Black on Black Tibetan Calligraphy

Title:
Five colored Hum

57x76 cm, Dutch gold leaf and Acrylic paint on a black Chinese ink background, Nepalese Rag paper, 2009

The main character Hum is colored relating to the five Buddha families and their respective colours, this particular system is in accordance to the teaching of Chogyam Trungpa. (on Hum: “an approach to Mantra” from the collected works Vol 5)

1. bindu head ‘m’, red in colour, Buddha of all accomplishing wisdom.
2. crescent moon, green in colour, Buddha of all encompassing wisdom.
3. ‘ha’ body, white in colour, Buddha of mirror-like wisdom.
4. small ‘a’, yellow in colour, wisdom Buddha of equality.
5. ‘u’ vowel, blue in colour, Buddha of discriminating wisdom.

The Petsug text in Dutch gold leaf is from another text on the Hum character called:

“The prayer for the realization of Hum”

Although the enlightened awareness of all the Buddhas of the three times without exception is innately pure, spontaneously established, and beyond description, imagination or expression, the unimpeded union of luminosity and utter lucidity within the Hum, within the self-radiance of the five poisons, uninterrupted pristine cognizance.
Through the power of training in the stages of Creation and completion, the immersion into basic unity, may the four Kayas be ripened within the five primordial wisdoms, and thus may the Vajra of enlightened mind be accomplished in this lifetime!

Translation by Eric Tsiknopoulos