“THE FLOWER IS THE MANIFOLD FORM OF EXISTENCE, WHILE EMPTINESS IS THE ESSENCE PERVADING EACH FORM.”                   --Zen Master Dogen Zenji

These flowers of space are a response to the essay called Kuge (pronounced koo-gay),which has been variably translated as “Flowers of Space” or “Flowers of Emptiness”. The essay appears as a chapter in the Shobogenzo, a monumental work by the the 13th century Japanese Buddhist monk, Eihei Dogen Zenji.

Appreciating Dogen may be easy or may be difficult---possibly depending upon your temperament and the experience you bring to his works. He is not a systematic philosopher. And he is not a poet in the usual literary sense. But for those open to his eccentric style, his work is endlessly rich in philosophical insights and poetic imagery.

Dogen taught his students that the true nature of reality could be experienced through sitting in meditation without actively thinking and with an awakeness that allows the myriad things of the universe to be actualized.

Kuge is about perceiving phenomena directly

through the capacities of our wondrous senses,

and then,

        realizing their impermanence,

                                     letting them go...