WHAT DOES THE WRITING ON THE PAINTINGS MEAN?
Initially, I painted invented pseudo Buddhist slogans on the Buddha paintings. But after a while, I settled on a transliteration of a line of Sanscrit from the Heart Sutra, one of the central scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism: “Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha” or some fragment or repetition thereof. The English meaning of this term text is roughly, “Over, over, way over, all the way over, enlightenment, svaha.” Svaha being an exclamation meaning roughly Amen or so be it. And the over over, referring to the Buddhist metaphor of Buddhism as a raft that carries the faithful across a stream to enlightenment on the other side of the stream.
