Culture Archives - The Dewdrop

Chan teacher Guo Gu on silent illumination, punk music and his teacher Sheng Yen's legacy.

‘Nature is Never Finished’ – Artist Robert Smithson on Cultural Confinement and Finding Real Freedom in Art

July 30, 2021July 30, 2021 Vanessa Able

Robert Smithson's brand of land art went against the hegemony of galleries and museums who he accused of dictating the context, meaning and value of art.

Book Bits

This is the Life: Annie Dillard Asks, Then What?

May 21, 2021May 21, 2021 Vanessa Able

Annie Dillard celebrates humanity by taking the widest view of its activities, hopes, dreams and values. She then asks, what would we really do with this new, expanded perspective?

Book Bits

The Culture of Healing: Louise Glück on Art’s Restorative Power

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021 Vanessa Able

Louise Glück's essay condemns current trends of pathological optimism, as well as the tendency towards 'the pornography of scars.'

Poetry

Gregory Pardlo – Raisin

October 7, 2020October 7, 2020 Vanessa Able

The anxieties of fatherhood and the tension of generational and racial dynamics weave through Gregory Pardlo's vibrant and dense poem, Raisin.

Book Bits

Alan Watts on Beat Zen and Square Zen

March 13, 2019 Vanessa Able

Our favorite rogue Zen philosopher, Alan Watts had a gift for contextualizing the principles of Zen and translating them in a way that non-Buddhist people would be able to comprehend. In this excerpt from his short book, 'Beat Zen Square Zen and Zen', he talks about the importance of understanding our own culture thoroughly so… Continue reading Alan Watts on Beat Zen and Square Zen

Guo Gu’s Guide to Silent Illumination
The core of Chan meditation is the concrete experience of being in the present moment, not holding on to any mental concept or idea about oneself or one's activity
‘Nature is Never Finished’ – Artist Robert Smithson on Cultural Confinement and Finding Real Freedom in Art
Robert Smithson's brand of land art went against the hegemony of galleries and museums who he accused of dictating the context, meaning and value of art.
Keeping Silence of the Heart: Cultivating Attention and Sobriety According to the Philokalia
Philokalia means 'love of the beautiful and the good', and the writings that were added to this collection were mostly concerned with the importance of awakening and developing attention and consciousness.
La Mar, El Mar: Ernest Hemingway’s Kind, Beautiful, Cruel Ocean
Ernest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea', has to be one of the most accomplished accounts of a lifetime's intimacy with the sea.
Dogen’s Seal of the Ocean: How Meditation and Life Can Flow Like Water
Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dogen invokes an oceanic state of non-identification as something that expresses the true Dharma, or our true nature, according to the teachings of Buddha.

Maggie Smith – Good Bones
Maggie Smith's beautiful and poignant poem about the how to parent and teach beauty to our children.
Robert Bly – When William Stafford Died
After the death of the poet William Stafford in 1993, his friend Robert Bly wrote this tribute against the image of water flowing down the rocks of Montana gullies.
Pablo Neruda – The Sea
Pablo Neruda wonders at the draw that pulls us in to the unknown, shifting ablutions that are the action of the sea and of water.
Gary Snyder – For the Children
Gary Snyder's poem on the healing and enlightenment we need to find as a race in order to once again locate ourselves in earth's valleys and pastures.
William Stafford’s Last Poem
Written in the morning of the day he died, William Stafford's last poem rattles with augury gilded by a sense of acceptance.

Tag: Culture

Body Like a Rag, Mind Like a Mirror – Guo Gu Is Breaking Through Boundaries

‘Nature is Never Finished’ – Artist Robert Smithson on Cultural Confinement and Finding Real Freedom in Art

This is the Life: Annie Dillard Asks, Then What?

The Culture of Healing: Louise Glück on Art’s Restorative Power

Gregory Pardlo – Raisin

Alan Watts on Beat Zen and Square Zen