A lacquer box…

Sometimes I think of the Yi as a lacquer box that is continuously being painted, over and over again, with the shellac of every question posed to it, every interpretation and commentary. The box is disproportionately thicker with glossy lacquer than the actual wood that supports it, to the point that it cannot be opened and the real essence, the spirit of the Yi inside the box, is to all denied. We feel and intuit what’s inside the box but do not really know it. The lacquer is transparent to a point; we can see the content of many layers down and under the surface until they become too dark to discern. As it is, we are still too far away from what’s contained in it.