If you look at the ox-herding pictures - specifically the newer set of ten pictures rather than the older set of eight - you see that after the blank circle of the void, the cycle comes back to a river flowing by the roots of a tree (both strong symbols of nature, the life-force, the unconscious) and to the wanderer returning to the market place, which is the realm of human society and activity.
Quentin S. CrispI think the seventies caught the last red rays of the dying sun of this innocence, but were already a little cold and drab.
Quentin S. CrispWestern progress (from one damned thing to another) seems to be essentially the MO of nowhere fast. But, on the other hand, the don't-set-foot-outside-your-own-village/cave ideal or injunction that you find in Buddhism and even in the Daoism of which I'm fonder, seems . . . defeatist. And more than that, it is in contradiction to what nature actually does. Somewhere, somehow, I feel as if these two opposing principles have to be reconciled.
Quentin S. CrispWe all know about the car breaking down on a deserted road scenario. That's clichรฉ. I'm thinking more of Cider with Rosie, as in, the dark side.
Quentin S. Crisp