Magazine covers and cartoons
Magazine covers and cartoons
Mind Moon Circle is the magazine of the Sydney Zen Centre. Over the years I have contributed a number of covers and cartoons. Here is a selection.
The Book of Inequities cover below relates to Australia’s bicentenary in 1988. In Zen there are a number of koan collections such as The Blue Cliff Record and The Book of Serenity. Koans are questions used in Zen meditation to focus the mind and to open up the mind. One such koan is, “why did Bodhidharma come from the west?” Bodhidharma is the legendary founder of Chinese Zen (Ch’an).
In Buddhist myth, the Hungry Ghosts live in a Hell realm and are eternally unsatisfied. They have very large stomachs (similar to those of starving people) and very small throats and must constantly keep eating. The figures in the cover below left are based on Japanese calligraphic representations of hungry ghosts.
In the cover on the right, the figure is Bodhidharma, as is the face at the window. Bodhidharma appears in a number of the covers as a representation of Zen. Other references are to koan stories or contemporary events.
Mr Natural as Bodhidharma checks out the Tao of the stock market
Apologies to R. Crumb
Bodhidharma wraps a Christmas present and peers out of a mandala.
Apologies to Van Gogh and Magritte
The above cover is a reference to a monk who gained enlightenment when his master slammed the door against his leg and broke it (the leg that is).
The master says; “Sorry about your leg”. The monk replies: “Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
On the left is a Sengai calligraphy that refers to Kyogen being enlightened when hearing the “tock” of a pebble against a piece of bamboo.
The Mumonkan is a classic Zen koan collection.
The circle, triangle and square represent the 10,000 things and the ox herding pictures the stages of maturity in Zen practice.
The first Gulf War on the left and the Berlin Wall comes down on the right.
Talks and articles
For the magazine, Mind Moon Circle