Frederick Franck (1909 – 2006)
Painter, sculptor, and author of many books on Buddhism and human spirituality.
all at once
I saw
that the sun
was round!
The religions are delusional constructs formed around an infallible core.
I and the Father are not-two!
When a monk complained about the world's evil, the Buddha stretched his hand toward the Earth: "on this Earth I attained Liberation."
Even if there had never been a Buddha nor a Christ
CHRIST NATURE IS!
BUDDHA NATURE IS!
a single leaf falling
autumn is everywhere…
How old are you?
As old as the Buddha.
And how old is the Buddha?
As old as I am
"Do you believe in God?"
"Which one?"
The sinner's ego is crude
that of the saint refined,
distilled. Careful! It may
be more poisonous!
The Void is a living void
… pulsating in endless rhythms of creation
and destruction. The great Void does not
exist as Void, it embraces all
Being/non-Being
I am neither I
nor Other,
both I and other…
Innumerable Buddhas
Enlightened…
innumerable Christs crucified…
always the same Christ, the same Buddha!
The cross of the Cruxifixion — without the cross of the Resurrection is the symbol of a mutilated Christianity.
"What are you?"
— I am no What!
Above all else, Franck was a bridge builder whose marvelous combination of art and spirituality points to a new way of being in the twenty-first century. He calls it transreligious: "outside the categories of both 'interfaith' and 'ecumenical' . . . even less a syncretistic scrambling together of symbols, concepts, and rituals of the various religious traditions." He clearly had great respect for each tradition and found in his art and writing ways to convey "the inner experience in which these traditions converge."
"Is there anything more miraculous than the wonders of nature?" the monk asked.
The Master answered: "Yes! Your awareness, your understanding of the wonders of nature."
… each dot: the center of a circle without circumference …
It is not that things are delusory but their separateness in the fabric of the Whole that is illusory…
The clearsighted eye turns the light back
to see its own Original Nature…
If you still have to talk
about Ultimate Reality
See how it manifests itself
nakedly
in
Every thing!