Frederick Franck

Dutch painter (1909-2006)

Frederick Sigfred Franck (12 April 19095 June 2006) was a painter, sculptor, and author of many books on Buddhism and human spirituality.

It is not that things are delusory but their separateness in the fabric of the Whole that is illusory…

Quotes

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Echoes from the Bottomless Well (1985)

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  • … each dot: the center of a circle without circumference …
    • p. 2
  • "Is there anything more miraculous than the wonders of nature?" the monk asked.
    The Master answered: "Yes! Your awareness, your understanding of the wonders of nature."
    • p. 8
  • a single leaf falling
    autumn is everywhere…
    • p. 10
  • Illusion is the mantle of the Real
    • p. 16
  • The sinner's ego is crude
    that of the saint refined,
    distilled. Careful! It may
    be more poisonous!
    • p. 21
  • When a monk complained about the world's evil, the Buddha stretched his hand toward the Earth: "on this Earth I attained Liberation."
    • p. 22
  • I am neither I
    nor Other,
    both I and other…
    • p. 26
  • How old are you?
    As old as the Buddha.
    And how old is the Buddha?
    As old as I am
    • p. 28
  • all at once
    I saw
    that the sun
    was round!

    Since then
    I have been the happiest man on Earth!

    • p. 29
  • The Tao cannot be divided, it cannot be shared
    • p. 37
  • The clearsighted eye turns the light back
    to see its own Original Nature…
    • p. 38
  • "What are you?"
    I am no What!

    I am only I …
    In relation to you!

    • p. 40
  • The Void is a living void
    … pulsating in endless rhythms of creation
    and destruction. The great Void does not
    exist as Void, it embraces all
    Being/non-Being
    • p. 63
  • Do you believe in God?
    I, I believe in nothing but God!
    • p. 65
  • "Do you believe in God?"
    "Which one?"
    • p. 67
  • The religions are delusional constructs formed around an infallible core.
    • p. 74
  • It is not that things are delusory but their separateness in the fabric of the Whole that is illusory…
    • p. 77
  • If you still have to talk
    about Ultimate Reality
    See how it manifests itself
    nakedly
    in
    Every thing!
    • p. 89
  • In the beginngless beginning
    there was
    the Meaning
    • p. 92
  • When the Christ says I:
    it is the I of all the Masters:
    the Way, the Truth,
    the Life
    • p. 94
  • I and the Father are not-two!
    • p. 95
  • the grasses
    whisper
    "This
    is
    my
    Body"
    • p. 98
  • Innumerable Buddhas
    Enlightened…
    innumerable Christs crucified…
    always the same Christ, the same Buddha!
    • p. 102
  • "Nothing burns in hell but ego" says Tauler.
    Does anything live but Buddha Nature, Christ Spirit?
    • p. 120
  • The cross of the Cruxifixion — without the cross of the Resurrection is the symbol of a mutilated Christianity.
    • p. 121
  • They do not see what they look at, hence they know not what they do.
    • p. 124
  • the distance
    between this pigeon's brain
    and mine
    is minute compared to that
    between mine
    and Bodhi's
    Wisdom
    Compassion
    • p. 137
  • Life ends with the previous thought
    It is resurrected with the subsequent One
    • p. 143

Quotes about Franck

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  • Above all else, Franck was a bridge builder whose marvelous combination of art and spirituality points to a new way of being in the twenty-first century. He calls it transreligious: "outside the categories of both 'interfaith' and 'ecumenical' . . . even less a syncretistic scrambling together of symbols, concepts, and rituals of the various religious traditions." He clearly had great respect for each tradition and found in his art and writing ways to convey "the inner experience in which these traditions converge."
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