Zen
Chef's Table: Jeong Kwan
Mountains are mountains
Just a whinny again
Zero Mass
Translation is always a treason
Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade—all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of color or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is there which is easy to expound? The ancient sages never put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for they were afraid of uttering half-truths. They began by talking like fools and ended by making their hearers wise. Lau Tzu himself, with his quaint humor, says, "If people of inferior intelligence hear of the Tao, they laugh immensely. It would not be the Tao unless they laughed at it."
The mundane and the spiritual
A special contribution of Zen to Eastern thought was its recognition of the mundane as of equal importance with the spiritual. It held that in the great relation of things there was no distinction of small and great, an atom possessing equal possibilities with the universe. The seeker for perfection must discover in his own life the refection of the inner light. The organization of the Zen monastery was very significant of this point of view. To every member, except the abbot, was assigned some special work in the caretaking of the monastery, and curiously enough, to the novices was committed the lighter duties, while to the most respected and advanced monks were given the more irksome and menial tasks. Such services formed a part of the Zen discipline and every least action must be done absolutely perfectly. Thus many a weighty discussion ensued while weeding the garden, paring a turnip, or serving tea. The whole ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life. Taoism furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals, Zennism made them practical.
In a state of reverberation
Irwin's terms of sudden, physical realization – bam! – call to mind the suddenly enlightening Zen slap or rap on the forehead. It also calls to mind [Philip Guston]'s own remark..."Look at any inspired painting...it's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation." Reverberation is another way of suggesting a kind of sudden, energetic, physical experience.
The most incidental detail
Black rakuware tea bowl (late sixteenth century), Kyoto, Japan. Freer Sackler Museum of Asian Art.
For Irwin, the lesson of [the raku tea cups] was twofold: first, their presentation was important, insofar as the ceremony involved a gradual preparation of the audience's aesthetic attention. Then, when the time came to handle the cups, the intimacy of the experience fused visual and tactile sensations into a single continuum. As he also noted:
he would set on the table this box with a beautiful little tie on it – very Japanese – and you untied it, you opened up the box, he let you do that. And then inside of it was a cloth sack. You took the sack out, and it had a drawstring, and you opened up the drawstring and you reached inside and took out the bowl. By that time, the bowl had you at a level where the most incidental detail – maybe even just a thumb mark – registered as a powerful statement.
Until we leave the gate behind
And yet the timeless way is not complete, and will not fully generate the quality without a name, until we leave the gate behind.
Indeed this ageless character has nothing, in the end, to do with languages. The language, and the processes which stem from it, merely release the fundamental order which is native to us. They do not teach us, they only remind us of what we know already, and of what we shall discover time and time again, when we give up our ideas and opinions, and do exactly what emerges from ourselves.
At this final stage, the patterns are no longer important: the patterns have taught you to be receptive to what is real. It is the gate which leads you to the state of mind, in which you live so close to your own heart that you no longer need a language.
This is the final lesson of the timeless way.
It will revenge itself in judgment
To the average man, life presents itself, not as material malleable to his hand, but as a series of problems of extreme difficulty, which he has to solve with the means at his disposal. And he is distressed to find that the more means he can dispose of—such as machine-power, rapid transport, and general civilised amenities, the more his problems grow in hardness and complexity. This is particularly disconcerting to him, because he has been frequently told that the increase of scientific knowledge would give him “the mastery over nature”—which ought, surely, to imply mastery over life.
Perhaps the first thing that he can learn from the artist is that the only way of “mastering” one’s material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant. If he tries to wrest life out of its true nature, it will revenge itself in judgment, as the work revenges itself upon the domineering artist.
Shortlist of interesting spaces
The journey begins by letting go
The journey begins by letting go of control, and becoming flexible.
Only when it has ceased to be a pattern
Here I would like to append three lines in praise of muji:
A pattern that is not a pattern is a true pattern.
Create patterns until they are no longer patterns.
The true pattern is a patternless pattern.When creating a pattern, one’s heart must also be muji. A pattern must be followed through until it is no longer a pattern. It is a true pattern only when it has ceased to be a pattern.
Not as a star
But I’m warning you,
this is my last existence.
Not as a swallow, not as a maple,
not as a cat-tail and not as a star.The utter nothingness of being
Everything written symbols can say has already passed by. They are like tracks left by animals. That is why the masters of meditation refuse to accept that writings are final. The aim is to reach true being by means of those tracks, those letters, those signs - but reality itself is not a sign, and it leaves no tracks. It doesn’t come to us by way of letters or words. We can go toward it, by following those words and letters back to what they came from. But so long as we are preoccupied with symbols, theories and opinions, we will fail to reach the principle.
"But when we give up symbols and opinions, aren’t we left in the utter nothingness of being?"
Yes.
It doesn't look like anything to me
It is related that the bodhisattva Manjusri was once standing at the gate, and seeing him, Shakyamuni Buddha called to him, "Manju, Manju, why don't you come inside the gate?"
Manjusri replied, "I don't see anything outside the gate."
The Void
Objects or elements which have the greatest depth, which actively draw the senses in, have at their heart an area of deep calm and stillness – a void bounded by and contrasted with an area of intense centers around it.
When an element becomes all detail, its own constant buzz tends to dilute its overall strength. Like a musical wall of sound, it pushes against our perception to produce a flat field-like state. Conversely, it is the pause which allows us to interlock with a piece of music and feel its depth. The presence of void, at many scales, provides a contrasting calm to alleviate the buzz and strengthen the center.
Flexible imagination
By giving up preference for harmony,
we accept dissonance to be as desirable as consonance.Besides a balance through color harmony, which is comparable
to symmetry, there is equilibrium possible between
color tensions, related to a more dynamic asymmetry.Again: knowledge and its application is not our aim;
instead, it is flexible imagination, discovery, invention – taste.One candle can light another
Lighting one candle
with another candle—
spring evening.Buson is saying that we accept the light contained in the work of others without darkening their efforts. One candle can light another, and the light may spread without its source being diminished.
A thousand different roads
They great Way has no gate;
There are a thousand different roads.
If you pass through this barrier once,
you will walk independently in the universe.No door at which to knock
Penetrating the Blue Cliff, you will open
the eye within eyes
and realizing life through the Blue Cliff,
you yourself will become a torch,
the light beyond light.Being so, you will find no door at which to knock, nor any door to be opened.
In one there are many; in two, one
The ultimate path is without difficulty;
Speech is to the point, words are to the point.
In one there are many kinds;
In two there is no duality.Mind of no mind
To you, mind of no mind, in whom the timeless way was born.
Autumn breezes blow
One day you are born
you die the next –
today,
at twilight,
autumn breezes blow.Aggressively Zen
"He was dealing with Zen in the most aggressive way Zen has ever been dealt with." — Irving Blum
Don't mistake my finger for the moon
Many people mistook the string itself for the work of art ("When I point my finger at the moon, don't mistake my finger for the moon" is a Zen aphorism that Irwin is fond of citing). By mid-1976 Irwin himself was prepared to Jettison—along with figure, line, focus, permanence, and signature—the very requirement of any overt activity of making as a necessary prerequisite for artistic viability.
The Timeless Way of Building
A Book by Christopher Alexander- Mind of no mind
- The quality without a name
- An objective matter
- Bitterness
- The most precious thing we ever have
Japanese Death Poems
A Book by Yoel HoffmanIn Praise of Shadows
A Book by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki & Thomas J. Harper- Things that shine and glitter
- A naked bulb
- The Japanese toilet
- Empty dreams
- Most important of all are the pauses
Silence
A Book by John CageThe Blue Cliff Record
A Book by Yuanwu Keqin, Thomas Cleary & J.C. ClearyKokoro
A Novel by Natsume Sōseki155-217-155
A Website by Nick TrombleyList of games that Buddha would not play
A List- …
- Guessing at letters traced with the finger in the air or on a friend's back. (letters in the Brahmi script)
- Guessing a friend's thoughts.
- …
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
A Book by Shunryū SuzukiDon't Rush to Simplicity
An Article by Shawn WangYou've probably heard this story before:
A businessman finds a fisherman, who is living an idyllic, peaceful life by the sea.
He laughs and tells the fisherman how to get rich instead.
The fisherman asks him what he will do after he gets rich.
He replies that he would retire to an idyllic, peaceful life by the sea.There's supposed to be a deep life lesson in there, but it's always felt insincere to me.
To me it is better to have reached the heights of a career, or suffered an epic defeat, even if I do end up in the same place as everyone else in the end.
To me simplicity is made more beautiful when understood through a long personal struggle with complexity. When I can dance with it, having turned a mighty nemesis into an old friend, and teach others to do the same.
Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
A Book by Robert M. PirsigIs perfection boring?
An Article by Ralph AmmerWe love to see the process, not just the result. The imperfections in your work can be beautiful if they show your struggle for perfection, not a lack of care.
The Nature of Order
Levels of Scale
Scale refers to how we perceive the size of an element or space relative to other forms around it. All things – a tea cup, a building, language, entire eco-systems – consist of smaller components. It is the relationship of the smaller elements which determines the character and degree of life of the whole.
Objects which contain a high degree of life tend to contain a beautiful range of scales within, which exist at a series of well-marked intervals and have clearly recognizable jumps between them. To have good levels of scale, it is extremely important that the jumps between different scales of centers not be too great or too small.
Strong Centers
The idea of a center is at the heart of all that creates life within an object. But rather than the traditional view of an isolated geometry in space, a true center is defined not only by its internal cohesion, but by its relation to context. A strong center can only occur when other centers are intensifying it.
Like levels of scale, the concept of strong centers is recursive. In something which is alive, a strong center is made of many other strong centers, at different levels, which in turn make us aware of the whole they compose.
Boundaries
The articulation of a form depends to a great degree on how its surfaces are defined and meet at edges. The effect of a strong boundary is twofold: First, it focuses attention on the center, further intensifying it; and second, the boundary unites the center which it surrounds with what is beyond.
For the boundary to accomplish both of these tasks – to separate and to unite – it must have a degree of presence as strong as the center which it bounds.
Alternating Repetition
The principle of repetition orders recurring elements in a composition according to their proximity to one another, and by the visual characteristics they share. Elements need not be perfectly identical to be grouped in a repetitive fashion; they must merely share a common trait of size, shape, or detail characteristics allowing each element to be individually unique, yet belong to the same family.
When the repetition within a group of elements occurs parallel on a number of different levels, an alternating rhythm of centers forms, one series of centers intensifying the other.
Positive Space
Positive space refers to shaped space. Where an element occurs in space, the element not only exists with its own shape, but it also acts to define the shape of the space around it. For something to be whole, both the element itself and the space around it must engage one another, each intensifying the other. When this occurs, every single part of space has positive shape as a center – there are no amorphous, meaningless leftovers.
Every shape should be a strong center in itself, which is in turn made up of other, smaller centers.
Good Shape
Shape is the principal identifying characteristic of form, resulting from the specific configuration of a form’s surfaces and edges. Good shape happens when the surfaces and edges of a form have strong centers in every part of themselves.
A good shape, even if complex, can usually be broken down easily into more simple shapes. A good shape tends to contain a high degree of internal symmetries, an overall bilateral symmetry, and a well-marked center. The good shape also creates positive space around it, is very strongly distinct from what surrounds it, and has a feeling of being closed and complete.
Local Symmetries
Symmetry, or the balanced distribution of equivalent forms or spaces about a common line or point, can organize elements in architecture in two ways: an entire organization can be made symmetrical, or a symmetrical condition can occur in only a portion of the building or object, at any scale. The latter case is what we refer to as local symmetry.
Overall symmetry in an object tends to look mechanical and lifeless, usually due to the fact that local symmetries are absent within the overall form. However, when there are local symmetries, centers tend to form and strengthen the whole.
Deep Interlock
Forms which have a high degree of life tend to contain some type of interlock – a “hooking into” their surroundings – or an ambiguity between element and context, either case creating a zone belonging to both the form and to its surroundings, making it difficult to disentangle the two.
The interlock, or ambiguity, strengthens the centers on either side, which are intensified by the new center formed between the two.
Contrast
Works of art which have great life often have intense contrast within: rough/smooth, solid/void, loud/silent, empty/full. It is the difference between opposites which gives birth to something. Contrast is what often gives other principles their degree of life – the intensity of the boundary, the markedness of the alternating repetition.
Contrast strengthens centers by making each a deeper entity of itself, and thereby giving deeper meaning to both. It is, at its simplest, what allows us to differentiate. But meaningless contrast remains meaningless. It is only when centers are actively, mutually, and meaningfully composed that it acts to deepen the whole.
Graded Variation
Gradients must arise simply because in the natural world, things vary in size, spacing, intensity, and character. All living things tend to have a certain softness. One quality changes slowly, not suddenly, across space to become another.
In something which has life, throughout the whole there are graded fields of variation, often moving from the center to the boundary or vice-versa. We are able to read the character of a larger center often because of the gradation of smaller centers across the larger form.
Roughness
Roughness is the odd shape, the quick brush stroke, the irregular column size or spacing, the change in pattern at the corner – it is adjusting to conditions as they present themselves with meaning, but without ego or contrived deliberation.
Though it may look superficially flawed, especially with human perception accustomed to mass-produced regularity and perfection as a goal, an object with roughness is often more precise because it comes about from paying attention to what matters most, and letting go of what matters less.
Echoes
When echoes are present within a design, all the various smaller elements and centers, from which the larger centers are made, have a certain sameness of character. There are deep internal similarities, or echoes of one another, which tie all the elements and centers together at various scales to form a cohesive unity of being.
The Void
Objects or elements which have the greatest depth, which actively draw the senses in, have at their heart an area of deep calm and stillness – a void bounded by and contrasted with an area of intense centers around it.
When an element becomes all detail, its own constant buzz tends to dilute its overall strength. Like a musical wall of sound, it pushes against our perception to produce a flat field-like state. Conversely, it is the pause which allows us to interlock with a piece of music and feel its depth. The presence of void, at many scales, provides a contrasting calm to alleviate the buzz and strengthen the center.
Inner Calm
Living things tend to have a special simplicity, an economy developed over time in which all things unnecessary, or not supporting the whole, are removed. This does not preclude ornament, as even in nature ornament has its very necessary place. What simplicity does is cut away the meaningless attachments to an element, the things which often distract and confuse its true nature. When this is done, an object is in a state of inner calm.
Not-Separateness
Not-separateness is the degree of connectedness an element has with all that is around it. A thing which has this quality feels completely at peace, because it is so deeply interconnected with its world. There is no abruptness, no sharpness, but often an incomplete edge which softens the hard boundary. The element is drawn into its setting, and the element draws its setting into itself.
Not-separateness is a profound connection occurring at many scales between a center and the other centers which surround it, so that they melt into one another and become inseparable.