Art in Zen: wabi-sabi, kintsugi (video)

S. Fitzgerald, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

Broken cup repaired with gold, sacred scars, beautiful brokenness (thecupandtheroad.com)

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.

The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete." It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the Three Characteristics of Existence (三法印 sanbōin):

1. impermanence (無常 mujō) 
2. disappointment (苦 ku) 
3. emptiness, the absence of a self (空 kū).

The art of kintsugi, the beauty of brokenness, sacred scars (esprit-kintsugi.com)

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Kintsugi, Zen art in Japan (ruicunha.org)

Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.
 

DEFINITION

According to Leonard Koren wabi-sabi can be defined as "the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of traditional Japanese beauty, and it occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the far West."

Whereas Andrew Juniper notes that, "If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi."

For Richard Powell, "Wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."

Relationship building (iamkristenbecker.com)

The words wabi and sabi do not translate easily into English. Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society. Sabi meant "chill," "lean," or "withered."

Around the 14th century these meanings began to change, taking on more positive connotations. Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness, or quietness and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects or understated elegance. More

The Beauty of Brokenness: Kintsugi
 
Kintsugi ("golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi ("golden repair"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.

As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history -- and therefore preciousness -- of an object, rather than something to disguise. More

• Kintsugi: the art of precious scars (lifegate.com) By repairing broken ceramics, it's possible to give new life to pottery that becomes more refined by its “scars.” 
• Kintsugi, The Japanese Art of Mending Broken Ceramics with Gold (artsy.net) The technique known as kintsugi, which means “golden seams,” was developed by lacquer masters... 
• Kintsugi 金継ぎ: The Book of Life (theschooloflife.com)...a gathering of the best ideas around wisdom and emotional intelligence.
• VIDEO: How to Fix Broken Pottery ...into eye-popping decorations that are literally dripping in gold.
• VIDEO: Kintsugi: The Art of Embracing Damage 
• What is kintsugi? (mindful-company.com) 
• Kintsugi Kintsukuroi Art: where to buy
• Kintsugi, centuries-old Japanese method of repair
  

(The School of Life) HISTORY OF IDEAS: At the heart of Japanese philosophy and wisdom lies a concept called wabi-sabi, a term that denotes a commitment to the everyday, the melancholic, the broken, and imperfect. It’s a term we need more of in our lives. theschooloflife.com. Produced in collaboration with Mike Booth (somegreybloke), #TheSchoolOfLife. 

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RIP: Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

PRI's The World (pri.org); Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, dies (AFP)

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Jonathan Davis of Korn famously noted that there are "dead bodies everywhere, dead bodies everywhere." And Chris Barnes of Cannibal Corpse infamously delighted that "They're all dead, they're all dead, they're all dead." Death is all around. We ignore it. Then someone writes a book, and suddenly it's in our face. The lesson? It's better to travel than arrive. Zen says, Be where you are, or as Ram Dass phrased it, "Be here now."
 

HEADLINE: Robert Pirsig, author of the iconic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, dies
AFP via PRI.org

“The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself," Robert Pirsig wrote in his 1974 novel.

Robert Pirsig, author of the iconic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has died at the age of 88, U.S. media is reporting today.

Despite its title, the book published in 1974 to rave reviews and explosive popularity is more a reflection on metaphysics and existential philosophy than a book on how to fix a motorbike.

 

It has sold around five million copies around the world. Pirsig died at his home in Maine on Monday, news reports said.

(BBC) Interview with and about Pirsig on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

 

Over 5 million copies sold, paperback

The book is a first person narrative [a kind of meditation or contemplation rather than the deeper Buddhist sense of absorption (jhana) and insight-practice (vipassana)] that draws on a 17-day motorcycle trip that Pirsig took across the US in 1968 with his 11-year-old son Chris.
 

In the book Pirsig speaks under the name Phaedrus, one of the characters in Plato's Dialogues. He reflects among other things on what should be essential to people as they go about living their lives.

Pirsig's son died in 1979 after being stabbed outside a Zen center that he frequented in San Francisco.

 

Pirsig, a biochemist by training, published in 1991 another novel that was less successful: Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals. Source

Zen Buddhist Pirsig interviewed on NPR, 1974

"What is the road less traveled?" asked American poet Robert Frost. Pirsig answered.

(NPR) Pirsig interview, July 12, 1974 -- the year the book came out. Written by former English teacher while working writing boring computer manuals. It took four years to write, and it was rejected by more than 100 publishers.

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Int'l Permaculture Day/Cinco de Mayo (May 5)

January Nordmann, Wisdom Quarterly; Bill Mollison, PermacultureDay.org

Rose Deveen (left) at the Institute of Urban Ecology, 2013, Zorthian Ranch, Altadena

  

PERMACULTURE (permanent agriculture) is a design system for creating sustainable human environments.

Cinco de Mayo, on the other hand, is a celebration of Mexican origin largely ignored by residents of Mexico but beloved by Americans as if it were our southern neighbor's Fourth of July, which it is not.

 

It is about designing households, home gardens, and communities that are productive, largely self-sustaining, and capable of supporting self-reliant participants (human, flora, and fauna) with a minimal impact on the environment (Live.PermacultureDay.org).

America loves many things Mexican, but mostly the celebrations, drinks, and foods (HP/AP)

 

International Permaculture Day is a celebration featuring a wide range of permaculture events occurring across America, Australia, and the globe. All activities are held on the first Sunday in May unless specified otherwise.

 

All of us would acknowledge our own work as modest, but the totality of such modest work is impressive. Great changes are taking place. Join us to make a better future! Ingenio Patet Campus. The field lies open to the intellect. - Bill Mollison

How to Participate

The theme for International Permaculture Day 2013 is GROW LOCAL! to highlight the value of permaculture design for building local resilience. 

 

Grow Local! refers to food, energy, shelter, fiber, community, economy, and so on. We want to hear from all live on Sunday about growing local. For more about the day and permaculture, see the ABOUT page, the press release, and this article.

How? All that is needed to participate in Grow Local Live! is a computer or smartphone with a good Internet connection and a built-in or plug-in camera and microphone. Enroll live events. Ideas include reporting from an event one is attending or hosting, field reports, on the spot interviews, or anything on the theme. More

Zen Garden School (cartoon)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Zen rock gardening (bizarrocomics.com)

 

What is Zen? 
"Zen" is a way of saying "fully collected attention, fully absorbed mind," a natural state sometimes referred to beginner's mind.

 

Zen is a Buddhist school, Japan's version of the Chinese Ch'an (absorbed concentration) movement.

  

This Buddhist school came from ancient India, where the practice is known as dhyana, in Pali jhana, in Vietnamese thien, and so on. In America, in modern English, it seems to mean "cool, calm effortlessness."

  

What is the Zen in the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? 
It is confounding the Tao, "going with the flow," the way, the yin and yang of cyclical existence -- in Taoism as if it were Buddhism. Taoism so mixed with Buddhism, each influencing each other and mixing like water and milk, that it is not far from some aspects of the Dharma. But they are not actually the same at the core, just as cultural interpretations.

  

What does it mean to "meditate"? 
It means to cultivate something, to develop something, to bring something into being (bhavana). One brings virtue, concentration, and insight into being with balanced effort.

Like a revolving yin and yang circle, one balances effort and ease, strain and laxity, doing and being done. Many swear that when "it" (meditation) happens, they didn't do it. It did itself. It was done to them. It was effortless -- so long as one does not count all the "effort" of making time to sit and persisting in cultivating serenity and single-pointed attention.

 

This is "thoughtless" awareness, for although one is fully aware of one's surroundings and one's object of meditative attention, it is not "thinking about" or evaluating or judging or revolving in one's mind (its literal English definition, which is more appropriate in the preparatory cultivation of insight translated as contemplation).

What are those "Zen Garden" sandboxes about? 
It is part of Japan's artistic tradition turning the mundane and sparse into reflections of art and order.

• Pronouncing strange word (howjsay.com)

California's great Buddhist Garden (audio)

KPCC (scpr.org); Ashley Wells, Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

The Huntington's Japanese garden bridge (Randysonofrobert/Flickr.com)

The bridge a century ago (Ken Brown/HuntingtonBlogs.org); below: Huntington Library and Gardens (insidesocal.com)

THE HUNTINGTON ESTATE (Open to the public) - After a year-long, nearly $7 million renovation, the famed Japanese Garden at the Huntington Library is once again open. This is the centennial anniversary of the Japanese garden, which is one of the most popular areas of the picturesque Huntington property that sits along the border of Pasadena and San Marino.

The seed of the Huntington’s Japanese Garden is a love story. Jim Folsom is like the "bard of the botanical." He is director of the gardens and has there for nearly three decades. He explains how Henry Huntington built the Japanese Garden in part as a courtship offering: "That would be one nice summary of it. And it was so quaint and iconic, so exotic and picturesque," he says.

• Historic Pasadena for the VirtualTourist.com
• Japanese gardens at the Huntington (activerain.com)
  

In the early 1900s, Japanese tea gardens had become quite fashionable and a fascination of the very wealthy. To impress the woman he wanted to marry, railroad magnate Henry Huntington literally pulled an entire Japanese garden from a nearby emporium and transplanted it to his San Marino estate.

The meditation deck, tea house, bridge, and idyllic grounds at the Huntington's Japanese garden (insidesocal.com)

“They built it through a simple expedient," Folsom explains. "There was an import business on the corner of California and Fair Oaks across from where Boston Market is today. It was a tea garden. And it was an emporium to sell Asian antiquities. Mr. Huntington bought the entire business and moved all the ornaments and the plants here."

So the Japanese Garden at the Huntington started blooming in 1912. And one year later, Henry married Arabella Yarrington. To this day, the garden view is like a romantic painting, dotted with ponds and purple wisteria dangling over trellises. There’s the moon bridge nestled in, and it’s all draped with a majestic view of the San Gabriel Mountains. LISTEN + PHOTOS

The Buddhist conception of the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, particularly in Japanese Buddhist iconography, shows barren and desolate scenes of deprivation coexisting with the Human Realm (blog.dwbuk org).

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Buddha nature (Soka Gakkai Int'l in India)

Sakina Yusuf Khan (Times of India, March 24, 2011)

Soka Gakkai is Japanese for "value creation." It is a sect from Japan that is growing in popularity in India and America, especially among the young.

Soka Gakkai International (SGI) was in the news recently when Motilal Banarsidass, publisher of spirituality-related books, conferred the first MLBD Indology Award for Indic research and Oriental wisdom on SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, who resides in Japan.

So much enthusiasm
At the award function in New Delhi, their infectious enthusiasm to reach out was striking: Young SGI volunteers were waiting to eagerly welcome everyone....

Value creation
As the "society for value creation," members try to live the philosophy of "humanism." They follow Nichiren Buddhism. Nichiren Daishonin was a Japanese Buddhist monk who lived in the 13th century. Nichiren asserted that every individual has the power to become enlightened, to overcome life's inevitable challenges, to live a life of value, and to become a positive influence in the community, society, and the world.

Today with 12 million followers worldwide, SGI focuses on developing positive human potentialities for hope, courage, and altruistic action. Its Indian affiliate, the Bharat Soka Gakkai (BSG) has over 50,000 members, mostly in big cities, but the movement is spreading to small towns. More

Rock Gardening vs. Crop Circles (Zen)

The largest rock garden in Japan, Koyasan, is located on Mt. Koya behind Kongobuji temple, built by Osaka Castle creator Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Nimarb/Flickr).

What is the point of arranging rocks? Finding the answer depends on where you look -- the outcome or the process. The outcome is just some nicely arranged rocks. But a process generating serenity and contemplation of the Four Great Elements (maha-bhuta), symbolic of peace, that's priceless.

Too complex to all be hoaxes?

Why do some people trample fields of grain to make crop circles? No doubt some cirlces are hoaxes, and it may have all started as a hoax. But gun-toting farmers are not tolerant of crop damage. It is not surprising that there is something more to it. Zen-curious good aliens (akasha-devas in Buddhist terms) out to send symbolic messages? Sit in awe. Or garden and leave others in awe.

• Crop circle pattern sparks fresh debate
• Hidden meaning of crop circles (Buddha Trance)
• The crop circle messages close up (UFOlogie)

How to make a Zen garden

• How to Make a Zen Garden (on a budget)
• Making a Real Zen Garden (unlimited budget)
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Sutra Rapping? Hip-Hop Monk (video)

TOKYO (Reuters) - He raps. He chants. And this month, Japan's famed hip-hop loving monk, better known as MC Happiness, will tap dance on stage, in the name of Buddhism.

Kansho Tagai heads the 400-year-old Kyoouji Temple in central Tokyo, offering softly chanted prayers throughout the day amid traditional bell chimes and wafts of incense.

But once in a while he raises the volume, and the tempo, of these prayers, going before an audience to rap Buddhist sutras, or teachings, to hip-hop beats in modern Japanese.

"When I listened to rap music for the first time, it was in English so I couldn't understand a word," Tagai told Reuters.

"I realized that the same can be said for Buddhist sutras because most people can't understand a word. And the thing is, listening to rap music makes you feel good even though it may be incomprehensible." More>>

Zen Garden: Buddhist meditation music

Middle Path Reflections

Kashmir Birk

"Give me a man that is not passion's slave and
I will wear him in my heart's core"
Shakespeare Hamlet, Act III: Scene 2

The "middle path" is a Buddhist construct. But middle in the Buddhist context does not mean compromise, concession, conflict-avoidance, or tolerating being average. Middle in the Buddhist tradition means to sit in the core of a problem or situation and to realize it fully, without being affected or infected by it.

The middle path is the ability to walk through the battlefield surrounded by noise, confusion, and destruction confronting our reality by remaining emotionally still and intellectually neutral. Being still does not mean to do nothing, and neutral is not the same as being neutered, only to remove attachment to self, the obstruction of needing to justify oneself or seek approval from ourselves or anyone else for that matter.

Taking the middle path means sitting with our current reality in the here and now. Not to be caught in a past we can never fully know or a future that is yet to be. The middle path is clear when we free ourselves of attachment and still see ourselves in our own drama.

Japanese rock gardening: simplicity and emptiness and time for reflection

The middle path is our "true north." The truth emerges out of our own mind and body, because there is a practical wisdom that sits quietly underneath our chattering mind, bound by the chain of memory and cursed by the habit of neediness.

The measure of a leader, it is said, is his or her ability to act freely and do what should be done even if people expect it, the more if they do not. They act without being consumed by what others think is right or wrong, without having to prove to themselves or others that they were right.

Taking the middle path means sitting with the current reality, exploring a situation, seeing an opportunity/problem from multiple, even conflicting, perspectives without angst. It requires us to see multiple points of view without being emotionally, physically, intellectually embroiled in what is seen.

The painter who paints with effortless strokes, the musician who plucks a sonorous note or harmony out of the air, the friend who says only what needs to be said, the lover's glance that says it all, the engineer who sees the simplest path in a mass of complexity, the cricketer who hits the ball in the sweet spot of the bat and snaps it into the perfect corner of the circle -- that is the middle path. It is emergent, it is uncontrolled, it is the sum of all our practice, all our learning, all our non-yearning.

The middle path is simple but it far from easy. The middle path is our inner voice. The middle path is the sacred space where we breathe our breath and where the earth breathes in harmony with us.