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

26 September 2019

Compassionate Empathy 2 共苦２

I feel your pain.  Ninjye - a Tibetan word to express compassionate empathy.

How many are weeping at this moment?
How many in pain?
How many in deep sorrow?
How many on the dark edge of fear?

How many  can reach out from heart?  Each other. One another.  Holding.

To all forms of living beings.

To the mother earth.



Compassionate Empathy 1　共苦１



Note:  there is no particular gender in these figures.  Spirit to spirit, soul to soul and mind to mind.  Up to your imagination.