Fourfold Truths of Dharma – study

This study piece was first created in 2006 for the “Laughing in the Face of Death” series – based on a Tibetan-style skull as an emblem of impermanence.

Tashi occasionally returns to an old piece of work (as with this piece in 2018) and adds to it as an intended improvement—in this case to calligrapher words of the Buddha, known as The Fourfold Truths of Dharma ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྡོམ་བཞི།

These translate as:1) All composite things are impermanent, or All that is compounded is impermanent འདུས་བྱས་ཐམས་ཅད་མི་རྟག་པ།
2) All defiling things are suffering, or All that is corrupt is suffering ཟག་བཅས་ཐམས་ཅད་སྡུག་བསྔལ་བ།
3) All phenomena are empty and devoid of a self-entity, or All things are without self ཆོས་ཐམས་ཅད་སྟོང་ཞིང་བདག་མེད་པ།
4) Nirvana is peace མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་ཞི་བ།