Skrolli Party 2024

This Saturday, I took part in Skrolli Party 2024. I participated in the Wild compo with this graphics piece:

Galactic Liberation

I used a shot from the Milky Way Galaxy set by Jabi Sanz as the background, and had DALL-E3 generate the halo. The buddha is a photo I took. The editing and compositing is done in Gimp.

It placed #5/5. Prints on Redbubble.

I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.

                     - The Buddha in AN 4.45 Rohitassa Sutta

In the Diamond Sutra (Red Pine translation), we find: 

What do you think, Subhuti, is the space to the east easy to measure?”

Subhuti replied, “No, it is not, Bhagavan.”

The Buddha said, “Likewise, is the space to the south, to the west, to the north, in between, above, below, or in any of the ten directions easy to measure?”

Subhuti replied, “No, it is not, Bhagavan.”

Space can be thought of as limitless (as in "the dimension of infinite space", one of the meditative states spoken of by the Buddha), because its nature is non-obstruction. Therefore, it does not obstruct any added yardsticks, no matter how far we measure.

 The end of the cosmos is to be found within, in Nibbana:

There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress.

                     - Ud 8.1 Nibbāna Sutta

I also made this animation, partly at the party (and partly in a parking garage while waiting for the museum I visited before the party to open!):

It was made with Processing, and converted for the Web with processing-p5-convert.