Future of Dharma Arts in the West

 

Future of Dharma Arts in the West

Some time ago I was talking with my friend Gyempo who has custom painted some works for me. He lives in Bhutan. I had been messaging with Gyempo's brother Tashi who is a master woodworker who makes thrones and other decorative ornaments such as those in tb temples and monasteries. I couldn't reach Tashi so I asked Gyempo if his brother might be able to make me a big Mahakala mask. He seemed to chuckle to my question and replied that his brother is a woodworker, not a mask maker. How foolish of me to ask a woodworker to make a mask!

Asian dharma culture is abound with art. There is dance, music, woodwork, metal work, sculpting, painting, calligraphy, writing, poetry and probably other forms too. Dharma in the West is a completely new thing but it is somewhat established, and yet there is basically no training whatsoever available in any or most of these artforms. This is very much reflected with how places in the West look. They have way less expression. In fact, I could say that they look dull. Hmm, I wonder if this contributes to the fact that western buddhist groups feel kind of lifeless.

"Visiting Western buddhist centers felt like

I was back sitting in church. They were so puritanistic."

-Lama Vajranatha John Reynolds

I just wanted to bring this up just to bring your attention to this matter. I've spent my adult life, since 2003, studying buddhist calligraphy and painting (see links below) and I'm a keen collector of high quality dharma art that I buy from Asia.

-Kim, 19.12.2021

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/257852984267435

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd7IXus0RZo&list=PLqTm9fV9DGhtAIMEzWHA8a6ibMExrfeGI

Visceral Study of Spiritual Martial Arts

 

Visceral Study of Spiritual Martial Arts

I'd like to share something about hitsuzendo - the way of the zen brush - body movement and Yamaoka Tesshu Sensei's calligraphy. If you take this as a practice, it might change the course of your bodily (martial or healing) practice. My zen calligraphy and zen master Terayama Tanchu Sensei's main practice close to the end of his life was kusho (空書, lit. empty writing) - writing in the air with one's hands and body. He would hang up a calligraphy or painting on his wall, study the movement of the brush and then trace it in the air with his hands and body movement. The idea is not to study Chinese language but to study the bodily movement of the past masters to better understand how they moved which in turn reveals something really interesting of their state of mind, or realisation. The basic idea of kusho is very simple. You could for example write your own name or some piece of text in plain block letters or cursive handwriting to try it out. The idea is to use one's whole body while applying different kinds of intensity of intent (c. yi/j. i, 意) into the writing. What I mean by different kinds of intensity is that we could use our hand to write very lightly in the air, like writing with a finger on the surface of water (without making the water splash) or we could imagine tracing our finger one inch inside mud. With mud we would have to use more intention or concentration to get the thing written. Our writing could also be a combination of both light and heavy, combined with slow and fast. From here to enter the realm of "zen" we would have to be able to recognise the most basic state of mind or basic awareness, commonly called buddhanature (佛性) in mahayana buddhist schools.

In the case of a professional zenman this buddhanature should be present at all times and one's writing, whether in the air or on paper, becomes a play of intent, where intent isn't based on mindfulness (念) but on effortless basic awareness. Because of this fundamental difference in the degree of realisation (見性), the meaning and result of intent is not the same but becomes non-intent (無意) because mindfulness does not appear and disappear. This very point separates "zen calligraphy" or zen art from ordinary art. Anyway, the point of kusho is to write in the air or to trace the movements of masters' works with one's body. I am sharing here one of Yamaoka Tesshu Sensei's calligraphies. The large characters on the left read Namu Amida Butsu, which venerates Amitabha Buddha. The small characters on the right are a part from some sutra or poem. I don't know what it says but it's not important either for our purposes.

Tesshu is one of the most respected spiritual martial artists of all times in Japan. He died in 1888 so he is quite recent and this is why there are many of his works available. Tesshu was a martial artist of the highest kind who held several lineages of kenjutsu and kendo and started his own Muto/No-Sword school. To understand Tesshu's uniqueness, we need to know the order of the strokes in calligraphis characters. Generally, calligraphes are written in vertical lines from right to left. The strokes in characters are written from up to down, left to right, from outside to inside. The piece below is wrotten in cursive or "grass" script and doesn't look except distantly to what people associate with kanji, Chinese characters. Anyway, with these few instructions you can understand that you begin from the top right corner and how each character is formed. It would really be important to get the order right to get the point that I'm trying to make. When you do know the right order, then trace through the whole piece. Do it several times. Get the angles right. That is very important... because it shows exactly how Tesshu, the legendary spiritual martial artist, moved...

Now, I have analysed thousands of calligraphies but among all of them Tesshu is unique. No one out there moved like he did. People move like block letters but not Tesshu... It must have puzzled the heck out of his students and opponents who came to challenge him! If you study how he moved, you will see that because of his exceptional free flowing shapes, you can't predict his movements and that is the treasure to be found from Tesshu's works. Copying him opens up a whole different realm of bodymind movement that I have not seen elsewhere in my 35 years of study of the field.

-Kim Orgyen Pema Rinpoche Katami 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158901778078136&set=g.257852984267435&type=1&theater&ifg=1