runaway

blue vessel shape on clouds, village atop with design of many

top part of madala showing stitchwork and adornment

They call her useless
And yet push for achievement.
     “I want a baby.”
They bicker between themselves,
And reproach her for being distant.
     “My friends have so much fun.”
They dwell on money,
And indenture her to loyalty.
     “I can‘t stand this every day.”
          She is innocent.
          They have ambitions.

There was a girl who was both a good student and a good athlete. Her family did not find that to be enough. They pushed her to spend all her time studying or practicing for her next sport competition. Finally, she could stand it no further. She ran away.

Her family was firmly convinced that it was a kidnapping.

In so many families, a girl is told how useless she is. Is it any wonder that she gets pregnant? A boy is told how lazy he is. Is it any wonder that he rebels as an act of individuality?

When parents demand without understanding, they thwart development. Forcing children to fulfill parental ambitions destroys individuality. Before parents blame their children, they should first look to how their daughters and sons were raised.

runaway
365 Tao
daily meditations
Deng Ming-Dao (author)
ISBN 0-06-250223-9

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Mandala, Yuan dynasty (1279–1368)
China
Silk; 33 x 33 in. (83.8 x 83.8 cm)
Purchase, Fletcher Fund and Joseph E. Hotung
and Michael and Danielle Rosenberg Gifts, 1989 (1989.140)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Description
Silk tapestry ("kesi" in Chinese) was a highly developed art form in Central and Eastern Asia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a period when major Tibetan monasteries, such as that of the Sakya sect, enjoyed the patronage of Mongol emperors in China. Many of the finest "kesi" produced at this time were imperial gifts for the monks or were commissioned by the monasteries. There were a number of silk-weaving centers in the eastern Mongol empire capable of this high-quality work. This Tibetan cosmological diagram, woven in extremely fine polychrome silks, features Mount Meru, the axis of the cosmos, in the center, surrounded by seven square mountain ranges interspersed with seven oceans. Beyond the mountains are four great continents, flanked by lesser continents, represented by Chinese-style landscapes and framed by different shapes according to their location. The four cardinal directions are indicated by their color attributes. The northern quadrant, originally a golden yellow, is now faded almost to white. The cosmic world is illuminated by the sun and the moon, represented in Chinese iconography by the three-legged crow in the sun and the hare under a cassia tree in the moon. In the corners, outside the diagram, are vases, from which issue floral scrolls and the eight precious objects of Buddhism.


close up view of top mandala	full large view of entire piece

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