The bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, sits at the center of Potalaka, his otherworldly paradise sometimes associated with an actual island off the coast of West India. His four arms symbolize the “four immeasurables” of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. By visualizing his form and reciting his mantra, om ma ni pa dme hum, practitioners realize these “immeasurables,” and in so doing cross the bridge from the ordinary world of competition—i.e. craving and frustration—to Potalaka’s compassionate environment. In this painting, the bridge is not metaphorical but visual; an aspirant is depicted crossing it, and at its terminus is a bluish stone image of a monkey, in traditional Tibetan lore thought to have arisen miraculously as a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara’s compassion.

Potalaka lies on a different plane from our ordinary three dimensional world. To visually transmit this information, the Tibetan artist has created a naturalistic environment of water, earth, and sky receding toward a horizon from which the hyper-real geometries of Potalaka project.