“ONE in a MILLION” Vietnam Yin-Yang 4x4'
9 Days
178
0
$10,000.00
Description
Condition
Payment Types Accepted
Venmo
PayPal“ONE in a MILLION”
Artist: Wm Fletcher This original painting was inspired by a small graphic design in an article entitled “The Coconut Monk” written by John Steinbeck IV (June 12, 1946 – February 7, 1991), published in Naropa Institute’s LOKA 2, 1976. After serving a tour in Vietnam while in the United Sates Army, young Steinbeck, the son of the the Nobel Prize-winning author, returned to South Vietnam as a journalist. In the Spring of 1968, he had the good fortune to meet a rather notorious Buddhist pacifist, Ông Đạo Dừa, also known as the Coconut Monk.
The article tells of them both envisioning the design portrayed in this painting. In Steinbeck’s words: “I explained to the Coconut Monk(Dao Duain Vietnamese and pronounced Dow Yua) that I was very interested in Taoism and of course Buddhism. The day before, when I had sat stoned in the Dispatch office staring at a map on the wall, I noticed that if one drew a circle around Vietnam, a simple yin-yang curve appeared. Ton Le Sap Lake (yin) in Cambodia and Hi Nam Island (yang) in the South China Sea, separated by the curved coastline of Vietnam itself, made a perfect, classic yin-yang symbol. The center of the completed visualization lay smack on the infamous DMZ. When I told him about this discovery, the Coconut Monk’s eyebrows jumped up again and he stared at me seriously. After a very long moment, he suddenly sent another monk scurrying down to a little library in the grotto/heart of the pagoda mountain. When the monk returned he had an exquisite map of Vietnam highlighted with the exact same circle around it which Dao Dua had drawn himself the day before. He was going to release this meaningful cosmo-geographical discovery to the guests later as a kind of explanation for the Vietnamese predicament; and here this round-eye had stumbled on the same thing, perhaps picking up the master’s vibrations.”
Wm Fletcher, the painter, having spent some brief yet invaluable time with Chögyam Trungpa (March 5, 1939 ~ April 4, 1987), at his Vermont center, Tail of the Tiger, subscribed to the journals of Trungpa’s newly formed Naropa Institute, the future Naropa University. Through the luck of a found canvas, and various paint mediums, the first painting came into being, circa 1977. An old friend allowed it to be hung in his local restaurant, the Rongovian Embassy, in Trumansburg, New York. The first painting was returned when the establishment changed hands, and has been in the artist’s possession here in Utah. This new rendering of the same design was painted during the summer of 2024.
© 2026 Wm Fletcher
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“ONE in a MILLION” Vietnam Yin-Yang 4x4'
9 Days
178
0
$10,000.00
Description
Condition
Payment Types Accepted
VenmoPayPal“ONE in a MILLION”
Artist: Wm Fletcher This original painting was inspired by a small graphic design in an article entitled “The Coconut Monk” written by John Steinbeck IV (June 12, 1946 – February 7, 1991), published in Naropa Institute’s LOKA 2, 1976. After serving a tour in Vietnam while in the United Sates Army, young Steinbeck, the son of the the Nobel Prize-winning author, returned to South Vietnam as a journalist. In the Spring of 1968, he had the good fortune to meet a rather notorious Buddhist pacifist, Ông Đạo Dừa, also known as the Coconut Monk.
The article tells of them both envisioning the design portrayed in this painting. In Steinbeck’s words: “I explained to the Coconut Monk(Dao Duain Vietnamese and pronounced Dow Yua) that I was very interested in Taoism and of course Buddhism. The day before, when I had sat stoned in the Dispatch office staring at a map on the wall, I noticed that if one drew a circle around Vietnam, a simple yin-yang curve appeared. Ton Le Sap Lake (yin) in Cambodia and Hi Nam Island (yang) in the South China Sea, separated by the curved coastline of Vietnam itself, made a perfect, classic yin-yang symbol. The center of the completed visualization lay smack on the infamous DMZ. When I told him about this discovery, the Coconut Monk’s eyebrows jumped up again and he stared at me seriously. After a very long moment, he suddenly sent another monk scurrying down to a little library in the grotto/heart of the pagoda mountain. When the monk returned he had an exquisite map of Vietnam highlighted with the exact same circle around it which Dao Dua had drawn himself the day before. He was going to release this meaningful cosmo-geographical discovery to the guests later as a kind of explanation for the Vietnamese predicament; and here this round-eye had stumbled on the same thing, perhaps picking up the master’s vibrations.”
Wm Fletcher, the painter, having spent some brief yet invaluable time with Chögyam Trungpa (March 5, 1939 ~ April 4, 1987), at his Vermont center, Tail of the Tiger, subscribed to the journals of Trungpa’s newly formed Naropa Institute, the future Naropa University. Through the luck of a found canvas, and various paint mediums, the first painting came into being, circa 1977. An old friend allowed it to be hung in his local restaurant, the Rongovian Embassy, in Trumansburg, New York. The first painting was returned when the establishment changed hands, and has been in the artist’s possession here in Utah. This new rendering of the same design was painted during the summer of 2024.
© 2026 Wm Fletcher
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