death" or "mindstream transference".

The method of mind-transference, or "enlightenment without meditation" as it is often called, can be applied at the moment of one's death with the objective of taking birth in the buddha-field of one's choice, i.e., Sukhāvatī, Abhirati, Ghanavyūha, Aṭakāvatī, Mount Potala, the Copper-Colored Mountain, Tuṣita, etc.

I was taught the mantra and visualization for rebirth in the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitabha, called Sukhāvatī.

A wonderful Phowa teaching available on the web is Teachings on Phowa, by H.E. Lingtrul Rinpoche http://www.kathokgonpa.ca/teachings-phowa.php 

There is an entire category of Buddhism called Pure Land Buddhism. In Southeast Asia and Japan, recitation of the mantra, also referred to as praises to the Buddha Amitabha, are believed to be all that is necessary to attain the Pure Land after death. These praises are called Nembutsu or Nianfo.

Nianfo (Chinese: nianfo; Japanese: nembutsu; Korean: yeombul; Vietnamese: niệm Phật), literally "mindfulness of the Buddha" is a term commonly seen in the Pure Land school of Mahayāna Buddhism. It refers to praise offered to Amitabha Buddha as a devotional act. The original Sanskrit phrase would have been Namo Amitabhaya Buddhaya, which can mean either "I trust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light" or simply "Homage to the Buddha of Immeasurable Light".

The reason that we rely on devotion to Amitābha Buddha to obtain rebirth in the Pure Land is mentioned in the Pure Land Buddhism Wikipedia article:

One basic Mahayana Pure Land concept is that Nirvana (liberation, awakening, salvation) has become increasingly difficult to attain, and that only through devotion to Amitābha Buddha and looking towards Amida Buddha for guidance can one be reborn in the Pure Land, a perfect realm in which enlightenment is guaranteed.

How To Reach A Pure Land

If you have read my previous post "In What I Can Trust" you will appreciate that for me, lineage is important. Also, in previous posts I talk about the importance of "Discontinuity." In this post I talk about the importance of "Continuity."

I entered into the path of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in the early 1980's when I took as my teacher the great vajrayana master, Khenpo Kharthar Rinpoche, Abbot of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery in Woodstock, New York. In my early years as a student I was very active in the Buddhist community; I co-founded the Karma Thegsum Choling mediation center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Today, I am not active in the community but I still practice meditation and study regularly. Although I have not seen Rinpoche in many years I still consider myself his student.

Lineage is important to me because I find great value in the teacher-student relationship. I have always striven to be a good student, and a good student requires a good teacher. One outcome of this relationship is that the student eventually takes over the position of his/her teacher. This cycle repeats itself and develops into a lineage. A simple concept really.

Of course, there are many different cultures, lineages, teachings and paths. You might ask, "Why dedicate yourself to one?" Or, perhaps you might ask, "What is the ultimate goal of a lineage?" Does following the practices of a lineage lead one to a certain state of attainment? 

In Buddhism, the idea of "states of attainment" also touches on the concept of Pure Lands and Pure Realms.

I have taken the empowerment for Phowa and took part in a meditation retreat to gain in-depth instruction and practice in Phowa. The Phowa practice is the transference of one's mindstream to a Pure Land. It is usually performed at the moment of death. It allows one to skip the Bardo realm after death and pass directly into a Pure Land. I was instructed in the particular meditation of transference of mindstream to Buddha Amitabha's Pure Land called Sukhavati. That is why I have a tangkha painting of Buddha Amitabha positioned prominently in front of me when I meditate. Therefore, I definitely have a specific goal of going to Sukhavati at the end of this life. After that, who knows? LOL

The core practice is however, to envision the Pure Realm in every moment and situation. This is the enlightened mind shining through into our everyday existence. The Buddha Shakyamuni said, "Nirvana and samsara are one." Ultimately, there is no difference between pure and impure. 

The illusory existence that Buddhism speaks of is the illusion that there is a difference between mundane and supra-mundane, between reality and Pure Realm, between obscuration and enlightenment. If we can break through this illusion we would realize that the Pure Realm is here and now; that there is no reality other than the Pure Realm.

Short of this ultimate awakening of realizing that the Pure Realm is the true reality of here and now, we dream about some day in the future traveling to a destination that is an imagined Pure Realm. We project the possibility of this awakening to another place and time. The paradox is that the enlightened mind realizes that there is no other place and no other time that is more pure than here and now. 

Therefore the future attainment of a Pure Realm is an illusion. Breaking through this illusion is one of the challenges to Awakening.

Obviously we have not attained the Pure Realm completely at this moment. We have not dispelled all illusion and we have not attained ultimate awakening and enlightenment. So we might ask, "Then what do we do in the meantime as we work our way toward this ultimate state?" The answer is that we dream.

Joseph Campbell says that our dream is our personal myth. Each of us have developed our own personal myth and together, we have developed shared cultural myths. Significant personages throughout the ages have shared personal myths that were so highly developed and powerful in their metaphors and symbols that they have become world religions. Thus lineages have been formed.

Therefore, we come full circle back to the original discussion about lineages. My understanding is that a lineage is a mythology, a dream of a destination, shared by individuals seeking to awaken from the dream.

Until that moment when we fully awaken, we live in a dream of dreams, dreaming about a time and place when we awaken from our dream. 

In What Can I Trust

I have asked the same question over and over.

This has been my quest

Ever since I can remember,

I have asked, "In what can we trust?"

 

The Universe has responded with one answer.

Over and over and over again

The answer has always been Emptiness.

Although I did not have a word for it

Until I took Refuge in the Three Jewels

The answer has always been

I can trust the Clear Light of Emptiness and Bliss.

 

And because it was the Three Jewels

That taught me to see the Clear Light

Directly with my Wisdom Eye and

To achieve on rare occaisions the

Sambhogakāya - Body of Bliss,

I also trust in the Three Jewels.

 

And because it was my Guru,

The learned Vajra Master, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche,

Abbot of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery,

My great and completely worthy spiritual friend,

That granted me refuge in the Three Jewels,

And bestowed upon me the name

Karma Lodrö Gyaltsen --

Victorious Banner of Intellect,

I also trust in my Guru.

 

And because it was the Karma Kagyu lineage

Of Tibetan Buddhism,

Which traces its origins to

Shakyamuni Buddha through Marpa the Great Translator,

An unbroken lineage headed by a succession of reincarnations

Of the incomparable Gyalwa Karmapa,

That brought to me the great Kagyu teacher,

My Guru, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche,

I also trust in the Kagyu lineage.

 

And because it was Avolokiteshvara,

The Maha Boddhisattva,

Known in Tibet as Chenrezig,

That proclaimed the ultimate Dharma teaching,

The Prajna Paramita Sutra,

Which cleared my mindstream of any doubt

Of the truth of the Natural Great Perfection,

The Naked Awareness of Emptiness,

I also trust in Avolokiteshvara.

 

And because it was my Mentor,

The learned Vajra Master, Khenpo Tsultrum Gyamtso Rinpoche,

Who empowered me in an unbroken line of transmission,

From the Maha Yogi Padmasambhava,

With the unmatched teaching of

The Progressive Stages of Emptiness,

I also trust in my Mentor.

 

And because it was Shakyamuni Buddha

That turned the Wheel of Dharma three times,

Establishing the foundation of the path

To enlightenment in the current age,

With ultimate skillful teachings such as

The Four Noble Truths, and

The Eightfold Path,

Without which foundation,

The Clear Light of Emptiness

Would surely burn a hole in my meager consciousness,

I also trust in Shakyamuni Buddha.

 

And because it was the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali

That has guided me in the ways of meditation,

The Eight-Limb Path,

Culminating in my attainment of Samadhi,

Including concentration on the Kurma Nadi,

Sustaining me in equanimity in the midst

Of this Dark Age of turmoil, and false gurus,

I also trust in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.

 

And because it was the Dakini Vajrayogini,

The Highest Yoga Tantra Yidam,

The Dakini who is the Essence of all Buddhas,

That has protected me and

Saved me from death numerous times,

She knocks on doors and walls to guide my actions,

She directs my thoughts to create with sacred geometry,

She carries a curved drigug knife in her right hand

Displaying her power to cut the delusions and

Obstacles of her followers,

She drinks the nectar of blood from a skull cup in her left hand

Symbolizing her experience of the Clear Light of Emptiness and Bliss,

I also trust in the Dakini.

 

And because it was R. Buckminster Fuller

The Great Architect and Inventor,

Who discovered the coordinate system of Universe and

Shared his deep insight into the generalized principles of

Nature's geometric systems in his book Synergetics, and

Who once heard a voice speak to him from the Void,

"You no longer require temporal attestation for your thoughts,"

I also trust in Bucky.

2 Triad Unities Coincide

Sunday, 9/19/2010

I wanted to share with you my revelation during Yom Kippur meditation. After a lengthy sitting meditation, in the style of Buddhist vipassana meditation, I got up from my pillow feeling very much at peace and having a great bliss buzz on. I ascended the stairs from my meditation room. On the way up a thought came to me, "The Jewish path is not my thing, I need to stick with Buddhism." At that very moment I tripped a little and caught myself, but also bit my tongue a little. Very prophetic.

So, I immediately repented that thought. I was sent a message to bite my tongue on that thought. I laughed inside; the Jewish path is as much a part of me as the Buddhist path. I am truly a JUBU (Jewish-Buddhist).

The next thing that happened to me is that I had a revelation of how the two paths are joined. The topmost triangle of the Tree of Life in Kabbalah is the triad unity of God-Torah-Israel. The Three Jewels in Buddhism is the triad unity of Buddha-Dharma-Sangha. These two triangles overlap or coincide; they  describe a single being. This was a very profound moment for me.

Perhaps it is my fascination with triangles that brought me to this revelation. But I am not the only one who had this revelation of a triad during Yom Kippur meditation. This evening I researched the God-Torah-Israel triad and discovered that the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig first wrote of this unity in a book "The Star of Redemption." The book was inspired by a revelation he had while fighting in the trenches during World War I. He stumbled upon a synagogue in Berlin on Yom Kippur in 1913 and had the revelation of a triangle of unity; that God-Torah-Israel are a single being.

Is it a coincidence that I had the same revelation on Yom Kippur? Is it coincidence that I saw the two triangles of God-Torah-Israel and Buddha-Dharma-Sangha overlapping to form an even greater unity on Yom Kippur? Are the two overlapping triangles the Star of David, or are they the double tetrahedron of the Dakini Vajrayogini?

A JUBU in the Great Mystery

The Worms Go Out

Bucky teaches that there are two primary directional vectors in Universe: IN and OUT. There is no UP and DOWN.

UP and DOWN are invalid concepts based on ancient beliefs that reality was divided by an infinite horizontal plane. This infinite horizontal plane divided all of reality, thus creating Heaven above and Hell below. Earthly inhabitants lived on the plane; between Heaven and Hell.

We have since discovered that this view of reality is based on an illusion. We actually live on a spherical planet which we call Earth. However, it is important to note that the three Abrahamic religions continue to share a common belief in Heaven and Hell based on this illusory view of reality.

Bucky taught us (see my two previous Blog entries) that there is no static space-time coordinate system and that no-thing can get OUT of Universe. Therefore, IN and OUT are directions only relative to local systems and energy events. IN and OUT do not pertain to Universe. 

A pilot directs his airplane IN for a landing to planet Earth. IN is gravitationally attractive and compressive. OUT is radiantly expansive.

After only several weeks the worms in my Worm Factory are looking healthy and hungry. I added more food and a second tray. I am very happy to find that the worms have already started to move OUT from the first tray and IN to the second tray. That is OUT from the Tray 1 local system and gravitationally OUT from planet Earth, and IN to the Tray 2 local system.

Even the worms demonstrate the truth of Systems Theory and Bucky's Synergetics. Now we can only pray that the three Abrahamic religions can update their belief systems to reflect this wisdom.

Bucky's Brain

Conceptuality: a Synergetics Approach to Discontinuity - Part II

Now that you have TASTED a sip of the Amrita of Bucky's mind in my post "Discontinuity" you have established a new and vital relationship, you have created a connection between your mind and Bucky's mind.

Reading Bucky's writings has stretched your mind. You have been flexible in your perspective in order to try and grok Bucky's mind. I say "mind" instead of "brain" because Bucky would have made this technical distinction. I admit the phrase "Bucky's Brain" has a nice ring to it, but his brain was just a physical organ that is no longer operational, however, his mind is very much active by continuing to create sympathetic resonant waves (or spiraling mental events) in the minds of living humans.

It is fantastic to see the truth of spirals, waves, planes, lines, points and other geometric systems from Bucky's perspective. It is important to realize that these very same words which were taught at an early age represent concepts that are no longer valid. We must redefine these words in order to elevate our awareness of the truth of reality; a significant challenge for us to stretch our own minds.

Bucky presents a new paradigm for Conceptuality. For example, the concept that every event having six vectors is strange when we read it for the first time. Did you have difficulty with this idea?

The concept that every event having six vectors is not fully explained in the sections of Conceptuality that I referred to in my post on Discontinuity, however, if you dug deeper into the chapter on Conceptuality in Synergetics you may have discovered the reason for six vectors. Here is a hint from the reading material:

519.02 ... Any conceptual event in Universe must have insideness and outsideness. This is a fundamentally self organizing principle.

And,

523.03 In a structural system, the number of vertexes is always divisible by four and the number of triangle edges is always divisible by six.

Elsewhere in Synergetics we learn that the minimum system in Universe is the tetrahedron. Perhaps you  saw that coming (this is the Karma-tetra blog). A tetrahedron has four vertexes and six triangle edges (vectors). 

Now think about this concept of a conceptual event (which is actually a system) having insideness and outsideness. What does this mean? What is the significance of insideness and outsideness?

526.35 Systems divide all of the Universe. Thought divides all of the Universe. 

526.18 Insideness is the captured nothingness. Insideness becomes the conceptually embraced, system-defined space. Outsideness is the conceptual system-defined, outwardly uncaptured nothingness. Without systems there can be no space awareness. (Compare Sec.1053.824.) Systems are awareness concepts. Space is nonconceptual awareness.

The division of Universe by a system is manifest as insideness and outsideness. This is the essence of thought. 

Bucky further teaches us that insideness is captured nothingness, while outsideness is uncaptured nothingness. This can be simply understood. However, the next teaching is very significant.

Space is nonconceptual awareness. 

I believe, the term "Space" in this usage by Bucky, is identical to the Buddhist term "Sunyata" or "Emptiness.".

Wow! This may be the most spiritually significant teaching in all of Synergetics. Gotta love that mind of Bucky.

You may be thinking, "This seems like a foreign language. It is a huge information overload. Renders me emotional: What if I can't do this?  I don't have a mathematical mind."

This is not a problem. We must accept that we cannot go everywhere that Bucky could go. It may be that you cannot follow  into the depths of Bucky's mind. However, it is important that at least we have tried to stretch our minds in these new directions.

Please do not feel obligated, seduced, or terrified by these concepts from Bucky's mind. You need not surrender your mind for a reorganization or remodeling. Just keep on being you and further your own uniqueness. It is my hope that I have catalyzed a connection between your's and Bucky's mind that will benefit your understanding of the generalized principles of Universe.

Conceptuality: a Synergetics Approach to Discontinuity - Part I

The following two documents from Chapter 500.00 Conceptuality of Synergetics by R. Buckminster Fuller are suggested reading regarding fractals and the discontinuous nature of reality.

• http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/print/p1900.pdf - Conceptuality sections 519.00 Point, 520.00 Wavilinearity: Fixes, 521.00 Vectors: Trajectories, 522.00 Deliberately Nonstraight Line, 523.00 Vertexes: Crossings
• http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/print/p2400.pdf - Conceptuality sections 524.00 Novent, 525.00 Solids: Matter, 526.00 Space

Also, see my web page http://www.karmatetra.com/ISDE5/Fulldome_Visual_Acuity.htm in which I calculate the Digital Fulldome Limit of Visual Acuity.

This is perhaps your first experience reading Bucky's writings. In addition, Synergetics is a unique written record of the purest expression of Bucky's mind. It is no doubt that you will have some difficulties with the idiosyncratic language and sentence structure. Do not dispair. Simply read through it as if you are reading poetry. Some concepts may seem obvious and straightforward. Other concepts may take several readings before they start to make sense. Hopefully, you will appreciate the door that Bucky has opened for us with his Synergetics.

Following are some highlighted paragraphs from the two documents that I have included here because they are especially relevant to our discussion. Note that all paragraphs are numbered in order to easily identify the heirachy of where the paragraph fits into the indexed Synergetics volume:

519.02 Without insideness, there is no outsideness; and without either insideness or outsideness, there is only a locus fix. Ergo, "points" are inherently nondemonstrable, and the phenomena accommodated by the packaged word point will always prove to be a focal center of differentiating events. A locus fix constitutes conceptual genesis that may be realized in time. Any conceptual event in Universe must have insideness and outsideness. This is a fundamentally selforganizing principle.

520.11 All actions are spiral because they cannot go through themselves and because there is time. The remote aspect of a spiral is a wave because there are no planes.

521.201 Pure mathematics' axiomatic concepts of straight lines are completely invalid. Lines are vector trajectories.

522.01 The so-called pure mathematician's straight line must be the "impossible"; it must be instantly infinite in two infinitely remote opposite directions. All of its parts must be absolutely, uniformly nothing and simultaneously manifest as discretely, and infinitely divisible, increments

See Fig. 522.09 (from the first link) The Deliberately Nonstraight Line - Does this remind you of a fractal?

524.03 All of our experiences are periodically terminated: the termination characterizes both the physical and the metaphysical aspects of our observing faculties and the observed phenomena. There are no experimentally known continuums. Physics has found no "solids."

524.21 It is experimentally demonstrable that an apparent "plane" is a "surface" area of some structural system. There are no experimentally demonstrable continuums. All that has been found is discontinuity, as in star constellations or atomic nuclear arrays. Areas are discontinuous by constructional definition. Areas, as system "faces," are inherently empty of actions or events, and therefore are not "surfaces."

524.31 There are no surfaces. Therefore, there are no areas.

525.01 If subvisibly modulated spiraling wave lines cannot go through the same point at the same time, there can be no continuous, perfectly level planes. Planes are not experimentally demonstrable. Solids are not experimentally demonstrable. Physical experiment has never discovered any phenomena other than discontinuous discrete-energy events, each uniquely identifiable amongst the gamut of frequencies of cyclic discontinuity of all the physical phenomena, as comprehensively and overlappingly arrayed in the vast frequency ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum "reality" has been found experimentally to embrace all known physical phenomena: visible, subvisible, or ultravisible thus far detected as present in Universe. There are no solids. The synergetic behavior of structures satisfactorily explains as discontinuous that which we have in the past superficially misidentified as "solid."

526.01 There is no universal space or static space in Universe. The word space is conceptually meaningless except in reference to intervals between high-frequency events momentarily "constellar" in specific local systems. There is no shape of Universe. There is only omnidirectional, nonconceptual "out" and the specifically directioned, conceptual "in." We have time relationships but not static-space relationships.

526.03 Space is the absence of events, metaphysically. Space is the absence of energy events, physically.

526.04 The atmosphere's molecules over any place on Earth's surface are forever shifting position. The air over the Himalayas is enveloping California a week later. The stars now overhead are underfoot twelve hours later. The stars themselves are swiftly moving in respect to one another. Many of them have not been where you see them for millions of years; many burnt out long ago. The Sun's light takes eight minutes to reach us. We have relationships but not space.

526.05 You cannot get out of Universe. You are always in Universe.

526.12 Space is the inescapable awareness of unaccounted otherness: the otherness is unconsidered but always and only co-occurrent with system considerations.

526.16 "Solids" are the frequencies that are too high for differential tune-inability. Space is the integral of all the frequencies that are too low for tune-inability.

526.25 The phenomenon death is as yet ultratunable system experience. We have no way of knowing whether any single, dual, or triple recurring experience events are to be followed by a fourth, as-yet-unexperienced, similar event which, if and when it occurs, may constitute a system-tuning-in, live realization of the omnioccurring, infratunable, tunable, and ultratunable systems' concentric intervalling. Death is intervalling. Life and death are always and only cooccurrent, life being concentrically successive tuning-ins and death being the as yet nontuned-in.

526.27 Physics finds that Universe has no solid things surrounded by, and interspersed with, space. Life is an inventory of tuning-ins and tuning-outs of experience. Birth is the first tuning in; death may not be the last.

526.35 Systems divide all of Universe. Thought divides all of Universe. Thought is inherently systemic whose inherency always has its oherency of space. Only systems can communicate space. Space is systems-defined-and-deferred awareness of potentially tunable otherness.

Morphology of a Virus Attack

I have just completed a sculpture in time to submit for the "Call for Work: The Art & Science of Systems Biology" at the Santa Fe Complex. This one was a real challenge. Lots of experimenting with new materials and techniques. I had only 3 weeks from initial concept to the deadline for the exhibition. It was a very ambitious project. At times I didn't think that I would make the deadline. Good news is I learned a lot that I will use in future art pieces.

The subject of the sculpture is a virus attacking a cell. Twenty triangular kiln cast glass panels form the icosahedral structure of the virus protein capsid. The icosahedron’s beautiful symmetry hides the dangerous nature of the viral morphology.

The sculpture captures the moment at which the virus has breached the cell. A portion of the violated cell membrane, portrayed in cast and slumped glass, shows the destructive effects of the viral invasion. Two strands of viral DNA represented by spiraling copper wire enter the cell membrane. The viewer can now visualize how the cell's metabolism will be taken over by the viral genetic material.

The sculpture is made entirely of kiln-cast recycled glass. One of my biggest challenges in creating this art piece was transforming the glass from beer bottles to a form and texture that was representative of the quality that I wanted to achieve. Other materials include copper wire, brass rod, silicone adhesive and wooden base.

Ayn Rand on Art and Creativity

A tenent that I particularly appreciate in Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is that the stated role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that he can comprehend and to which he can respond emotionally.


Ayn Rand said, “A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”