info

Towards the last two months of my last visit to India in the spring of 2012, I encountered the Tibetan community in exile in India experiencing painful news of their people self-immolating in fire one after another in China-occupied Tibet. My experiences in the past visits in India (drawing a cremation site in Varanasi, documenting fire pits, cremation alters, and contemplating on life and death around fire) synchronized with this particular movement, an extreme way of ‘offering’ their bodies to ‘fire’ for asking freedom and peace.I could not help drawing large and small drawings as emotional response and with a sense of mourning.

After coming back to Vancouver, the self-immolation kept happening and I felt that my personal and professional task is not finished.

I have come back to India to continue to document and draw under the same theme. tomoyoihaya@hotmail.com

30 April 2015

Light Impermanence

All living things are born to this world
as if only to experience cruel successions of transience in life
as if only to experience sorrows and pains
that are caused by many destructive outer forces
and their lives are taken without them knowing what savours and depth of life are.

we often feel powerless in front of huge fierce storms.

However, the seemingly powerless sum of beings, transform despairs to resilience, power to live, and boundless compassion.  The survived gather and light candles and butter lamps to send rays of light in a dark tunnel because they see a light at the end of the tunnel.