Punch Outs (Tajjapaññatti in Pāli)

The subject of the photographs in this book is tajjapaññatti, which has no English cognate in the Pāli language. Tajja means constant repetition, going back, checking, and paññatti means making known, naming, aka Conceptual Reality.

It refers to the activity of comparing the Ultimate Reality of the pure sensing experience—Parāmaṭṭha in Pāli—to the thing you make it into. What you think is out there—the solid world, our Conceptual Reality—the Paññatti.Look at the photographs while paying attention to the experience of understanding what is depicted. How do you process what you see into what you know it to be? You take in color and form. Your eyes move over the distant landscape. They catch for a hair’s width of time on something that interests your unconscious mind; your mind collects fragments of visual data. Then, assembles your punch outs into the world you experience.

Photography by George Haas

Essays by Shaun Bartone, Daniel P. Brown, Igael Gurin-Malous, George Haas, Catherine Hartmann, Joe Lewis and Jessica Rath