Suzuki chooses four things to illustrate Zen's impact on Japanese civilization. The first three are: Sumiye, a rapid improvisational sketch made with ink and brush; Haiku, a short poem, often explosively written as a result of a sudden aesthetic experience or insight; and Kendo, Japan's art of the sword with it's lightning swift attacks and responses. In all of them there is a certain rapport between the 'unconscious' and the conscious mind with expresses it. Conciseness, rapidity, artlessness, lack of deliberation and smoothly 'catching spirit as it moves' are valued in all of them. "You do not have to compose a grand poem of many hundred lines to give vent to the feeling thus awakened by looking into the abyss," He tells us. Here are no oil paintings with their with wiping and overlaying and realism, neither "deliberately designed plans" nor "grandeur of conception." Here is no "well thought out system of philosophy, each thread of whose logic is closely knitted." Here is no "grand cathedral, whose walls, pillars and foundations are composed of solid blocks of stone."
In each of the arts enumerated the foes to be conquered are
- lingering
- deliberation, thinking, cogitation
- erasing
- repetition
- retouching
- remodeling
- doctoring
- building up
- logic, reason
- reflection
- deliberate design and correction
- delay, interruption
- hesitation, faltering, wavering, being troubled
- too full expression
- self consciousness
I love sumiye, haiku and martial arts. I can glimpse how a zen-like effortlessness would have its utility in these and certain other endeavors. However, I also love cathedrals, epic poems, realistic oil paintings, novels and philosophical structures. As a goal, zen-like states of consciousness seem to not include the fullness of what makes us human. I doubt that Suzuki's own essays here were the result of only lightning strikes
No comments:
Post a Comment