Drifting Skandhas

Li Sen's Drifting Skandhas is a poetic testimony to an ancient practice essential to our life and times. He writes; We are offered a synthesis of academic, philosophic, anti-philosophic (Lacan), artistic, literary and poetic modes. The great Buddhist classic, the Heart Sutra, seeks to transcend the constraints of academicism. The walls between written forms are illusory. It is not argument that transports us through the paradoxically named Gateless Gate, where 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form', but the wings of imagery.

The text, like that of the ancient Chinese sage-poets, is rich with the author's poetry, in which metaphors take us as far as language can go before it touches silence and enters the inexpressible.  

The cock crows, drinking in the remnants of the sun.

The cock coos, drinking in fleeting time.

Its crows are chained together like the peaks of mountains,

                     as swarms of incipient rainclouds hanging in the sky. (Li Sen)

From the perspective of contemporary philosophy, art and literature, the author tributes the Heart Sutra, one of the most profound sutras in Buddhism. Le Sen has more than thirty years experience in culture and research into Buddhist philosophy.

Li Sen created "drift" language as the theoretical framework and writing style, with philosophy of poetic prose.



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Contribution by Bill Porter (Red Pine)

Thirty ancient paintings adorn the work                           

Replete with footnotes                         

Translator; Deng Zhihui

Testimonial by Doriaan Haarhoff (Ph.D) (author of 20 books)