THE BARDO OF DEATH

THE BARDO OF DEATH
OIL
$500 US (ORIGINAL 8" X 10")
SIGNED DEDICATED PRINTS AVAILABLE

When I was born many years ago I entered this world with nothing. Today, I have most of it left. It has been attachments that have caused me the most grief in my life. These words that I pen may be alien to some and at times these words are alien to me. The power of possessions and attachments can burst into my being with a desire so strong that I am, at times, unable to resist it’s force. The material world cries out to me that excess and luxury is the way to go. The spiritual side of my universe says the opposite. In times of deep reflective insight I recognize that the latter is the true path to peace and fulfillment and that the former will only lead me to the chasing of an illusive unattainable goal. It has been my experience that the more I get the more I want. My desires are like a dog chasing it’s own tail, endless and frustrating, an exercise in futility married to an illusion of success. Upon my death I will take no material possessions with me from this life. It is the very same way that I entered into this existence. It is the inescapable fact that no person has ever left with baggage in tow. So my prayer is to save me from my wants. The very same wants that have led me down so many a “cul de sac”. This prayer reminds me of a verse by Padmasambhava from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In it he states, “Now when the Bardo of dying dawns upon me, I will abandon all grasping, yearning and attachment, enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching, and eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa; as I leave this compound body of flesh and blood I will know it to be a transitory illusion. visionary imagist “Joey”