Manifestations of Avalokiteshwara

This is a beautiful old Weeping Willow that I pass by on my bike a few times a week. All along the River Main in the 10 km I travel it is the only one and it has a lovely presence. Here in the pictures today, you can see how it is just starting to open itself up to Spring. I found these few wispy branches hanging over the river to be especially beautiful and fragile this morning.

Here are a lot of branches hanging, almost looking like a waterfall of leaves.

And in this last picture you can see the massiveness of the tree itself.

This all fits in very well with the first of the Thirty-three Transformation Forms of Guanyin. The first is called Willow Leaf Guanyin also known as Bhaisajya-raja Avalokitshwara. This form of the Bodhisattva hold a vase in the left hand a stalk of willow leaves in the right. Many say this refers to the the Bodhisattva's flexibility to adapt to the mind of sentient beings, like willow leaves in the wind. Or that the vase has an elixir that can cure all physical and spiritual illnesses. I think both are nice ideas!

Oh willow deeply rooted upon the shore

With branches as thin as a breeze of wind

Bending each way

While leaves reach down

To the waves beneath them

Teardrops not ready to fall

Some other artwork

After looking in the sketches in my diary, I started to think about the artwork that I had done over the last year and how it relates to my Buddhist Training. The first here is part of the Teachin that no matter how dry and cracked the ground of our existence may be, the Unborn is always there...even when it may only feel like a small rivulet of water...IT is THERE for us. I know this very much from experience with this feeling...and from this small rivulet a flower may bloom and then it flows and begins to fill every crack of our being. How wonderful it/ It is!
This is the picture hanging next to the one above, sorry about the photo quality...our camera is seeing its last days once again! The golden circle represents the Unborn for me and the Knot of Eternity Its expression in the every day world. And somehow the vison of water mixed with light is how I sometimes perceive this, that's why I have the water cascading out of the circle and filled with light. The words may be hard to read from the picture, but here is what they are:

Eternal Source

Ever flowing

Ever falling

Never ceasing

Eternal Flow

This is a picture that I did which reflects one of Dogen's writings which I really treasure. I like combining Celtic Knotwork and Medieval Art as elements. This is from the scripture which says:

"If you become thus utterly free you will be as the water wherein the dragon dwells or as the mountain whereon the tiger roams."

My next project that I'm working on is block prints of the 33 forms of Kanzeon, but more about that tomorrow!