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Vladimir Keremidschieff (1947-)
aka Vladimir K.
thezensite: home page
Edited by Vladimir Keremidschieff
Vladimir Keremidschieff was born in Germany in 1947. His family emigrated to Australia shortly after, and then to Vancouver in 1957. He spent seven years as a freelance photographer, with his work appearing in The Province, the Vancouver Sun, the Georgia Straight, and numerous other publications. Keremidschieff and his wife left Vancouver to sail the South Pacific in 1974 and ended up living in Perth, Australia. Today Keremidschieff lives in Sydney, Australia, where he teaches English as a second language.
http://www.newstarbooks.com/author.php?author_id=7933
Zen Buddhism WWW Virtual Library
The Internet Guide to Zen (Ch'an, Son, Thien) Online Resources
Edited by Dr T. Matthew Ciolek and Vladimir Keremidschieff
Created: 5 Sep 1994.
http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-Zen.html
Seize the Time
by Vladimir Keremidschieff
New Star Books, 2013
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2013/12/28/Vancouver-Summer-of-Love/
If your memory spans back to the late 1960s and early '70s, chances are you'll recall that Vancouver's anti-war protests were as boisterous as its rock concerts.
As a photographer for the Georgia Straight, the Vancouver Sun and the Province, Vladimir Keremidschieff snapped striking portraits of these heady days: from squatters in North Van's mudflats to environmental demonstrations in Stanley Park, to illegal concerts on Second Beach.
Vancouver's great lost hippie photographer Vlad Keremidschieff turns up in Australia
Four decades after he left town, former Sun staffer resurfaces Down Under
By JOHN MACKIE, Vancouver Sun,
January 11, 2014
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Vancouver+great+lost+hippie+photographer+Vlad+Keremidschieff+turns+Australia/9372885/story.html
One of the great mysteries of The Vancouver Sun is whatever happened to Vladimir Keremidschieff, the paper's great hippie photographer in the early-1970s.
Vlad was the top rock 'n' roll photographer in town during rock's golden era of the '60s and '70s. He also covered many of Vancouver's counterculture events, from anti-war protests to rock festivals and pleasure faires.
In the Sun files, you can also find some great Keremidschieff photos of squatters' shacks on the North Van mudflats, along with pictures of former mayor Art Phillips playing basketball in short-shorts. There is also a funny Keremidschieff photo shoot with the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Unfortunately, the photos stop around 1974. Legend has it that Vlad set off for the south seas, and was never heard from again.
Enter Rolf Maurer of New Star books. A couple of years ago, Maurer was looking for photos for a book on Vancouver's hippie era. He kept running across Keremidschieff's photos in old editions of the Georgia Straight, so he typed “Vladimir Keremidschieff” into Google.
Vancouver's great lost hippie photographer popped up on a Zen Buddhist website he runs in Sydney, Australia. Maurer contacted him, and Keremidschieff sent him some photos for the hippie book.
Then he sent Maurer something else — a collection of his photos, done up as a book. Hence the world has Seize The Time, Vancouver Photographed, 1967-74, a 124-page flashback to the flower power era.
You get a contact high flipping through images like a bare-breasted hippie mom at the Strawberry Mountain Fair holding her kid with one hand and a stubby beer in the other. Another pic shows a ramshackle hippie abode on the Maplewood mudflats fashioned from a tent and poles atop a foundation of logs. A pair of bare-chested earth people have clambered up a pole that sits at the front of the squat to unfurl a sail — it's like a hippie pirate ship.
Keremidschieff's rock stuff includes rare photos from the Seattle Pop Festival in 1969, a legendary happening that featured everyone from Led Zeppelin to the Doors and the Flying Burrito Brothers. The book includes dazzling photos of Tim Buckley and Gram Parsons in their prime, as well as a startling shot of a bloated Jim Morrison glaring at Keremidschieff from a helicopter. All three would die young, Morrison in 1971, Parsons in '73, and Buckley in '75.
His most famous shot from that time was an ethereal photo of Eric Clapton performing with Blind Faith at the Pacific Coliseum in 1969.
“That was the first one that was really popular,” recounts Keremidschieff, 67, who recently visited Vancouver. “People had it up in their homes and stuff. I would print it and sell it for five or 10 bucks.”
He took the Clapton shot as a freelancer, and sold it to The Province. But his main gig was at The Sun, where he had started off as a copy boy (messenger) in the old Sun Tower.
“A lot of smokin' and drinkin' was going on there,” he laughs. “People would smoke in the editorial room, people had bottles (in their desks). It was a bit of the old school in the old Sun Tower.”
But he left The Sun around 1965 to bum around.
“I was a hippie, hitchhikin' around and stuff,” explains Keremidschieff, who was born in 1946 in Deggendorf, West Germany, where his Bulgarian parents had fled after the Second World War.
The family left Europe for Adelaide, Australia in 1948 or '49, then moved to North Vancouver in 1954 or '55. (Keremidschieff is not big on exact dates.)
He got into photography in 1967 via his friend Chris Ellis, who had recently returned to Vancouver from Los Angeles. Ellis had a Pentax camera, and he and Vlad spent several days taking photos around town. When Ellis went back to California, Keremidschieff bought his own Pentax, and went to Banff to study photography at the Banff School of Fine Arts.
Returning to Vancouver, he started freelancing for The Sun, Province and Georgia Straight. But his long hair caused some problems.
“(Sun photo editor) Charlie (Warner) said, ‘Vlad, we're going to have to stop using you,'” he recalls.
“‘Why?' ‘Your hair is too long.' I'm not kidding. I got fired because my hair was too long. Can you believe it?”
Luckily, he landed another gig at the Lions Gate Times, which was run by a guy named Cloudesley Shovell Quentin Hoodspith. Warner eventually asked him to come back to The Sun, so he did.
He got most of the rock assignments.
“A lot of the staff didn't want to do it,” he says. “(The older photographers) didn't want to go down to the Led Zeppelin concert, for God's sake. They hated it, and I was young. So why not?”
Many of the music photos in the book date to 1969 and the '70s, because that's when he was freelancing and could keep the negatives. There are action shots of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, and Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane, as well as Phil Ochs, Chuck Berry and Janis Joplin.
Alas, some stellar 1973 pix of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant at the Pacific Coliseum didn't make the cut, because they're in The Sun files, not in the two boxes of negatives that Vlad hauled around with him halfway across the world.
The last photo he had in The Sun was Bob Dylan with The Band in Seattle in 1974. He freelanced it, because he had quit in anticipation of travelling to the South Pacific with his wife Lindsay.
It was meant to be a year-long trip, but they never came back.
“We went to American Samoa, western Samoa, and Fiji, Tonga,” he relates. “In Tonga, we ran across a 50-foot schooner, built in 1910, I think it was. The Lady Sterling, beautiful craft.
“My wife and I got to join the crew, and we sailed back to Samoa. Then we went to New Zealand, where I worked in a bar for a couple of months. I made a bit of money, and we went to Sydney, and that was that.”
Some Vancouver friends were in Perth, so they bought a beat-up old station wagon and set off to visit them.
“In Australia, how can you not? Never mind that it's 4,000 kilometres away,” he laughs.
His wife got a job at the university, Vlad opened a shop selling “hippie stuff”, and they stayed in Perth for a decade.
“When we started in Perth, it was amazing,” he says. “We had a two-bedroom duplex for $25 a week. You could buy a litre bottle of beer for 50 cents. I thought I was in heaven, it was great.”
In the mid-'80s, they moved to Sydney, where Vlad teaches English as a second language. He stopped taking photos in the early-'80s. Asked why, he sighs.
“I lost my Leica. It's a very sad story — it breaks my heart to talk about it. I sent it out to be repaired and the guy just (screwed) it up, totally. Totally (screwed) it up.
“My wife came back to Vancouver, and she brought it back, 'cause I knew a Leica guy here. He looked at it and said ‘This is (screwed). I can give you $150 for parts, that's the best we can do.'”
His old photos might have remained in storage if Maurer hadn't contacted him. As it turned out, “a friend just happened to have a negative scanner, and he just happened to be going away for a year, so he just happened to lend it to me. And so I started scanning negatives.”
He has had a lot of fun revisiting his photo career through the book. He even had an exhibition of his Vancouver hippie photos last summer in Shanghai, where he was teaching.
But he admits his memory is fuzzy about a lot of the photos — he has no recollection of shooting Monty Python.
“A lot of the stuff I don't remember,” he says with a laugh. “It was the '60s, right?”
On Thoughts in Zazen
by Vladimir K.
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Teishos/On_Thoughts_in_Zazen.html
One of our great vows was translated as “Though greed, hatred and ignorance rise endlessly, I vow to cut them off.” This has now be changed to “...I vow to abandon them.” There’s a subtle, but important, difference between abandoning something and cutting something off. To abandon has the feel of leaving behind, of no longer being concerned with. To cut something off is an active termination, an act that is taken with due consideration and sometimes great effort. Abandoning feels like a great effort isn’t needed, just an acknowledgment that what is being abandoned is no longer of any use. How we use language often determines not only how others see us and understand our thoughts, but it also influences our way of thinking. When we think of “cutting off” we have quite a different mind set than “abandoning” brings forth. To abandon greed, hatred and ignorance is to just leave them behind. Dogen takes this up in Shoaku-Makusa (Not Doing Wrongs) when he says
And the scale of this realization is the scale of not committing. For people of just this reality, at the moment of just this reality — even if they live at a place and come and go at a place where they could commit wrongs, even if they face circumstances in which they could commit wrongs, and even if they seem to mix with friends who do commit wrongs — wrongs cannot be committed at all. The power of not committing is realized...
This act of “not committing”, or abandoning, carries over into our practice. We sometimes hear people talking about “cutting off” thoughts and one must be very careful how this interpreted. There is a danger that when people hear (and think about) “cutting off” thoughts they slip into a dual way of thinking. On the one hand we have these thoughts and on the other hand we try to ‘cut them off’. This is dualistic. This is separating ourselves from our thoughts. Zazen is not “thoughtless”. The En-mei Jikku Kannon Gyo says ‘Nen, nen ju shin ki; nen, nen fu ri shi. Thought after thought arise in the mind, Thought after thought are not separate from mind.” Zazen is not a mindless act. When you actively try to cut off thoughts you are acting in a dualistic manner. To discover non-dualistic zazen we can go back to the 8th century master, Mo-Ho- Yen. Mo-Ho-Yen had very clear and simple instructions about zazen:
When he enters a state of deep contemplation, he looks into his own mind. There being no-mind, he does not engage in thought. If thoughts of discrimination arise, he should become aware of them. How should one practice this awareness? Whatever thoughts arise, one does not examine [to see] whether they have arisen or not, whether they exist or not, whether they are good or bad, afflicted or purified. He does not examine any dharma whatsoever.
This simple instruction is the central point of our practice of zazen. “Looking into the mind” is the practice of koan sitting, of counting the breath, of shikantaza, of just sitting. Being aware of thoughts of discrimination is being aware of who and what you are. But being aware is not the same as discriminating between good and bad or success or failure or any discrimination whatsoever. Being aware is also not pursuing or chasing the thought. When thoughts arise, leave them alone, abandon them, and they will go away of their own accord if one returns to one’s practice of breath counting or sitting with Mu. When one penetrates deeply into one’s own mind, one then does not engage in useless thoughts.
If one fails to have this awareness of the arising of thoughts, or if the awareness is incorrect, one will act accordingly, cultivate meditation in vain ...and remain as a common man.
Here we are being warned about “incorrect” awareness. Incorrect awareness is when one is not aware of arising thoughts. It’s when we chase thoughts rather than let them go that we practice incorrect zazen. Striving mightily to ‘cut off’ thoughts is chasing a thought.
The discriminating mind itself (has) no real substance, it does not arise, it does not cease. With this very same body, which is the dharmadhatu, one should not contrive [conceptualize], rather, one should not pursue them, one should not oppose them. It should be so that there is no artificial construction [of conceptualizations].
Notice that here Mo-Ho-Yen says not only that discriminating mind does not arise, it also does not cease. Discriminating mind exists constantly. If we pursue or oppose this discriminating mind we are not practicing zazen. Instead, we are practicing what we think zazen should be rather than what it is. Zazen is neither pursuit nor opposition. It is especially when we try to oppose our thoughts that we find frustration and dissatisfaction with our zazen arising. Acknowledging that thoughts arise, we gently return to our practice — effortlessly. This effortless returning develops ease and joy.
...if you are deceived by your own conceptualizations, there is no true cultivation of the meditation of former Tathagatas. Therefore one should not mind (i.e., not reflect; not consider) any of these [conceptual examinations], but [simply] be aware [of them].
It is this awareness of thoughts that leads to the path of the Tathagatas, not the artificial cutting off of thoughts. Awareness leads to the diminution of thoughts, naturally. Do not be deceived by thoughts.
If concepts arise, then one [should] not think anywhere of being or non-being, purity or impurity, emptiness or the absence thereof, etc. One does not think of non-thinking either. Not to experience this non-examination and to continue to act according to these thoughts is transmigration.
Mo-Ho-Yen makes it quite clear that striving to cut off thoughts is not the Tao. It is the not clinging, not picking and choosing, not chasing the tail of the dragon of our thoughts that is our path. Those who seek a peaceful and ‘thoughtless’ zazen are living in a cave of darkness. We live in a world of thoughts. To deny this is to act dualistically. To act non-dualistically is to not turn towards nor to turn away.
Yunmen asked Caoshan: “Why is it that one does not know of the existence of that which is most immediate?”
Caoshan: “Just because it is the most immediate.”
Yunmen: “And how can one become truly intimate with it?”
Caoshan: “By not turning towards it.”
Yunmen: “But can one know the most immediate if one does not face it?”
Caoshan: “It’s then that one know it best.”
"Exactly, exactly!”
Although this is a koan and needs a more intimate interpretation, we can benefit by applying it to our zazen. “By not turning towards it” can be used to remind ourselves not to turn towards our thoughts but to leave them alone. We can sit with our thoughts, unconcerned, practicing our zazen serenity. Our practice is our practice. When thoughts arise, we do not get entangled with them nor do we attempt to artificially ‘cut them off’. We simply return to our Mu, to our breath counting, our ‘just sitting’. By returning to our practice, thoughts naturally diminish and become less important and our true Buddha-mind is revealed. This Buddha-mind is not a mind that is cut off from the world of the senses or of thoughts. It is the non-discriminating mind. That is, it is the mind which does not divide into object and subject. It is the mind of awareness.
In an ancient text from the Northern Ch’an school, the Ta-ch’eng wu-sheng fang-pien men (The Five Upaya of the Mahayana: Northern Tradition) it says:
To give rise to the mind of conceptualization and description is to be fettered and not achieve liberation. Not to give rise to the mind of conceptualization and description is to be free from attachments and fetters and is the achievement of liberation.
In our practice of zazen this means that we do not analyze thoughts nor do we categorize them nor do we examine them. Thoughts are just thoughts and they arise and fade away. Our practice is to be aware of the thoughts as they arise, leave them alone and return to what needs to be done. Clearly, there is no pursuit of “cutting off” for the followers of the Mahayana. The term “to cut off” is often found in literature on zazen and practice but one must be careful how this term is interpreted. What is the undisturbed, unmoving mind cut off from? There are meditation practices which emphasize cutting off the senses and thoughts (witness the yogis of India who are able to be buried in coffins for weeks at a time) but this is not our path. As Robert Aitken Roshi says, “It is possible to achieve this condition (to quieten all thoughts), but hardly desirable. Our creativity would also be quieted, and where would realization come from?” The bodhisattva way of the great Mahayana is to be in the world but to be undisturbed by the world. Zazen is just like this.
The Role of Thoughts in Zazen
When we practice zazen thoughts arise. We accept this. As our practice deepens, thoughts diminish, and a state of samadhi may occur. The term samadhi is often misunderstood to be a state where no thoughts occur or where concentration is intently focused on one point. In fact, samadhi is when object and subject are no longer two, but are one. Samadhi is the state of non-duality. Zazen is the practice of samadhi.
If thoughts arise constantly during zazen, how are we to interpret this? Can there be samadhi when thoughts arise? I believe there can be samadhi if we understand the nature of thoughts and learn how to live with them. Dogen Zenji said, “Conveying the self to the myriad beings to authenticate them is delusion; The myriad things advancing to authenticate the self is enlightenment.” If we consider “the myriad beings” to include thoughts, we can begin to understand how clinging to thoughts can be a hindrance to our practice.
Mindless mental chatter is “conveying the self to the myriad beings to authenticate them”. It is our “small” or “inauthentic” self which engages in endless chatter to protect and prove to itself that it is all-important. And it fears the loss of its central position. This self, this ego, will go to almost any lengths to protect its position as the center of the universe. It is obsessed with its own security and endurance. Thoughts play an integral part in this process. It is through the endless chatter of thoughts that the ego confirms itself. Thoughts are there to give meaning to the ego. Thoughts protect, gratify and separate the ego from the world around it. During zazen, thoughts separate the ego/self from the practice. When Mu becomes one with the ego/self, Buddha-mind arises, becomes evident. Dogen also said “In the Buddha Dharma, practice and realization are identical”. This practice that Dogen speaks of is not the practice of mindless thought, of day-dreaming on the zafu, but the practice of dropping away body and mind. The practice of dropping away body and mind is the practice of non-duality, of allowing the myriad things to come forth to authenticate us. This includes allowing thoughts to come forth without becoming attached to them. When we are no longer attached to thoughts, we stop the ego/self from attempting to dominate the universe and allow the universe (our practice) to take center stage:
To study the Buddha Way is to study the self;
To study the self is to forget the self;
To forget the self is to be authenticated by the myriad things.
Self-realization comes about when the self (ego) is “forgotten”, when it is abandoned. It no longer dominates the mind. Each and every experience, including thoughts, come forward and with each the thought, with each experience, birth and death occur. The realization of the transience of thoughts and experiences is “The whole universe is within the dazzling light of the self”. In other words, the whole universe, including the ego-self is empty. When this is realized in the marrow of the bones, wisdom and compassion manifest and the Way of the patriarchs and Buddhas is manifested.
But even the Buddhas, the patriarchs, the masters, must manifest and reinterpret this Buddha nature moment by moment. Not only is the ego-self impermanent, but so is enlightenment. It is only through never-ending practice in each and every moment that Buddha mind can be manifested. One of the central tenets of Buddhism is the impermanence of everything. Why should enlightenment be different? Everything changes. Everything arises and passes away and Buddha mind cannot be any different. When we recognise and accept this fact, we can begin to understand the nature of thoughts and their place in our zazen. Thoughts, like walls, tiles and stones, are mind. How could thoughts be “wrong”? It is only because of our ignorance that thoughts during zazen cause us difficulties. To allow the ego-self to use thoughts to maintain its position as the center of the universe is ignorance. To strive to cut off these thoughts is to enter the dark cave of illusion. To be as unconcerned about the arising and fading of thoughts as a grain of sand on a beach is unconcerned by the rising and falling of the tide is to practice the zazen that embodies and manifests the way of the Buddhas. As Nagaku Daie said, "it is not that there is no practice and realization, just that they are not to be defiled.”
PDF: Legends in Ch'an: the Northern/Southern Schools Split, Hui-neng and the Platform Sutra
by Vladimir K.
April, 2005
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/HistoricalZen/Legends_in_Chan.pdf
https://www.google.com/search?q=vladimir+k.&sitesearch=thezensite.com#ip=1
