Transitions and dormancy

Learning to celebrate - learning to see anew

Thich Nhat Hanh’s passing yesterday marks, it feels like, the ending of an era. Beginning the transition at 00:00 of 22.01.2022 feels eventful. A bookend to other passings before him: Lauren Berlant on the 28.06.2021, bell hooks on 15.12.2021.

Yesterday, I tried to follow the teachings that the monks and students who follow in his footsteps are practising. Reading their message about his passing while tuning in to h0thouse’s broadcast with Marc Gloede speaking about Dormancy (stepping out of the art world) was an interesting mix. Their message grounded this other message about dormancy, an earthing complement. Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings about mindfulness have spread an understanding of mindfulness meditation, and along with other teachers’ teachings (such as the Vipassana school, by S. N. Goenka) nothingness is a key lesson and practice.

As Marc mentioned, nothing can be further from the production mill of the contemporary art circuit than nothingness, and artists like Yoko Ono have rebelled with a desire towards disappearance. Today, with what I feel about the production mill of social media, the same goes for platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.

Brother Phap Dung
There is dying in the sense of letting this body go, letting go of feelings, emotions, these things we call our identity, and practicing to let those go.

The trouble is, we don’t let ourselves die day by day. Instead, we carry ideas about each other and ourselves. Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it’s detrimental to our growth. We brand ourselves and imprison ourselves to an idea.

Letting go is a practice not only when you reach 90. It’s one of the highest practices. This can move you toward equanimity, a state of freedom, a form of peace. Waking up each day as a rebirth, now that is a practice.

— from an interview, Thich Nhat Hanh’s final mindfulness lesson: how to die peacefully, Plum Village

Nothing feels hard to do often, surrounded by the urgency of the cause of the moment.

Nothing makes it hard to see what we are missing in the heat of that moment.

Yesterday, I breathed, listened, and heard, how disappearing from a social media page, deciding not to engage in producing, holding still in nothing - lets me hear better the voices that aren’t celebrated in the urgent cause of the moment.

Singapore is such a hothouse of voices. Bangkok is. Cities are. Maybe cities can disappear a little bit. In some places, they are. When they do, are we ready to help other places regenerate local economies, local seeds, youth aspirations?

From a network weaver based in Bangkok & working regionally, I heard this past week how young farmers in Myanmar who have returned to their villages from the city, are trying to find and revive local seed sharing, as borders with China have shut during COVID-19. So seeds from China aren’t available now, nor markets.

Yesterday, wandering around Chiang Mai, I found my way into The Lost Book Shop. A relic of exotic Thailand backpacker overstays. In a prelude to a book compilation of the writer Gertrude Stein’s works, her last words are said to have been: “What is the answer?” And when no answer came, she laughed, and said, “Then, what is the question?”