a surprise in washington square park
Leroy and I went to the park yesterday but when I started turning right to leave, he pulled hard to go left. He is a stubborn poodle so I said, “Okay, we can walk around the fountain that way today,” and to the left we went. Where there was a huge crowd gathered around and lot of buzzing conversations. Then I saw what was going on — there were literally hundreds of boxes sitting on the ground under the big famous arch at the end of Fifth Avenue. Every box was wrapped in a coral colored cloth with a bow on top — a Japanese kind of wrapping thing. It looked amazing and beautiful. People were all excited and taking the boxes. I looked around to see if it was a giveaway from some big company like Revlon or something but, no. No big promotional thing happening. So I thought, I’ll take a box, too. I picked one up and then I thought, “No. I don’t want this. I don’t want more stuff.” So I put it down and started to walk away and then I saw a tiny sign that said:
EMPTY IS NOT EMPTY. FULL IS NOT FULL.
Well, that hooked me right then and there because it was obviously a rephrasing of the most important Buddhist sutra, the Prajna Paramita Sutra, which begins, “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.” So I picked up a box. It was very light. It was obviously empty. I hesitated. I wondered if I should try another box that was heavier so I could get one with someone in it and not one with nothing in it. It was not because of my nonattachment-like nature but because I felt embarrassed to be seen in public ( even though there was no one there that I knew…) picking and choosing which box to get, that I did stick with that very light, obviously empty box. I sat down on a park bench and opened it up. It was fun to unwrap the coral colored cloth. It was a cardboard box that would be the right size for a baseball cap. Inside was a piece of paper which said:
“YOU CAN DO ONE SMALL AND GRACEFUL THING TO SAVE THE PLANET BY REUSING THIS BOX AND CLOTH. THE CLOTH IS WASHABLE AND IRONABLE.
SUGGESTIONS: USE THE CLOTH TO WRAP A PRESENT, TOTE YOUR GROCERY, FASHION INTO A PIECE OF CLOTHING, OR USE YOUR IMAGINATION.”
IF YOU’D LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT BOJAGI USES, GOOGLE BOJAGI OR BOJAGI WRAPPING.
THANK YOU,
UJIN LEE, ARTIST
WWW.UJINLEEART.COM
I left the box on the park bench. Leroy and I walked home with the cloth. We saw people blocks away from the park carrying the boxes, still wrapped. I guess they were waiting until they got home to open their surprise package.
