II am in a sesshin, a 2.5-day short form of intensive Zen meditation. My thoughts and images keep coming back to me about the artificial general intelligence (AGI) that we are currently creating. More and more people from the fields of humanities, psychology or team organization are impressed, surprised, anxious about the capabilities of AGI. It seems that [...]
Form and emptiness
Form is empty. It has a form, but no substance; it is neither matter nor energy. Form is consciousness - seeing something as something produces form. However, form is also functional: substance, matter and energy interact according to laws. As part of consciousness, they interact in form. Form is emptiness. Form is consciousness. Consciousness [...]
Bodhi Zendo
Bodhi Zendo I had ordered a book to take with me to Bodhi Zendo: "Zen in the Art of Ink Painting" by Katharina Shepherd-Kobel. It is a beautiful book, it speaks to me and feeds my longing to learn ink painting and to deepen my meditation. When I got involved in Zen meditation 3.5 years ago, the act of [...]
Shadow
Shen I first heard about shadow work decades ago, I wondered what exactly it was. I always thought of deep abysses in the soul, traumas, taboos, secrets that you didn't share with anyone because it was too shameful to talk about them. I thought that shadows are what we hide from ourselves and [...]
Art Before Theory
Art Before Theory (short summary) Christoph Kluetsch This lecture is the final one in my winter series. I have given six lectures so far, and I have been challenging myself throughout. Today, I am taking on my biggest challenge yet. I have been exploring topics that interest me-topics that represent a collision between Western art [...]
Yantras: Sacred Geometry in Nature, Body and Machines
The spider brings forth its own web. This image from the Upanishad invites deep meditation on how nature brings out a thread that it forms into a complex symmetry. Looking at the spider, the thread, and the web-its function and the source of the complex pattern-we have an image that invites deep speculation about mantra, [...]
Retinal Art and the Ruins of Representation
Retinal Art and the Ruins of Representation: Revisiting Plato's Cave and the Notion of Rasa in the Natyashastra Christoph Kluetsch "Something in the world forces us to think. This something is not an object of recognition, but a fundamental encounter." Gilles Deleuze - Difference and repetition p. 139 "Minds exist only in relation to other [...]
2nd lecture: Irumbai Temple as Yantram (Apparata)
During the Chola Empire, the layout of Shiva temples was formalized to a great degree. Based on the Agamas and Shastras, the temple was fully developed into a place in space, time, and consciousness where the microcosm and macrocosm mirror each other. When a temple is built, a site will be chosen, and it has [...]