Tuesday, August 08, 2023

The Prison of Hope

This is a new blog post but the mathematical visual poem I am sharing is over a year old. I thought I would let it simmer for a while before putting it out to the public. The title of the piece is "The Prison of Hope" It follows the mathematical visual poetic form of an "Orthogonal Space Poem" The creation of this endeavor was inspired by my personal dharma which includes zen meditation.  The expression is an embodiment of a conceptual tension between the imagery (Prison) and the equation (liberation). The realization is an understanding that hope is in the domain of the thinking world and while, in pain,  I had always cherished the idea of hope, I now have a different understanding knowing that hope is not the answer.

In the vernacular, the math equation that lies within the piece says that when the value of "The importance of Hope" approaches zero the value of "Before Thinking" approaches infinity. This liberation is accomplished by the fact that the equation instructs us to take the Limit of "The Importance of Hope" to zero. Also it says the value of the concept of "Before Thinking" is proportional to the value of the concept of "Bodhi"

In reference to the image we see that thinking about hope is the trap and one is reminded that the thinker sits at the gates of hell. Check it out at the Rodin Museum: Click Here
Therefore the imagery points to the prison yet, the equation points to liberation.
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I just was made aware of a blog post by Hyon Gak Sunim where he discusses hope in the context of Buddhism: Click Here




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