Soulsign InnerView with Richard Stodart

by | Mar 30, 2011 | InnerViews, Media | 2 comments

richard-stodart-prometheus You may not recognize Richard Stodart’s name, but more than likely you know his contemplative and illuminative artwork. It’s an honor for us at Soulsign to welcome Richard Stodart in conversation with Adam.

From Richard’s web site: “At once worldly and spiritual, Richard Stodart’s artwork negotiates passion and warmth on the one hand, and serenity and quietude on the other. Calming, restorative, and quietly energizing, the luminous images invite reflection and contemplation.”

“Richard’s sensitively thoughtful yet translucent images combine the wild electricity of wakefulness with the vivid languor of lucid dreaming.” ~ Ven, Ngaka Chogyam, author of Rainbow of Liberated Energy, Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen, and Entering the Heart of the Sun & Moon

Mary Magdalene by Richard Stodart

“Mary Magdalene” by Richard Stodart.
Offset Lithograph.

listen here:

Richard Stodart InnerView 1

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InnerView Highlights:

  • “Outshining the darkness with light is not the same thing as illuminating the dark.”
  • “Going with the flow” and “Glowing in the flow”
  • “Intimacy of existence-time ongoing…..”
  • A wonderfully lucid framing of : ”reality”, “existence-time”, “light and dark”, “co-focal intimates”
  • Relieving ourselves of the need to reconcile opposites.
  • Light and Dark not as opposites seeking union, but already Unified.

Links to the books mentioned in the InnerView:

Free & Easy Wandering by Richard Stodart
Enso by Richard Stodart (to be released in 2011)
The Heart of the Shobogenzo by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe
Moon in a Dewdrop by Kazuaki Tahahashi
Alone With Others by Stephen Batchelor
Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion by Ben-Ami Scharfstein

On Richard’s Artwork

“Stodart’s paintings are narratives of the symbolic depths of the psyche moving towards integration. They are stations on his personal way of self-understanding and self-transcendence. Yet they are also mandalic symbols that expose our hidden structure. It is this that explains their archetypal strength.” ~ George Feuerstein, M. Litt., author, Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga

“Richard’s unique contribution helps us understand the past as the eternal present.” – Rowena Pattee Kryder, Visionary & author, The Gaia Matrix Oracle

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From Adam: “The most challenging InnerView for me thus far…”challenging” because any authentic inquiry about his art or spiritual path produces a relentless possibility of liberational insight – at the very bedrock of one’s self-beliefs. This conversation with Richard left no doubt in my mind that he is at the vanguard of next-generation Buddhist understanding. I’ve not found anyone – in person or in writing – to be exploring this particular terrained path toward enlightenment.”
 
Some additional insights from Richard about why he believes light outshines darkness in the transcendental static framework: “Light becomes a self-sufficient absolute that also outshines emptiness. In effect, on its own it is unmediated by emptiness, which would make it dynamic and temporal. So, light silences both words and emptiness, creating a kind of idolatry of its self-sufficiency. As a consequence, words can only be used to exalt light and not to be its intimate, and emptiness is neutered when light conflates it with absolute timelessness.”

2 Comments

  1. Leisha Modica
    Leisha Modica on April 30, 2012 at 10:42 pm

    Hi, nice blog but sometimes I see a problem whereas the right navigation toolbar cannot be viewed. It’s mainly on the main webpage Cheers

    • adam
      adam on May 1, 2012 at 2:02 pm

      Thanks Leisha! It’s hugely helpful when we have our visitors let us know what’s not working on the site. We’ll fix this as soon as we can! Sincerely thanks again!

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