水墨之于我不是一种生存状态，而是一种处于器世间的思考空间。它占据了我生活的大部分时间，是自己妄图超越现实生活而藏身的洞穴。
宣纸不同于亚麻布，它可以更有趣的记录很多重复的轨迹。在匆忙的生活中我想忘却很多记忆，但这些记忆反而无一例外的留下了难以磨灭的痕迹，弹指间便有千般妄念。有些一直在寻觅的东西却愈发渺茫，只是无奈地看着它逐渐从我的生活中抽离渐远。我想净化的，却残存；想凸显的，却依稀。宣纸很美妙，所呈现的磨痕亦如我想。
墨是奇妙的东西，材料简单却因人而大异。墨的格调完似绘者，心下自然使之，于纸上洒落自性根器无遗，纵千般巧饰难有丝毫遮掩。学样品性几何，如电光火石，当下立现。墨像在我的画中更像年轮，没有挥洒的磅礴笔法，只有舒缓的在时间中的反复累积。常觉自己在绘画状态中更像一个持咒的老居士，嗡嗡吽吽地，目标单一明确，意虑洁净执著。我画的墨遍数很多，尝画正字记数，有些局部达到了七十多遍，这样似经累劫完成的墨痕的确与大多今人不同，心甚恋之。
我常想用水画沙的感觉，尝试用水去画恒河之沙，时空蕴界忽地在观想中模糊了，一切又回到原点。我用水去寻觅曼陀罗的圣境，因缘生起，于是清水留痕，点点滴滴。
镜像是个奇怪的感官觉受，庄生晓梦一般，我把纸折起来，通过折叠可以让水与墨渗落到画面的另一边，好像儿时的一个梦在今天重现。把纸反过来再画，渗到初始一边，又像是生命轨迹的回归。日常的很多点滴，毫不起眼的因果，造就了今天的良多慨叹。幡然间，又见云天变幻。
一直妄图寻找能给我带来快乐淡定的坛城，却常迷失于旅途而不自知觉。“已而为知者，怠而已矣”，忆此言，常汗下如雨。
己丑春月夜凉如水，田卫于北京西郊蜗居小室
The Lost Mandala--- The Painter's Whispers
By Tian Wei
For me, ink and wash painting is not a state of survival, but a thinking space in my worldly life. It occupies most time of my life, just like a cave for me to hide in when I vainly attempt to go beyond the real life.
The Xuan paper is different from linen, which can record numerous repeated tracks in a more interesting way. I want to forget a lot of memories in the rushed life, but these memories left indelible marks without exception, and stirred up all kinds of irrational thoughts in a flash. Some things which I have been seeking got increasingly remote and indistinct, I can only watch helplessly them gradually detaching from my life and slipping away; Some things that I want to purify are remained; Some things that I want to highlight become vague. The Xuan paper is wonderful, on which the ink marks always present what I thought.
Ink is an amazing thing, made by simple material but varies according to different people. The style of ink is just like the painter's, which comes from painter’s soul. It shows up completely the painter’s personality and is difficult to disguise. The painter’s artistic culture and his personality will be presented instantly just like lighting show themselves. The images in my painting are more like annual rings, without majestic brush strokes, only with repeated accumulations over the long haul. When I am painting, I often feel myself is more like an old lay Buddhist holding mantras, droningly, with one definite goal and clean impregnable will. The times I apply ink in one painting is many and sometimes even reached seventy. Such ink and wash painting is really quite distinctive, different with most painters nowadays. I love them very much.
I often imagined the sensation that paint on sands by water try to paint the sands in Ganges River by water. but the visualization of space and time suddenly dimmed in my sight, and everything went back to the original point. I tried to look for the Sacred Ground of Mandala with water, and everything arises for karma, then the trace of the clean water becomes visible, dribs and drabs.
Mirror image is a strange sensory sensation, just like the morning dream of Zhuangzhou. By folding the paper the water and the ink can infiltrate to the other side of the painting, which is like a childhood dream is reproduced today. Turn over the paper to paint, then the ink permeate to the initial side, just like the return of life path. Many little things of the daily life, and the unassuming karma, have caused a lot of today’s signs and regret. Quickly and completely, the sky and clouds change again.
I have been trying to looking for the mandala which makes me happy and calm, but very often I lost myself in the journey unconsciously. "When you think you have known the truth, you may just be more wrong." Recalling that saying, my sweat runs down like raindrops.
A fresh moonlit spring night in 2010, in my small apartment on west suburban of Beijing
【编辑：霍春常】
