Learning from classical practices to cultivate a deep awareness of the present
Often when people think of Zen, they think of meditation. However, the cultivation of deep awareness of the present is maintained during the moment, when we are taking out the garbage or washing the dishes. As the old saying goes: before enlightenment, chop wood carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood carry water.
What makes a zen art ?
Often when people think of Zen, they think of meditation. However, the cultivation of deep awareness of the present is maintained during the moment, when we are taking out the garbage or washing the dishes. As the old saying goes: before enlightenment, chop wood carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood carry water.
What makes a zen art ?
There are many practices such as yoga, chi kung and many others can involve embodiment of a meditative state while 'chopping wood and carrying water'. Many practises include the practice of cultivating ever deeper awareness of the present moment somewhere in the teaching, but a zen art has this kind of awareness as the very foundation stone that all other practices are built on. The zen art can include disciplines ranging from architecture to butoh dance which emerged as a form of trauma healing after World War II. Here are the seven arts of zen:-
1. Archery
In archery from all over the world, there are generally two schools of thought: draw and release without thought and allow the body and the subconscious to find the target without our conscious mind. The more obvious method is draw, hold, aim and fire - where the contraction and fatigue of our muscles holding in order to aim can arguably interfere with the advantage gained by taking conscious aim.
Kyudo (zen archery) in some ways is all encompassing of this dichotomy. It takes the approach of action without engaging the conscious, active, thinking mind - but when mastered, it can be applied anywhere on the spectrum between slow, careful execution to fast and free flowing.
2. Swordsmanship
The zen saying 'mushin no shin', mind without mind is a fundamental basis of zen arts, but nowhere is it more critical than in budo. One of the keys is in repetition of training so that the subconscious and the nervous system knows what to do before without the time delay required for the conscious mind to kick in and figure out what is happening.
3. Calligraphy
Zen calligraphy is very much about the perfect execution of a movement or a series of movements, completely in an instant, preferably before the conscious mind engages and interferes with elegance and flow. Perhaps the quintessence of zen calligraphy is the Enso - the practice of painting a perfect circle in a single brush stroke.
4. Haiku
Haiku asks the question: how much can one convey and how accurately and effectively can one convey it using only five syllables then seven then five ? It is a form of poetry that provides a rigid container of limitation, designed to be a remainder of how much can be said and done with very little. One of the beautiful lessons of haiku is that limitations and challenges can be stimulating for creativity and that there is a reciprocal relationship between challenge and ingenuity.
5. Tea Ceremony
Like the practice of zen archery, tea ceremony is practised as a slow, deliberate yet calm and flowing ritual. It is an exercise in the grace and flow of the human body, with every moment with exactitude and precision. This points to perhaps the original purpose of ritual itself, a tight set of parameters where one can observe whether they are completely calm, centered, relaxed, focused, balanced and grounded within himself - because of they are not something in the ritual will be out of place. If someone wants to extend their ability to remain in full presence then a ritual such as this can be a powerful training ground.
6. Bonsai
The gift of bonsai is in that it requires patience on a scale that is really hard to grasp without doing it. Anyone can prune a tree in 5 minutes but bonsai is an art that involves contemplating and imagining an artistic design that one may or may not see for many years to come. The challenge is that unlike most sculptures, this medium is alive and growing. It is responding - - in slow motion. A trim here can produce a new shoot there.
For a zen perspective, bonsai brings many lessons, not least of which is the value of not working to make things happen faster than they need to as it becomes a daily remainder that not all of nature moves by the same cycles of time that we do.
7. Flower arrangement
Ikebada or kado, the way of flowers is a zen art that is highly disciplined like the tea ceremony and in some ways like calligraphy with a focus on clean elegant lined. As one would expect with a practice designed to cultivate deeper awareness of the present, it is perhaps more about the flow and execution of the arrangement than the outcome of the design itself. It is both a creative art and a practice of silence contemplation rooted in the placement of flowers on buddhist shrines for deceased ancestors.
Hey fam. Hope you are all having a great time with yourselves. Today at the end of this book, I bring you an item for your brain exercise. Check it out, go and click on the link and make a purchase. (The best price for this item that I found). Here's the link:
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0848HKM1K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=3638&creative=24630&creativeASIN=B0848HKM1K&linkCode=as2&tag=mayankamazon1-21&linkId=d1cc92cb25bc570fe7ee9caba20f3376
1. Archery
In archery from all over the world, there are generally two schools of thought: draw and release without thought and allow the body and the subconscious to find the target without our conscious mind. The more obvious method is draw, hold, aim and fire - where the contraction and fatigue of our muscles holding in order to aim can arguably interfere with the advantage gained by taking conscious aim.
Kyudo (zen archery) in some ways is all encompassing of this dichotomy. It takes the approach of action without engaging the conscious, active, thinking mind - but when mastered, it can be applied anywhere on the spectrum between slow, careful execution to fast and free flowing.
2. Swordsmanship
The zen saying 'mushin no shin', mind without mind is a fundamental basis of zen arts, but nowhere is it more critical than in budo. One of the keys is in repetition of training so that the subconscious and the nervous system knows what to do before without the time delay required for the conscious mind to kick in and figure out what is happening.
3. Calligraphy
Zen calligraphy is very much about the perfect execution of a movement or a series of movements, completely in an instant, preferably before the conscious mind engages and interferes with elegance and flow. Perhaps the quintessence of zen calligraphy is the Enso - the practice of painting a perfect circle in a single brush stroke.
4. Haiku
Haiku asks the question: how much can one convey and how accurately and effectively can one convey it using only five syllables then seven then five ? It is a form of poetry that provides a rigid container of limitation, designed to be a remainder of how much can be said and done with very little. One of the beautiful lessons of haiku is that limitations and challenges can be stimulating for creativity and that there is a reciprocal relationship between challenge and ingenuity.
5. Tea Ceremony
Like the practice of zen archery, tea ceremony is practised as a slow, deliberate yet calm and flowing ritual. It is an exercise in the grace and flow of the human body, with every moment with exactitude and precision. This points to perhaps the original purpose of ritual itself, a tight set of parameters where one can observe whether they are completely calm, centered, relaxed, focused, balanced and grounded within himself - because of they are not something in the ritual will be out of place. If someone wants to extend their ability to remain in full presence then a ritual such as this can be a powerful training ground.
6. Bonsai
The gift of bonsai is in that it requires patience on a scale that is really hard to grasp without doing it. Anyone can prune a tree in 5 minutes but bonsai is an art that involves contemplating and imagining an artistic design that one may or may not see for many years to come. The challenge is that unlike most sculptures, this medium is alive and growing. It is responding - - in slow motion. A trim here can produce a new shoot there.
For a zen perspective, bonsai brings many lessons, not least of which is the value of not working to make things happen faster than they need to as it becomes a daily remainder that not all of nature moves by the same cycles of time that we do.
7. Flower arrangement
Ikebada or kado, the way of flowers is a zen art that is highly disciplined like the tea ceremony and in some ways like calligraphy with a focus on clean elegant lined. As one would expect with a practice designed to cultivate deeper awareness of the present, it is perhaps more about the flow and execution of the arrangement than the outcome of the design itself. It is both a creative art and a practice of silence contemplation rooted in the placement of flowers on buddhist shrines for deceased ancestors.
Hey fam. Hope you are all having a great time with yourselves. Today at the end of this book, I bring you an item for your brain exercise. Check it out, go and click on the link and make a purchase. (The best price for this item that I found). Here's the link:
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B0848HKM1K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=3638&creative=24630&creativeASIN=B0848HKM1K&linkCode=as2&tag=mayankamazon1-21&linkId=d1cc92cb25bc570fe7ee9caba20f3376
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