However, thanks to the Beastie Boys, and "Free Tibet" bumper stickers, just about everyone is vaguely familiar with the Dalai Lama's flight from China's 1949 invasion of Tibet and the ongoing occupation and repression. In particular, Martin Scorsese's "Kundun" represented the onset of Tibet's plight with graphic, indelible images.

At the same time, the gestures and principles of Buddhism are also filtered through Chinese action cinema. Stephen Chow's internationally acclaimed "Kung Fu Hustle" climaxes with the hero defeating the villain with the "long-lost Buddhist Palm," a strike powerful enough to punch colossal palm-shaped holes clear through tenement buildings.

For many people, Buddhism is represented by the Dalai Lama's escape and his subsequent delivery of a message emphasizing compassion for individuals and recognition of a fundamental human unity beneath the diverse surfaces of our beliefs and actions. For other people, the Dalai Lama's arrival is a kind of cinematic event.

Obviously there is a gap between the movies, spirituality and political history that isn't necessarily bridged by our educational system or the magnificent Buddhist collection at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. With general human suffering punctuated and exacerbated by Sept. 11, Iraq, Darfur and now Virginia Tech, is there not something for regular people to access in the space between movies, monasteries and museums that can give a sense of Buddhism's contemporary relevance?

Buddhism recognizes that suffering is a part of life, and that compassion and generosity — profound gestures expressing personal responsibility — are the only appropriate response. Contemporary art is another, and two local exhibitions focused on compassion (one past, the other upcoming) bracket the Dalai Lama's arrival and departure.

In March, the Academy Art Center at Linekona held "In Honor of Compassion," a solo exhibition of work by local artist (and practicing Buddhist) Nan Holmes. On May 4, "Sufferation: Notes on Compassion and Endurance," a group show featuring Hawai'i and Mainland artists, opens at thirtyninehotel.

Apparently we are in a moment that invites active consideration of compassion as an act worth engaging artistically.

Holmes, who founded and runs the Honolulu art-and-play studio PlayWorks for children and adults, creates work that is timely and provides context and a background for these exciting events.

Her paintings represent multiplicity, a concept at the root of much philosophical and religious thought. Think as deeply as you can about every thought, memory and action that is absorbed and arises during the journey from unified sperm and egg to an adult human on the verge of starting another life. This is multiplicity, and Holmes manages to translate it into remarkably clear terms.

Her two series, "Lotus" and "Lama," are done in archival ink and colored pencil on paper. They are expressed in Holmes' concise visual language of transparency and an illustrator's outline balanced with rich, painterly, full-color rendering. While both feature monochrome fields of hands, "Lotus" centers attention on flowers while "Lama" features a specific pair of hands (those of Tibetan Lama Wangchuk, with whom Holmes studies meditation) surrounded by an aura.

"Lotus 2" shows hands in an almost universal gesture of supplication, greeting, peace, thanks and praise. The flower, rendered at different stages of blossoming, holds these hands as echoes. Some hands can be read as clasped buds, some as open blooms, some on their way to wilting. Each hand is a portrait of sorts. Like stars awaiting an intelligence to provide constellations, Holmes distributes these hands in such a way that none of the gestures can be ranked, and neither can they be read as a simple catalog of possibilities.

Though one might read each hand in terms of age or gender, the overall effect pushes one to consider all hands, and therefore processes and states of Becoming instead of goals and fixed states of Being.

The secret strength of Holmes' work is that though it is grounded in Tibetan Buddhism, one needn't know anything about mudras (sacred Buddhist hand gestures) to find oneself copying them or studying each and every difference between them. The paintings automatically invite participation, which makes them a kind of generosity or compassion machine — but not the kind that require electricity or buttons.

It would not be an insult to extend this machine character and define Holmes' works as tools. This makes them part of a lineage of traditional Buddhist art intended to function with and on consciousness. Without recourse to emulation or appropriation, these images are texts, in and of themselves, that refer to the books that life writes inside us, no matter what faith, discipline or practice we might explore and adhere to.

David A.M. Goldberg is a cultural critic and writer. He is a lecturer in art, art history and American studies at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.