Year One · He

Picture Story

The keyword of the first year is “abstinence”. It is at once a visual response to the Tibetan Buddhist “three years, three months” retreat tradition, and a declaration of secular practice — no mountain cave, no master; the vegetable market is the retreat hall, the bicycle is the dharma instrument. The first year, “refining essence into vital breath, disciplining the body” — in the daily care of his mother, buying food, cooking, end-of-life comfort are transformed into a practice of abstinence. The aerial roots of the ancient tree hang down like nerves, suggesting the tension between life and death, between root-system and detachment.