This painting holds one of my favorite lines from the prayer beneath the collection: "Help us restore what has been harmed and create a future of harmony and respect."
I painted it as a sunrise, a center of gold opening into rays of red and orange, the first light after a long, dark night.
I wanted to make something in color that remembered that the morning still comes no matter how hard the dark period.
The best way to see a sunrise is through an old growth forest of vibrant trees
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What we compose shows, so do it with care
The original is now ready to find its home.
Inquire on Cohart. People sometimes ask how long a painting like this takes me to compose. The painting itself is a matter of days, but the more complete answer is that it takes much longer. This is because the gold comes in layers that each needs its own time and cannot be hurried.
Gold teaches me patience. It will lift, crack, or refuse if it is rushed. So I stopped counting in days and started counting in layers.
I want to save our world's forests!
A future is built the same way: not in one grand gesture, but in patient layers, small daily choices and acts, the things we plant (sow) and tend (cultivate) and refuse to give up on. What we care for grows. What we show up for shows. Everyone can see what shows from our care in its composition.
As of today, "A Future of Harmony and Respect" is available to view on Cohart, to acquire by inquiry. If someone is standing at the start of something, this is a sunrise for that wall.
It is a one-of-a-kind, watercolor with 24 karat sustainable gold leaf, with a prayer sealed inside that can be accessed through a chip that allows it to be heard aloud. And it arrives with a certificate of authenticity and earth conscious packaging.
And I would love to hear: What part of the living world do you most want to see restored?
(Maybe it's forests, human communities, vegan kitchens, wild grasslands, fish oceans, bird skies, tunnel systems, space belts full of debris... Tell us in the comment section below)
With love,
Ekaterina Sky
P.S. Feeling moved beyond wall art and mural painting? PLANT TREES through a new movement at ourlifeforce.org. Also, see my art on Instagram: @ekaterina.sky.art
City Plants is a program funded by the LADWP, which is exploring opportunities to expand offerings beyond the City of Los Angeles and into surrounding communities. Send request
Make a Difference with City Plants
City is getting hotter. We can be part of the solution. Donations plant shade trees that combat climate change, cool neighborhoods, and improve health. Help grow a cooler, greener LA.
"California Treeams.") Trees for Jane wants to thank everyone for their support for Trees for
Jane! As of March 2022, if anyone wants to follow Jane Goodall (RIP) on her
journey to save our forests and climate, visit
Jane’s Green Hope
a project of the Jane Goodall Institute.
Celebrate Earth Day and Dr. Jane Goodall’s birthday on April 3rd and all month long throughout April.
Let’s celebrate Earth Day and a woman who for over 60 years inspired and motivated millions of people across the world to live in greater harmony with nature and to take action on behalf of the planet we share with plants and animals.
Compelled by Dr. Goodall’s mission to live sustainably and with vegetarian compassion, we look with new hope for a brighter, greener future.
As she has shared, one of the most resilient and impressive forces on Earth is contained within the seeds of plant life, which can break through walls and always find a way. More: janegoodall.org
Is there a Buddhist parallel to this popular Western story of a Garden, a first human couple, a Wisdom Tree, and a tricky shapeshifting Serpent? There is. One need only look at the Agganna Sutta, "A Buddhist Genesis," a discourse given by the Buddha "On Beginnings."
But first it may be better to question the Sumerian, Jewish, Christian version -- made silly by its oversimplification over the millennia. The Christian version makes next to no sense, the Jewish interpretations a little more sense, and the much older Sumerian roots from texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh the Enūma Eliš. All of these are creation myths rooted in some kind of history.
Sadly, many readers misunderstand the Buddhist version of "Genesis." The Buddha is in no way explaining how life began. It is preexisting. He is merely explaining how it came to Earth and how karma (deeds) impacts the environment. As people become so, too, the world declines. We are not evolving so much as devolving from a Golden Age (Satya Yuga), and it is all cyclical. It happens again and again.
This is an echo of the older Vedic (Hindu) and Shramanic (Jain) versions, and that is because "Buddhism" does not begin with the historical Buddha. He is constantly referring back to previous buddhas (Great Heroes or Ford-makers as Jainism calls them, avatars and sages in the Old Vedic Religion that became Brahmanism and much later Hinduism).
At their pure inner core, all beings know that they are not separate from one another. In that state of mind, it is as if they live in a Garden of Eden, where they have no need for shame, no need to differentiate friend from foe, good from evil, and no need to imagine a creator god to oversee their behavior.
They have no expectations that their lives should be other than they are.
It's all me. I created everything. - Even us?
But something in our nature likes to delude us into forgetting this oneness [or unity] of all things and into believing that life should be fairer than it is.
We give that demon a name, Mara [Death, the Obstacle to Enlightenment], to help us identify it.
Suppose that, a very long time ago, the first two human beings evolved from earlier beings. We’ll call them Adam and Eve. Their inner core, or Buddha-nature [or natural state of only dreaming and soon to awake], was pure, and they had no fear of other beings, no sense of good and evil, no self that was separate from other beings and from whatever force brought them into being.
Adam and Eve did have a sense, though, that one of the trees in their garden bore intoxicating [entheogenic] fruit that they should stay away from.
That was the Tree of Duality. Looking for an opportunity to trick Adam and Eve into believing they were distinct separate beings, Mara [the Deceiver] took the form of a snake to talk with them.
No beings had ever lied to Adam and Eve, and they had no way of knowing that the snake was not really a being, so they listened as the demon Mara told them how much fun it would be to become intoxicated on the fruit of the Tree of Duality.
Zarathustra, Iran (Persia)
So Adam and Eve ate the fruit and became drunk with duality. They began to see the world as a conflict between good and evil [as taught in the novel Near East religion of Zarathustra called Zoroastrianism].
They decided that only a cruel god would create such an unfriendly place, so they invented the god of the Old Testament and then hid from him.
Because Mara had taken the form of a snake, they feared and despised all snakes. They made distinctions everywhere: friend and foe, human and animal, smart and dumb, handsome and ugly, strong and weak, rich and poor. They began to see old age, sickness, and death as unfair, as burdens, as suffering.
Four prophets: Mani, Zoraster, Buddha, Jesus
They thought child-bearing was punishment. So that was how Mara, for thousands of years to come, deluded human beings into forgetting that they could return to the Garden of Eden.
Every parable is supposed to have a moral. I’d say the moral is: Some believe in an original sin that requires salvation. Other believe in a delusion that requires awakening. — Mel Pine (Urgyen Jigme)
Practitioners arrived early for a 7:00 am start by taking the Eight or Ten Precepts (a chanting ceremony led by monks). There were more than 50 practicing, with a large support crew of food donors and onlookers, serving us breakfast and preparing lunch delicacies.
Before the first walking meditation session could begin, Mara reminded us that life is samsara: A devotee passed away, and the abbot and assistant abbot had to race off to provide the ceremonial blessings (the transfer of merit ritual), leaving the responsibility of providing an hour-long Dharma talk to Wisdom Quarterly.
That talk covered this basic question. Play along at home. "What is better, what is hard or what is easy?"
Someone yelled, "Hard!" Wrong. Another person yelled, "Easy!" Wrong. It was a trick question. It can neither be said that the hard way is the better way, nor that it's the easy way. It depends. Sometimes what is "the hard way" is actually the easy way in the long run. The Buddha did not hand us a needlessly difficult path. He made it as easy as a normal person could expect.
There's a difference between easy and lazy. We all would like a shortcut, but a lazy person seems to prefer no cut, no effort, nothing to do. That's what sells. Hard work starts looking pretty good by comparison. The Buddha was criticized severely for stealing rich kids from their riches because he would give a talk, and rich, handsome, and prominent young adults would ask to ordain and live a life of wandering asceticism. Parents would berate the Buddha that he was cheating those kids out of their right inheritances because they could have been rich and prominent and lived a life full of pleasure but were now instead doomed to the drudgery of austerities and poverty and deprivations (no children, families, houses, kingdoms).
The Buddha countered that he would never give someone the lesser thing for a greater thing. What he was saving those disciples from were exactly the painful vicissitudes of a household life in exchange for liberation, wisdom, and freedom -- that far more valuable than kids, a spouse, and a household to look after like everyone else. They were, of course, free to disrobe and return to the "lower" life if the "high" life did not suit them. But their karmic merit for having been monastics almost ensured a superior rebirth hereafter. So far from losing, they were gaining even in a worldly sense.
What would you rather, brown rice or mangoes?
Farmers were working in a field in ancient Magadha (proto-India) when the Buddha was set to speak. Brahmins were eager to defeat him in debate. One farmer asked the other what was going on. Why were people taking dana (generous donations) in that direction. The other farmer explained that those people were going to see the great Samana (Wayfarer), whereas they as farmers were poor and had to work planting rice.
The Compassionate Teacher
Just then the Buddha and his retinue came walking in direction of the talk. The farmers were thrilled to see him and donated rice. The Buddha asked what they were doing. They explained they were planting rice, too busy to attend his talk. Strangely, the Buddha asked if they wouldn't prefer mangoes. "Well, of course, we'd prefer mangoes. But we're rice farmers. We plant rice. We get rice. "Still," the Buddha said, "wouldn't you prefer mangoes." "Of course we would," they said, "but we plant rice, we get rice."
"What if after planting the rice, you prayed for mangoes?" the Buddha asked. The farmers thought him daft and no sadhu ("holy man") they needed to worry about missing hearing give a sutra. He obviously knew nothing about farming. "Praying won't change anything if one has planted rice, venerable sir." The Buddha shocked them by saying:
"In exactly the same way, the karma you do gives you the vipaka/phala (karmic resultants and fruit) you get. It won't matter if, sowing bad deeds, you pray for good results. You will get bad results all the same." Suddenly, the farmers thought he was very wise and did know farming after all.
They asked him, "What will you be talking about today, venerable sir?" "The Brahmins will ask me about karma and try to trick me and best me in debate. Not engaging them, I will try to teach them about the efficacy of actions. I only hope they understand me as well as you have." The farmers bowed and made offerings, overjoyed that they had had the chance to hear and see (drishti) the Great Teacher in the flesh.
A drunk man was desperately searching for something under a lamp. A sober man passed and asked what was going on. The drunk man said he lost something very valuable. The sober one started looking and asked, "You lost it around here?" pointing to the area. The drunk said, "No, I lost it over there," pointing to the dark. "Then WHY are you searching here?" exclaimed the sober fellow. "The light is better," the drunk explained. In other words, "it's easier." It isn't about what easy, is it? It is about what is fruitful, profitable, easier in the long run. What's easier -- going to college, doing homework, getting good grades, and sticking to it until there's a degree in hand or blowing smoke, living on the couch, and watching lots of TV, then getting a menial job when it's time to eat and consume more blowable smoke?
The answer seems obvious but isn't. The first way is easier. That's why we do it. The second way is going to lead to an impossible life of hardships, privations, and eventual starvation and trouble when, with preparation (keeping one's nose to the grindstone in the early years when it would have been more fun to do otherwise) it could have been avoided. What seems "easy" will become very hard. This is why the Buddha always encouraged strenuous effort to practice the path, but when on the mat, one has to calm down. The Dharma talk made the distinction between samvega (a "sense of urgency" to practice, such as when we experience a great deal of pain or loss, as by the death of a relative or a failure of a relationship), santosha (contentment, a sense of effortless ease), and laziness.
Too much effort and too little effort are faults, whereas contentment in practice is the Middle Way the Buddha advised. Of course, we have to get our behinds to the mat in the first place. That's when a sense of urgency comes in handy. And, of course, we have to be well rested. That's when a little laziness goes a long way. Over-efforting, straining, striving is no way to gain calm, such as that of meditative absorption (jhana), but laziness will surely never get it either. The easy way, in this case, is balance, the middle way that avoids extremes of effort and indolence, just as hedonism and severe asceticism are avoided. It's tempting to think that contentment is easy, but it isn't. Try it. Try to be content. It's quite hard. Throwing everything away, taking vows of poverty and austerity, is even harder -- and it won't help BECAUSE real letting go is not external.
But I want it all!
It's an inside job. It is internal letting go that the Buddha called nekkhamma, the basis of dana ("letting go," generosity, giving, sharing, relinquishing, or what is generally termed "renunciation"). What is the use of being rich if one clings to those riches, worries, is sleepless, is unable to share, comes to events and gives but leaves early to go check on one's stuff? That is no "giving," no "letting go," no ease of mind that enjoys the riches. Now imagine another rich person, who attends events, gives, and doesn't even lock the door when leaving home. "Did you lock your door when you left?" a caring friend asks. "I don't know. I think so, maybe not." "What are you crazy? You'll be robbed!" "Eh, then I'll get some more." Now, that's a rich person, enjoying those riches, doing what should be done to ensure future wealth (sharing), and not losing sleep over it. We can learn from this by practicing letting go even as we have things and our comfortable Western lives.
The Buddha did not say (as Jesus was reputed to have said), "Give up everything and follow me." The Buddha gave advice to householders on how to grow rich and hang on to their riches. This is the Householder's Dhamma found in the Sigala Sutta. Sigala was a young man, and the Buddha advised him that as for money, the best Buddhist practice was to divide into four equal parts and
Pay bills (to cancel out past debts)
Secure new inventory (for future profits)
Save for a rainy day (anticipating unexpected costs)
Spend now for enjoyment.
This is the way to grow rich AND enjoy one's riches here and now. That sutra is FULL of valuable advice on friendship and many other things particularly suited for ordinary householders wishing to live in the world rather than externally renouncing it. Buddhism is not an ascetic tradition for the vast majority of Buddhists. It is so for sincere monastic practitioners, but as most of them seem to have gone the way of temple priests, they more resemble the ancient Brahmins (priestly caste) of the Buddha's day than the samanas (wandering ascetics) the Buddha laid down as the direct path to enlightenment and liberation in this very life. It seems everyone prefers immediate riches.
How long is samsara (the continued wandering on called the Wheel of Death and Rebirth)? It is endlessly long, coming to no natural end. We can get off the carousel, but that takes some hard effort that pays off in endless ease and peace. We foolishly think it's easier to just keep doing what we've been doing and praying for a different result. But our ease is going to cost us. It won't feel easy or wise to have been lazy when effort was called for, and greed is no match for contentment. Contentment is the way to meditative success because balance (the middle way) is the key, avoiding extremes of effort and laziness.
"There is no way to happiness..." What, why? "...because happiness is the way." Ease is the way to success in meditation, not gritting one's teeth and straining. It leads to calm, absorption to purification, purification to success in insightful realization (vipassana). Jhanabegets wisdom.
Then the chief monks returned, lunch was served, with devotional offerings to the Buddha preceding the rich and varied meal and gift bags for all, chanting blessings. We rested, socialized, did another round of meditation, then Juan, a bright student of Ven. Punnaji (RIP), detailed the Four Noble Truths from Ven. Punnaji's idiosyncratic perspective, altering nearly all the traditional terms. More blessings followed, with a trip outside to pay homage to the Bodhi Tree next to the stupa on the grounds of the vihara. We were all offered blessed wrist threads for protection and "holy" (blessed) water.
Event details
VESAK is Buddhism's "Christmas" as it celebrates the Buddha's birthday, but it much more than that.
But it's much more than that, as it commemorates when the wandering ascetic Siddhartha became the Buddha (supremely enlightened) and passed into final nirvana, events that all occurred on the full moon day in May (technically on the ancient lunar calendar's month of Vesakha).
It is a massive celebration around the world nowadays. And the party comes to North Hollywood on Sunday, with the tradition lunar observance, free island cuisine, chanting, blessings, devotional activities, and insight/mindfulness meditation known as vipassana.
This is so cool, just wish you were here to be.
This year is special because the Center has asked Wisdom Quarterly to answer questions, lead meditation, and give a Dharma (Dhamma) talk on the attainment of enlightenment in this very life (what Siddhartha did under the Bodhi tree that caused his spiritual awakening) and/or the development of merit for riches, sensual pleasures, and incredible rebirth possibilities as taught by the Buddha.
O, Buddha, what is the true nature of existence?
Theravada Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka off the tip of India celebrate these three amazing events on a single day, sometimes carrying on the holiday season for a week or more.
It is the year's most important all-day lunar observance called the Uposatha("Sabbath" day). If one were only going to do one, this would be it.
Wisdom Quarterly's own teacher, Dharma editor, and meditation guide invites ANY QUESTION on life, the universe, and everything (sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, Zen, existence, koan riddles, even imponderables), addressed from the perspective of the historical Buddha. Wear white as was the ancient custom of the Buddha's day.
EVENT IS FREE (PLEASE RSVP):
Lunch is served at about noon, so feel free to come-and-go for any part of the celebration.
The call of the wild, the lure of the quiet, what causes city people to venture into the woods?
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Forests welcome the spring
It must be the first full day of spring because we are honoring the proudest members of Nature, the trees. Since the original towering tree, which mycologist Paul Stamets is sure was a giant mushroom on a primordial earth, trees have been the charismatic megaflora of the world.
Their diversity is stunning, and their size varies from the time they used silica instead of carbon (and left mountain size stumps all over the world) until today when the oldest and largest are on the Island of California, one a bristlecone pine named Methuselah out near US 395 by Bishop on the way to Death Valley, the other a redwood in Northern California they are trying to fence off from tourists. The exact location of each is kept secret but is said to be possible to find with a search.
A Journey Through the World's Oldest Forests(Hunter Robinson) Forests have stood the test of time, witnessing millennia of change, (d)evolution, and human history. Some of the world's oldest forests date back millions -- even hundreds of millions -- of years, preserving an incredible glimpse into Earth's prehistoric past. These ancient woodlands are home to towering trees, rare wildlife, and ecosystems that have remained virtually unchanged for centuries. From the towering redwoods of California to the misty, primeval jungles of Malaysia, here's a journey through the world's oldest forests, where nature tells the story of time itself.
Buddhism is a "forest tradition." It started there with the future Buddha, the Bodhisatta (Prince Siddhattha Gotama or Siddhartha Gautama, soon to become the Buddha or "Awakened One"), under a big sal tree. That is where he was reborn in the womb of Maya, who was on her way to see her parents for the delivery. But it came in a garden grove under a sturdy sal (sala) tree. (Why a sal tree? The lore of the Salabhanjika that might explain that).
Born in a garden grove of trees in Lumbini
That newly reborn child, coming down from the Tusita world to pursue enlightenment, made good on his mission decades later by leaving his palace and life of privilege, taking up yoga and meditation with Yogi Āḷāra Kālāma and Yogi Uddaka Rāmaputta until he set off on his own.
He was followed by a group of Five Ascetics (Kondañña, Assaji, Bhaddiya, Vappa, and Mahānāma), until he left them for a big banyan tree so that he could make his own way alone, which didn't work out but which saved his life thanks to the intercession of a milkmaid named Sujata, who offered the wandering ascetic Siddhartha solid food, mistaking him for the spirit of the tree he was at that time sitting under in the forest.
The Wandering Ascetic Siddhartha, the Buddha
Regaining his strength under Sujata and her servant's care, he abandoned severe asceticism as useless for achieving actual enlightenment and liberation. (They may help in other traditions, but that is because those traditions do not have as stringent a definition as to what constitutes real awakening and freedom). He set off in search of another tree, the now famous Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa), the oldest documented tree in the world. Under it Siddhartha strived to enter the meditative absorptions, bring them to perfection of samadhi and then practiced for insight (what Buddhism in the Commentaries came to call vipassana). The combination of calm and insight was the Middle Path of mental purification the Bodhisattva ("Being bent on enlightenment") had been searching for on his quest for enlightenment that had taken nearly seven years.
Ending six years of severe asceticism, his body emaciated appearance led Sujata to believe he was the tree-spirit (bhumi-deva, dryad) who had granted her wish. She thanked him with enough nourishment to cultivate the Middle Way, develop meditative absorption (jhana), and attain enlightenment or bodhi, thereafter becoming known as the "Enlightened One" or the Buddha.
When 45 years of teaching the Middle Way and bringing the Dhamma (knowledge of the path to enlightenment) back into the world, the Buddha relinquished the will to live on. He decided to hike to Kushinagar, where he found twin sal trees to recline into nirvana, closing out an 80-year-long life after countless rebirths as the Bodhisatta.
For 45 years the Buddha remained a wandering ascetic (shramana), abiding in forest groves rather than accepting other more luxurious lodgings offered to him. When he trained nuns, monks, novices, and lay people, he often recommended they find a quiet place where they would not be disturbed by noise and other people. Here they could cultivate the Middle Path, avoiding extremes. Here they could realize the ultimate truth. Here they could see and experience for themselves that what the Buddha taught did not depend on the Buddha to be considered "Truth." It could be objectively verified. Here, where? The forest, woods, or a pleasant garden under a portable mosquito net.
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With love,
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