Bodhisattva 3: Drop Out — Om Mani Padme Hum

The title of this image pays homage to one of the principal mantras in Buddhism – Om Mani Padme Hum — whose literal meaning is “Praise to the Jewel in the Lotus” and which I interpret — in my own meditation practice — as celebrating the divinity of creation in whatever it is that I behold within my field of perception in any given moment.

The English title echoes Leary’s third and final step towards enlightenment — DROP OUT.

“Like every great religion, we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present—turn on, tune in, drop out.”
– Timothy Leary, 1967 (transcript, documentary SUMMER OF LOVE, PBS and WGBH, 2007)

“Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments .’Drop Out’ meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.’ “
– Timothy Leary, FLASHBACKS (1983)