 A
Tiger Dreams Her Pilgrimage
1999, 90" by 72", oil, gold leaf, silk
on canvas
I have made an unusual painting whose "story"
begins in the bottom-left corner.
A tiger falls asleep, and then proceeds into a
lucid, significant dream.
She recalls a thousand scenes along the winding
course of this dream.
What she comes to realize is that these scenes
- of a scavenger, an ascetic, a nurturing mother, a slaughterer,
the slaughtered, a woman exhausted by her daily chores such as carrying
heavy pots of water - these are not just remembered scenes.
Instead, these are predicaments, or roles, which
the dreamer herself has occupied or occupies in relation to some
friend or relative or acquaintance.
Once the tiger realizes that she is, at some point,
in some way (not just observes) all of these predicaments, she wakes
up.
So, there she is again, at the top of the painting,
awake: which is all that the word "Buddha" means - to
have awakened - to your sympathies with, rather than your judgments
of, everyone else.
And why is it a tiger who dreams?
Because, in Tibetan astrology, a tiger is admired
for a glorious trait, an "intelligent heart," without
which she could not awaken.
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