Zen and Art

Much of the classic art of Japan was influenced by Zen. The sparse images, the few words: the excessive imagery boiled down to its essence and the residue filtered out. Their arts have influenced Western artists and poets from the Impressionists to the Beatniks and beyond.

The haiku, for example, developed in sixteenth century Japan, is a poem of 17 syllables, usually broken down into three lines of five, seven and five syllables. The first two lines generally describe something and the third line only indirectly relates to the first two but completes the thought. The premise is that the third line will bring enlightenment if read with the proper focus. It's distance from the first two lines are like being hit with the Master's stick when the connection is made. The simplicity of the phrasing allows the poem to form in the mind of the reader as if the reader is experiencing or even writing the poem.

The haiku opposite the photograph is one I wrote based on a metaphor of Zen Master Seung Sahn (see: the Last page). Though there are only fourteen words to the poem it is dense with meaning.

The moon is reflected on water. Ten thousand is a Japanese number which expresses the concept of infinity. Therefore the moon is reflected an infinite number of times and appears to have an infinite number of existences. But when the dawn arrives, the moon is no longer seen on the surface of the water. The surfaces are wiped clean of moons. Another reality takes their place.

We place so much emphasis on the reality of what we perceive through our senses and mind, but the reality is that we are deceived by the illusion of the world around us and the illusion created by our mind. Every thought we have is a projection which separates what we perceive from the whole of which it is a part. Once we are able to free ourselves from the illusion that things are separate, then we can perceive them as separate entities but still experience them as part of the whole. And in experiencing them as part of the whole, we can experience them with the love and compassion that is required to be in a state of satori.

Jesus the Nazarene told us that we must "be as little children to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." We strive our entire lives to learn, to understand and to be informed. But this knowledge can work against us. We must regain that innocence that children have before they are trained to put everything into separate little boxes and to place appropriate judgement upon them. We must regain the state we held when we came from the womb and everything was new and wonderful. In experiencing the world and then returning to that state, we can have the best of both worlds. The Kingdom of Heaven is around you. As is the Kingdom of Hell, if we allow it to be.

We must be like the surface of the water reflecting the moon, not the water but the reflection. We are now the moon, we are now the dawn, we are now the noon day sun, we are now the radiant sunset. We reflect everything that crosses our path. There is no difference between what we come into contact with and ourselves.

But we are only the reflection. We, as separate entities, are capable of experiencing all of them, wholly, their essence and without our projection of ideas. We can love the mosquito on our arm because we are the mosquito on the arm of the earth, sucking our existence out of it, and we know what hunger is.

Not bad for fourteen words of seventeen syllables.

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There are other arts as well. Arts which involve life. Practical arts but arts just the same. They include Budo (The Martial Way), Shodo (The Calligraphy/Ink Painting Way), Kado (or Ikebana, The Flower Arrangement Way), and Chado (The Tea Ceremony Way).

These are active meditations. One attains a similar state of mind in each of the art forms. One lets oneself be absorbed in the movement. One becomes the bristles of the brush applying the ink, the sweep of the hand as it places the flower, the kick and turn of the body as one deflects a blow, the whipping of the tea with a delicate whisk made of finely split bamboo.

In these arts, it is the process wherein lies the meditation.