HANDJOB Gallery/Store and 99¢ Plus are pleased to present Probably Not, a one night exhibition and experience by Luke Libera Moore, Will Rose, and Corey Rubin. Three artists consider the confluence of utility and the Spiritual that supposedly lies beyond it; what they put forth is a preliminary meditation on a single object and its metaphysical aspirations.  

 

The hand is a mandala. Open it: the finger are the outer circle, the five elements and their female manifestations. Close it: the nails are the middle circle. The five Buddhas, their colors, and their sacred syllables. Open it again: on the palm is a red lotus with five petals who are the goddesses.

The right hand is the world of the Buddhas, the Diamond World. The left hand is the world of sentient beings, the Matrix World. The left is the moon, the right the sun; the left is contemplation, the right observation. The left is blessedness, the right is wisdom; the left is the memory of affection; the right is the memory of compassion. The left is within; the right is outside.

 

The five fingers are earth, water, fire, air, and the void. They are form, sensation, perception, operation of the mind, and discernment. They are faith, energy, memory, meditation, and wisdom; the five Buddhas and the five Bodhisattvas. They are eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. The ten fingers are knowledge, power, vow, means, wisdom, charity, precepts, patience, effort and contemplation. The ten fingers are the ten Essence Worlds. On the left, the worlds of hells, animals, hungry spirits, malevolent spirits, and humans. On the right, the worlds of gods, disciples, hermit-Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas. 

 

Make a fist with your thumb against the side of the index finger: that is an unopened lotus. Clasp your hands together, palm to palm, with the fingers outside: the space between your hands is the moon. There is a clasp of the sincere heart, of a clear exposition, of refuge, of holding water, of a lotus as it opens. 

 

The evil Devadatta gave liquor to an elephant, got it drunk, and caused it to stampede. The Buddha raised his right hand, flat, with the fingers together, and the elephant stopped dead and knelt.

 

The Buddha in an earlier life, met a woman whom he thought he might marry, but he didn't know if she was single, and educated. So he raised a closed fist, and she, in reply, showed him her empty hand. They were wed.

 

The Buddha said: “There is a goddess called Marishi. She has great powers. She is forever passing in front of the gods of the sun and moon, yet they cannot see her. Men cannot see or recognize her; they cannot hurt or deceive her; they cannot take her possessions; they cannot condemn or punish her.” Make a fist with your left hand. with three fingers tightly closed, the thumb touching the fingernail of the index to make a ring. Hold it in front of your chest; meditate on entering into that hole and being contained within. Then take your right hand, hold it flat above your fist, and revolve it in a counter-clockwise motion. This is the mudra of Marishi’s precious receptacle, the mudra of hiding forms, and if you chant the correct mantras while making it, you will become invisible. 

 

Ryukai, a priest of the Hasso sect at the Gango-ji Temple, died while making the mudra of the Tathagata Amida with his right hand. When the body was burned, all that remained was his hand.

 

Probably not.