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The Northern Line and the path to ultimate enlightenment
The Tube; grimy, smelly, crowded, necessary and efficient. There were about 294 million passenger journeys recorded in 2016/17 on the Northern line, making it the busiest on the Underground (Wikipedia). We could perhaps describe the tube as a bitter remedy for transport.
Amazingly, emerging from this grime are some enlightening quotes that the TFL staff have placed at the entrance to some of the stations. It as if they are preparing the traveller for something deeper and higher. The purpose of this project is to enable progression from these quotes to something deeper and higher, the highest goal of human achievement, enlightenment. Each quote will be matched from a quote from the original teachings of the Buddha, there will a short explanation and references to where to more detailed information can be found. This project will enable the resources necessary to help understand the nature of reality.
The Northern Line also has a great advantage over outer space in seeking to understand the world on account of its cost £1,50 as opposed to 1.3 trillion dollars to go to Mars!
The output of the project will be a coffee table book, an online slide presentation, Youtube video and maybe a photographic exhibition.
It will be heavily picture led. There will be 50 pictures of each station along the northern line taken in half-light. These will then form the basis of 50 chapters. At night time the stations take on a different personality and often become the main focal point of the community. They are like miniature temples lighting up their surroundings. Each picture will represent an entry to this path to understanding. Each station picture will be accompanied by a picture of a quote from TFL and a written quote from the Buddha.
Along with each station chapter, there will be a picture of a Buddhist statue taken from the nearest statue to that station. E.g from a shop window or garden centre. The Buddha has more monuments to his than any other person in history. (source Trivial Pursuits).
The beginning of the project will contain pictures of life in Tooting including Tooting Market, the grade 1 listed Bingo Hall and the Park run. The majority of the Tfl quotes have been collected from Tooting Bec tube station. This will serve as an introduction to the project.
Olympus cameras are ideally suited to the project as their sophisticated image stabilization and wide aperture prime lenses can capture low light scenes with remarkable clarity.
I am well suited to the project as I have been a professional photographer for 30 years and have used Olympus cameras for much of this time. I am also a leading publisher of Theravada Buddhist books worldwide. My books go into 24 different countries (www.zolag.co.uk). I have also given three presentations on 'higher reality' at education research conferences; UEL Research conference 2015; ICERI Barcelona 2017 and 9th TEAN Conference 2018. I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of East London and therefore understand the domains of science and of mindfulness at understanding the world.