An architect commissioned this work. The challenge was to incorporate a rather kitschy Swiss cuckoo watch into a work of mine; the condition I obtained - given the exiguity of my production and the fact that from my point of view creation is neither spontaneous nor dictated by the will - was to have no time limit. After a few years of meditations and efforts to find an artistic collocationfor the clock, I concluded that - however much I tried to build a logic that "explained" the presence of the cuckoo in a work - my attempts were always very complicated and "cerebral". Instead, I was looking for something simple and immediate, which would ensure that the observer had a direct experience. Exploring a suitable setting for the cuckoo, I was intrigued by the thought of using mirrors in relation with the cuckoo clock, in order to both decompose its image and multiply it, at the same time merging the work with the surrounding environment. On the one hand, the possibility of multiplying the appearance of the cuckoo from various points of view satisfied me as it revealed the multiple worlds that inevitably alternate moment after moment in our daily life, from the world of hell to the world of anger, from the world of humanity to the world of bodhisattva. On the other hand, the simultaneous view of each side of the image reminded me of the Buddhist principle of simultaneous causes and effects (so that at the very moment when I put a cause by thought, words or actions I also create a corresponding effect that will manifest itself in due course in my life). It also represented the uniqueness of the individual and his environment (so that my vital state and the causes I put invariably affect the people around me and the world in which I live). The result of those speculations is amirror pyramid in the centre of which the clock- equipped with a little swinginggirlpunctuating the seconds - is hanging. The object's destination is angular, reflecting the entire surrounding landscape. Simultaneously observing all sides of the object reflected in the mirrors is as disorienting an experience as the awareness of the eternity of life derived from Buddhism. If we start reflecting that in our infinite lives we have been husbands, wives, children, brothers and sisters or that we have wept oceans of tears for the loss of our loved ones, then this wide-ranging, unlimited perspective is unsettling and gives our existence a new meaning. The unsettlement caused by the work can thus give an original meaning to the cuckoo object itself. The causes and conditions that led to the realization of the work weretraceablein the distrust I had accumulated in the power of rationality to give meaning to the world. All my attempts to use my mind to give the cuckoo a sense had miserably failed, on the contrarythe attempt to go to the heart of the object led to the creation of a complex visual, mental and spiritual experience and to afruitful interaction between object and environment. The content of "Cuckoo clock" is no longer the Swiss clock that I should have included in one of my works, incorporating it into some masterpiece signed by me;on the contrary, it consists of the interaction between the cuckoo and its environment. Object and environment become "one but not one", their uniqueness and reciprocity succeed in bridging the gap between work and location by creating a perfect fusion. What is transient about the work is the cuckoo clock itself: it could have been different without changing the substance of the operation I carried out. What is original is once again the physical, mental and spiritual energy generated by the field where the object is integrated. Object and environment are part of a single energy, just as between human beings and their environment a mutual energy is generated so that both influence each other. Meditating on this uniqueness led me to observe how my fundamental sufferings (which I previously attributed only to the environment, for example to my parents) are such because my life itself attracted them, because I needed them in order to grow spiritually. Nothing happens by chance, even the denials I received happened because I was karmically ready to receive them, because I myself had placed the causes corresponding to the effects received. The functioning of life is such that there is no escape from this reality. "Cuckoo clock" deals precisely with the functioning of life in its aspect of interaction with the environment and is the logical progression from "Little Scriptures", as "Little Scriptures" deals with the openness of the individual to his spiritual environment while "Cuckoo clock" deepens that relationship in terms of the law of cause and effect.