Fragment No. 49

I was nearby and perhaps had nothing better to do. That's how I became a part of CulturalxCollabs, a project centered around a burned, restored, and ultimately rewoven carpet from the 17th century. In my role as an archivist, I am dedicated to ensuring that our history can be accurately told in the distant future. And now, I am tasked with telling a story myself. But where do I begin?

Our first encounter. The doppelganger of the Caucasian Dragon Carpet lay on a worktable in the textile workshop of the Archaeological Center, dwarfing everything else in the room – including me. Unusually for this place, you could touch it at will, while my colleague, over a cup of tea, told me about its upcoming journey around the world in 100 parts. Pleasantly surprised by this fresh idea, I wondered what could connect me to this old-new carpet.

In two ways, I felt reminded of sewing garments in Zen Buddhism, a tradition I have encountered before. Simply put, it involves cutting a rectangular piece of fabric into strips, reassembling them so that the individual pieces remain visible, and then wearing them with a frame and straps made from the same fabric, for example, around the neck during meditation. This so-called Rakusu symbolizes a miniature version of Buddha's robe. Zen practitioners worldwide have been following precise instructions for centuries to sew it by hand. Occasions could include taking lay vows or priest ordination, but let's stick with sewing for now because the path is the goal. As part of a community of Zen practitioners, one can join others to collectively decipher the mystery of how the pieces are reassembled. Today, sometimes even video conferences assist in this process, but in the end, sewing remains a radically analogue cultural technique. Sometimes, during manual work, the mind comes to rest in the direct experience of material and moment. But then, the stitches become uneven, the thread was too short, the needle pricks the finger... and that too can be a form of encounter with oneself.

While I have the carpet fragment with me, I want to sew a Rakusu from a fabric featuring the motif of the Dragon Carpet. At the same time, I pay a bit more attention to how cultures encounter and intertwine in my life. In the end, I want to pass on two fragments: #49/100 of the Dragon Carpet doppelganger and #1/1 of a Dragon Carpet Rakusu – hoping that someone on the other side of the world picks up the thread.

Upon closer inspection, the textual form of the sutra has something in common with the Dragon Carpet and its journey around the world. In the ancient Indian Sanskrit language, Sutra means "thread" or "chain." From the birthplace of Buddhism, India, the Heart Sutra was orally transmitted to China and eventually reached Japan. It metaphorically spanned threads from ear to ear, forming networks and ultimately a complex fabric—the numerous facets of Buddhist practice. However, even today, the Heart Sutra is almost always recited worldwide in Old Japanese. One could say that people of all languages thereby realize advice attributed to the historical Buddha: in hearing, there is only hearing. When Zaher recites the Heart Sutra in Arabic, I hear, understand nothing, yet simultaneously hear someone who understands. Being able to appreciate this has something to do with Zen practice for me.