|
Kaohsung International Container Festival 2001
|
|
THE HEART SUTRA Yung-hsien Chen
|
|
I. Introduction The Meaning of the Heart Sutra in Buddhist Thought Originally written in Sanskrit, the Prajna Paramita Sutra was translated into Chinese in AD 172. The sutra explained the link in Buddhist thought between the essential oneness of everything in the world (prajna) and the experience of emptiness (sunyata). This reconciliation of the two ideas has been explained in both long and short versions. Translated into English the title of the sutra is 'The Heart of Great Wisdom Sutra'. Even in its abridged version, the Heart Sutra is not an easy concept to understand for Buddhists anywhere. (The version presented here below has again been simplified even furher and is taken from Zen and the Brain by James H.Austin, M.D) Here, Buddha is explaining to his chief disciple, Shariputra, what it means when one has finally done away with all the illusions presented by life and have overcome the suffering that goes with the human condition. Basically, the Buddha tells his disciple to look at the world around him and then look into each part of that world until all emotional relations are seen to be empty constructs Ðincluding the wish to attain a state of enlightenment. Once one has become free by seeing the world as it really is, one can then demonstrate real compassion to everything in the world because one can see the illusions and delusions that create suffering. The Heart Sutra (The Sutra of the Great Wisdom Gone Beyond) From the depths of prajna wisdom The Bodhisattva of Compassion saw into the emptiness of every construct And so passed beyond all suffering. Know then that in such depths Form is only emptiness, Emptiness only form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. This is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and the rest of consciousness. All these, by their very nature, are emptiness, Being neither born nor dying, stained nor pure, waxing nor waning. So in emptiness is there neither form, feelings, perceptions, impulses or consciousness.
The bodhisattva who dwells in this perfect wisdom, attaining nothing, is not entrapped by delusive fantasies. And where there are no such obstacles there can be no fear. Now, beyond all delusions, one reaches ultimate Nirvana. Having practised this same Great Wisdom Gone Beyond, all Buddhas in the past have come to supreme enlightenment. Know then that this peerless mantra, this true mantra of highest wisdom, unfailingly relieves all suffering. And so proclaim it: Gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. Awakening, fulfilled! Heart of great Wisdom!
|
| II Project -Kaohsiung International Container
Arts Festival, 2001
'The Heart Sutra' is the name I gave to my video installation at the Kaohsiung Container Arts Festival in December 2001. The Festival played host to 36 artists from 20 countries around the world. The official catalogue of the Festival describes it thus: ÒWith its port as the fourth largest container port in the world, Kaohsiung city, the so-called ocean capital, is organizing the Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival, 2001 to assemble arts from around the world under the theme of '101 approaches to container.' At the end of the first year of the new century, ÒcontainersÓ enter into an alliance with ÒartsÓ in Kaohsiung, and this will be the first step toward the goal of holding such a biennial festival every two years in the future. At the venue of the festival-the OceanÕs Star (Pier 19 to Pier 21), visitors can appreciate thirty-six container installation art works from sixteen countries at the ÒVisual Art ExhibitionÓ area, gain interesting experience by coming in direct contact with container at the ' Container Maze' area, and seek relaxation at the 'Art Fair' and 'Container CafŽ' areas. Furthermore, the 'Performing Carnival' been inaugurated by the performances by Plasticiens Volants, Neighbourhood Watch, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, and Godot Theatre Company, and then there were a series of performing programs during the period of the festival. Essentially, the visual artists were provided with sea containers that measured 2.3m in height, 5.9m in length and 2.35m in width. How we were to use them was up to us. Among some of the uses to which the containers were put include: being the venue for simple video projections, the housing for highly stylised modern Japanese waterfalls, the creation of a world underwater, a table tennis court in a museum and an upside down world. I took the idea of the Buddhist Heart Sutra as my starting point. |
|
III. Concept For the catalogue of the Arts Festival, I wrote: 'Although the title of this work is 'Heart Sutra', I am not trying to present a stern and serious religious message. Instead, I want to se this material to rethink people's sense organs and sensory perceptions in these strange and fickle times. Visitors enter the work in a free and relaxed manner and are immediately start to use their senses of touch, vision, hearing and smell. By the nature of the work, it is the only way they can experience it, and thus awaken the power of their senses. As for the difference between direct perception and what can be expressed in words, I am afraid you will have to actually enter the work if you want your body to reach a conclusion.Ó In short, in this piece of work, I wanted the spectator of art to become a visitor into it. I wanted to create something interactive that would engage all their senses and break down the dispassionate observation of a piece of work that sometimes becomes the hallmark of an instillation.
Also, I wanted this interaction to be fun. Visitors to the installation could not help but play with it. I decided to use as my medium, the Heart Sutra, which is a philosophy in Buddhist thought. The nearest Christian equivalent would be a psalm or prayer. (Below is a longer and more detailed explanation of the sutra.) Statment The container was filled with ropes of sandalwood beads that hung down from the ceiling, no more than 10cm apart. At one end of the container was a video screen showing some of the films I have made that deal with the Buddhist idea of the Heart Sutra, at the other end was the entranceway, hung with a dense curtain of bead ropes. The lighting inside was a low-level red, to suggest the inside of a Buddhist temple. The visitor would have to push aside the slightly heavy bead curtain. And while his or her eyes were adjusting to the lighting inside, make his or her way forward to the video screen to see depictions of the Heart Sutra dealing with both the physical and spiritual aspects of the sutra. Once visitors had seen the video, they would navigate back through the ropes of beads to emerge blinking into the daylight. The beads, of which there were more than 120,000, were made from sandalwood and gave off a pungent, pleasant aroma that was not only strong within the container, but could be smelled from some distance away. Many visitors to the Heart Sutra literally followed their noses through the Festival until they found it. As the container itself was very hot, I occasionally revived the drying-out wood with a sandalwood polish that intensified the smell. Because the ropes of beads were close together, it was impossible to move through the work without touching them and as they swung to and fro, the sensation of contact with the bead ropes was like a gentle massage for some people. The lighting inside the container was kept deliberately low not only to mimic the effect of a temple, but also to ensure that people outside the container could not see what was going on inside. The visitors' natural curiosity was encouraged to persuade them to step inside. Inside, the sound was provided by the clacking of the beads and from two speakers that relayed a repetition of the mantra sound 'Omm', which got progressively longer and louder, rising and deepening in pitch. The films displayed on the video monitor examined various aspects of the Heart Sutra in Buddhist thought, taking in both the physical aspect (through the display of the acupuncture points on the head) and the spiritual (through the sutra itself written on my own skull and face). Some visitors to the installation would realise that the actions they took to reach the video monitors were themselves an acting out of aspects of the Heart Sutra itself. ' |
 |
 |
