Don't Be Here Now
Wavy Gravy says, "If you don't have a sense of humor, it ain't funny".
This strange book is an expression of The Zen Peacemakers' "Order of Disorder." The Order took shape in the early oughts as Roshi Bernie Glassman, aka The Great Boobysattva, looked for ways “to make sure Zen students didn’t take themselves too seriously or become sanctimonious, that they really understood the notion of letting go.” Bernie’s favorite song lyric was, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”
“OD” has devolved into a loose-knit band of clowns, fools, and contrarians, seeking to continue this work in the Zen world, as well as in the world at large
This collection of photographs was started as we struggled with ending the Vietnam War. It was a period of raw cultural agony, the physical lives of our generation were under threat while our leaders were telling us falsehoods through the television. The stakes were high, so live performance and poetic language struck blood-deep chords. The collection ends in the early 80’s with the ascendence of a new medium called the music-video, when the primary bridge between performer and audience came to be mediated by a screen. I lost interest in photographing the subject when there was no longer any danger that my clothes would be soiled with the sweat of a live performer.
Are We There Yet?
In 1982, writer Peter Muryo Matthiessen, the first dharma successor of Roshi Bernie Glassman, traveled with Glassman to pay respects to the teachers in their lineage, some of the great living Zen masters of twentieth-century Japan. What took place was an important meeting of minds representing the past, present, and future of Zen practice, an intimate connection between ancestors and descendants marking a critical point in the Zen journey from the East to the West. This historic event was captured in the moment by the selective lens of Peter Cunningham. Matthiessen’s exquisite poetic accounts of this pilgrimage, which formed a part of his book Nine-Headed Dragon River, accompany the photos.
Disappearing Before Our Eyes
Everywhere we turn, life as we’ve known it is disappearing before our eyes. Whether it’s trust, values, common sense, or simply home grown vegetables, we feel familiar worlds slipping away. New structures arise to replace the old. Facebook replaces the telephone. Metal lobster traps replace hand-hewn wooden ones. Before the invention of radar, fishermen on Grand Manan navigated through thick fog and strong currents by Dead Reckoning. They used only a watch, compass, and their animal instincts to know where they were and where they were going. Now at our fingertips, each of us has more information than we’ve ever had before. Our way home should be clear. But it’s not.
If our ancestors could guide our path, I imagine they would want us to maintain an intimate connection with the natural world including with oneanother, and simultaneously find a way to embrace inevitable change.
I Am The Buddhas And They Are Me
In 2011 Roshi Bernie Glassman asked me to prepare an unusual lineage chart. Rather than make a vertical down-through-time chart listing our historical Buddhist ancestors, he wanted a horizontal chart. He wanted a cross-section of time as it manifested in my particular life. He wanted a chart of living persons who collaborated with me to created what we call Peter/Kuku. In the original version Bernie asked me to begin with pictures of my parents and grandparents, pictures of my teachers, friends, lovers, my nation and my creations, but I’ve left that out of this version. Here you will see my co-creators from the Buddhist world, I am very grateful to have had them as friends and teachers.
EARTH: A Visitor's Guide
Farmers conjure food from the earth with three ingredients: sun, soil and water. All are being transformed by the tumultuous changes wrought by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which are altering the fundamental conditions for growing food.
We set off on a journey through California’s food growing regions to document the pressures that farmers face as a result of climate change. The signs of stress were not difficult to find, nor were the numerous innovative ways with which farmers are responding to those stresses. Farmers, we discovered, are at the forefront of those tumultuous changes as the ground shifts beneath their feet.
A Thousand Arms
Why did I choose to call this book “A Thousand Arms”? A traditional Buddhist icon is the “Thousand Armed Bodisahatvha, or Kannon” Traditionally, it (she) symbolizes an enlightened being who chooses, rather than departing for Nirvana, to remain on Earth until all “sentient beings” are also enlightened. In statuary she is often depicted as a sensuous female with a thousand arms indicating all the ways in which she is attempting to serve all human beings. Assembling 38 years of photographs from my adventures with Bernie, I was struck with the incredible variety of skillful means this human from Brighton Beach has managed to embody.
Coming from Nothing
An unusual collaboration between a Paris-based poet and a New York photographer.
Martha Myers' Experimental Dance Lab
A reunion in NYC of Wesleyan University and Connecticut College dancers.
