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Sacred Seeds

Just as a seed contains the whole plant, the syllables of Siddham calligraphy are concentrations of enlightened energy. This holy script played a crucial role in the journey of Tantric Buddhism from ancient India to East Asia. Text and artwork by David SchneiderDavid Schneider

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BHAI, the Siddham letter that invokes the Buddha of Healing. Bhai, gold foil on 300-gram indigo paper

I'D BEEN SERVING as librarian at the San Francisco Zen Center only a short while in 1974 when I discovered a closet full of banana boxes, all seven of them containing what the poet Philip Whalen termed "dog paperbacks." A library habitué, Whalen offered to escort me to trade in the books on one sluggish afternoon. His own parlous fortunes through the years had forced him to sell off parts of his personal library, and he knew the used bookstore scene well. Thus we arrived at Holmes Books on Third and Market and unloaded our goods. I waited at the intake counter while a dour clerk pawed through our messy piles.

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