About to make my last subs on Tuesday! I am officially quitting to continue in the dog bathing business. Exciting and scary too. I like to be good at what I am doing, and now I am going to jump into a situation about which I am about %50 clueless. You'll be wonderful and your clients are the best!
Gassho
Meitou
Satwithyoualltoday
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And which you are therefore about 50% knowledgeable. There are heads of state running entire countries with far less knowledge of their jobs than that, so you've nothing to worry about.
You'll be wonderful and your clients are the best!
Gassho
Meitou
Satwithyoualltoday命 Mei - life
島 Tou - island -
Jishin, your post was really thought provoking; I also wear trifocals/progressive lenses and to be honest, I'm still not sure about them, but I know that I also have rituals with mine, it's not just about convenience, but something more, something I find quite difficult to explain but seems to be to do with how I connect to certain situations. I definitely use my glasses for more than just seeing, perhaps because I've worn specs since I was 8 and I'm chronically short sighted, as well as the joy of falling apart as you put it!. Lots to explore here. I was talking to Anne about certain things I do at home and I can see that here too there is ritual - for example I can't settle into the day until the bed is made, and I could certainly never leave the house without making it. Yet I could leave a sink full of dishes without thinking twice, so what's the difference? I guess it's about preparing mentally for day - making the bed is a ritual that gives closure to 'night'.
Looking at the creative side, I think I have quite a few small rituals as well as the general one of sitting and quietening the mind. The most obvious is when using brush and ink. I talked about this in the very first prompt - seems a long while ago now! Although I don't grind the ink and therefore miss out on that meditative step, I still take a while stirring the ink with the brush to get the right consistency and tone, and use the in breath to prepare for the mark, which I make on the out breath. Again I've posted this before but here's an enso project I did a couple of years ago. https://youtu.be/SvMdcc4bXvk
There's also the ritual of pencil sharpening - I imagine that most artists have that one. There's actually a book dedicated to the art of sharpening pencils, it's that important!
Both of these could be seen as allowing space to prepare mentally before starting a project, but I think in my case they can also be used to put off making those first scary marks.
Interestingly I can't think of a single example of rituals around taking photos, I just bang them out - is that because I'm more confident in that medium? Not sure, perhaps it's to do with the immediacy of taking a photo. So perhaps ritual can sometimes have a lot to do with preparation.
Anne, your Japanese garden photos are great. They are a great example of the perfect marriage between creativity and Zen practice. I was also very taken with your description of Oryoki as akin to performance art, I think this can also be said of other disciplines like ikebana, archery, tea ceremony and calligraphy - all of them are so full of grace and flow, a real connection of body and mind.
Still so much to explore!
Gassho
Meitou
sattodaylahLast edited by Meitou; 10-21-2019, 10:26 PM.命 Mei - life
島 Tou - islandComment
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Hello,
thank you Anne and Meitou! For this Chapter's posts and also your prompts.
Meitou,
regarding the question about a term that describes the aesthetics of 'zen' gardens, I am not sure how to answer...
I am approaching these gardens as a kind of language with a certain grammar and vocabulary and try expressing an idea with it's help.
There seems to be a reduction in the usable elements like rocks, certain types of vegetation, water, lanterns...
and a syntax, rules for combining the basic units for an overall balanced and pleasing whole.
There are different dialects, the different garden types like stroll garden, tea gardens, dry landscape gardens, pond gardens and more.
There is a development of the language, the tone of feeling, garden types, over the time.
I don't know, if there is something like a zen garden.
If there is... - maybe the rock, or dry landscape gardens are closest to this. The others too, but that is not so easily recognisable.
The ideals of Ikebana, tea etc. also apply imho. Everything seems to be placed for accenting the unseeable, the emptiness.
With some few words, I would call it "The beauty of emptiness" and this is especially true for the dry landscape ('Zen') gardens.
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I really like the bamboo fence picture, you posted, Anne.
They are so wonderful perfect imperfect, esp. when they are getting old. Usually, they are not totally replaced, when they begin falling apart, but stake for stake repaired, so there is the overall greyish fence with random yellowish or even green ones in between.
There are so many different things expressed with these fences... Tricking perspective with differently formed "windows" or with pointing the thick ends of the horizontal ones all in one direction; being inviting with low fences where the stakes do not stick out on the top or being restrictive, with high fences and stakes sticking out long on the top. Using different thickness... and so much more...
I am having a lot of secular rituals like Jishin's glasses (!), too.
Some are merging with the spiritual ones.
I am starting my mornings with some spiritual practice rituals, walking through the garden, entering my little Zendo, chanting, bowing, sitting nearly every morning in the free sitting room with the usual suspects (the 'Euro morning crew' :-)).
After that, I silently return through the garden and on 5 of 7 days a week, I put on my running clothes and start for a silent run for about 1.5 to 3 hours through the forrest, fields, along the river... through nature. Finding an continuation of the former, inspiration for the things I make and for life in general.
A kind of very fast Kinhin and experiencing nature, me being a part of it with all the seasons, weather and livings just NOW...
Step by step by step by step by step by step....
This is from today:
running.jpg
sun3.jpg
sun2.jpg
sun1.jpg
path1.jpg
Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.Comment
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hello all,
Kotei, thank you for the post. Fascinating about the gardens. When we were in Kyoto visiting Buddhist temples they all came with their own version of the 'zen' garden, always stressing serenity, view taking in the distant mountains, water in some capacity and really a indescribable spareness with lots going on! All very unique and creative and settling.
And your images (wow an amanita muscaria!), so dreamy and painterly really. A landscape that is soft and lush. I live in a desert, so seeing your images makes me remember that there are soft edges on things in many parts of the world.
I love ritual. It probably stems from my early years growing up in the Catholic Church. The Latin, incense, bells, satin robes, chants, bee's wax candles etc (covering all senses). So even now, I am taken with ceremony. I think that's been my attraction to Zen Buddhism. I still use aspects of those early ritual impressions in my artwork.
So a few years ago I produced The Rakusu Project (the video has been posted on TL a couple of times but if you are interested you can find the link to the video and information and images on my website http://annecooperstudio.com/rakusu%20project.html ). The video is from our first performance, the subsequent performances were tighter but unfortunately not taped. I made costumes for us all. And a couple of years ago I discovered another woman's interpretation of Buddhist garments in her Kesa Project https://www.betsysterlingbenjamin.com/html/kesa.htm .
Meitou, I love your Enso video. I missed it when you posted it previously. Thanks for posting it again. Your confidence with a brush shows through; which we could see in your posts on filling your drawing tablets. Really amazing to me.
bows
Anne
~lahst~Comment
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Hello art people,
As promised I am posting images of two THREE RED BOWL pieces that I've just finished. Clay was my thing many years ago, but returning to this medium has had its issues. Not really finding my way quite yet, but wanted to post anyway. In the 90's I started this series inspired by the Oryoki ceremony. IN those years the nonfunctional bowls were clay as well covered in wax and pigment but also some bowls were made of bees wax, even turned steel and I made wooden boxes to house them. I have slides but my slide scanner is not working so for now I can't post any of those early pieces. Nor do I have any left to photograph.
These imaged boxes and the bowls are all made from a high fire red clay, rubbed with bee's wax and pigment. The red circles are lids for the 3 bowls in that box. Still resolving some issues with the piece. But just an example how ritual/ ceremony plays out through my art.
three red bowls 0 adj.jpgthree red bowls detail adj.jpgthree red bowls 1 adj.jpgthree red bowls 1 detail adj.jpgthree red bowls 1 detail adj.jpg
Keep having fun with your own creative energy, hardly anything as satisfying! We are a creative species.
Gassho
Anne
~lahst~Last edited by Cooperix; 10-27-2019, 01:06 AM.Comment
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Kotei thank you for your wonderful post full of lovely information about zen gardens, you are really inspiring me to get into this further. Yes I was thinking about the dry gardens - there is a name for them I think - karensansui? I'm also interested in tsuboniwa - the courtyard gardens - I am aspiring to one of these with my little yard. I'm always interested in being creative within strict and defined boundaries, I love the challenge. I also really enjoyed reading about your rituals around walking and running - the photos are beautiful. I realised that taking photos of the sea when I leave the house to walk or pop to the shop is a proper ritual for me too.
Anne I love ritual too. I also love churches and religious buildings of any kind, religious statuary, icons, rosaries, the lot! It's interesting to me that before I started to identify with Buddhism, I felt very uncomfortable attending obligatory church events here - family weddings, christenings and funerals etc, but now I'm more than comfortable with them - I can really identify because of my own faith -having faith in something much bigger than ourselves can provide common ground, connect us, just as our communal belief in creativity is connecting us here.
Your Red Bowls are fabulous Anne, I love the form of the boxes with the beautiful motif on the lid echoing the lids of the bowls beneath, such clean lines and subtlety in the pigment. I think that so many of the processes around creativity are imbued with ritual and performance, vital to the creative journey and end result.
In January I began lighting a candle every evening in memory of our cat Lula who left this life at that time. It has become a ritual and that, along with my attempts not to throw things away unnecessarily, led me to saving all the candle ends and grouping them together in a bowl. I wasn't quite prepared for the towering inferno that followed, but I did at least manage to take a photo before things got out of hand!
candle ends.jpg
Again, this prompt is bringing up some great discussions and also ideas for further projects..
Thank you everyone
Gassho
Meitou
sattodaylah命 Mei - life
島 Tou - islandComment
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Thank you for your kind words, Anne and Meitou.
Anne,
it's hard to imagine a desert with this humid autumn air around.
It takes only around an hour in the forest, collecting enough edible mushrooms (of course not the red ones :-) for a good meal for several people.
I have friends in Jordan, who often talk about the harsh beauty of the desert... Always a challenge to imagine.
I like the ritual aspect of your work.
The bowls and box are wonderful, too and I am feeling a strong urge to smell and touch them.
Keeping bees, I have an own support of beeswax, producing candles and enjoying the scent. The candle, I am lighting in the mornings, is of that source, too...
Meitou,
yes, Karesansui, dry(ed) landscape.. or Kasansui, artificial? landscape or Furusansui, old landscape or Arasensui, dry pond.
Your horizon photos are very touching... The thought about the endless free sky and endless free ocean and the small, narrow gap in-between, where all our life happens... Feeling the unlimited potential and how I am limiting myself. Not a bad feeling... Just some kind of bittersweet melancholic thing. :-).
There is so much written about the symbolic dimension of zen gardens and quite some professionals think this was all made up later ;-).
The stone setting in the famous Ryoanji 'Zen'-garden was said to copy a star constellation, a Chinese character, steering the view in a certain direction, or being completely random. Maybe an intuitive version of what these guys wrote is closer to reality: http://www.kasrl.org/vsjzg.pdf
Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.Comment
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Regarding the pics above:
My rituals are not religious in nature but I like symbolism.
I wake up in the AM and one of the first things I see is my big Buddha belly tattoo on my belly.
When I get to the office I feed my fish. One tank in the entrance and one in my office. Both have Buddhas in them.
I bring my dog to work and she has her own little room that I sometimes use for patients but otherwise is hers. She sits Zazen with her Buddha buddy in there.
In my office I have lots of little statues, some pictured.
Just my day to day scenery.
Does a dog and a fish have Buddha nature? No! (does not apply).
Dogs and fish are Buddha nature.
Gassho, Jishin, STComment
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Here is another one of my lazy dog in her room.
[emoji3]
Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__Comment
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Jishin, you inspired me to post one of the items on my meditation table.
bear.jpg
I have a bear phobia. And we have a small cabin high in the mountains of northern NM. We have bears around so this bear is there to remind me of their wild beauty and important place in our world. This bear fetish is about 1.5" x 3", made by Zuni Pueblo Indians carved out of a piece of granite with 2 pieces of raw turquoise (NM state mineral). A gift to me many years ago. Because of my phobia I have been given several bear fetishes but this one is my favorite. She sits next to Kuan Yin on my altar.
Kotei, The high desert (we are a mile high) in NM is beautiful, rich and lush in its own way. But also can be harsh and forbidding. Our state has the southern end of the Rockies intersecting it north to south. Those mountains pull in the rain and can be lush and moist. In summers when the monsoons are full throat-ed mushrooms abound. We collect chanterelles, porcini (boletas) and enjoy the beauty of even the poisonous amanitas. I envy your being able to gather dinner in a few minutes. The summers, falls we have mushrooms are very special because it is not every year.
bows to all creatures and mushrooms!
Anne
~lahst~Comment
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