Hi Donny and LS:
The NY Times article "The Artless Art of Painting" was terrific.
Donny wrote:
> Japanese Zen masters who are also caligripher-painters. And I wanted to
> quote the 1st 2 paragraphs for you -- which I liked a lot:
>
> ____________
> Remember "Zen and the art of Archery"? At the peak moment of this
> perennially popular book by the German philosopher Eugen Herrigel, the Zen
> archer hits the bull's eye although he shoots the arrow in total darkness.
> "Melodramatic" is how the composer John Cage assassed this story, and he
> offered another. A Japanese friend, he said, told him of a highly esteemed
> archer who had never hit the bull's eye even in broad daylight.
> West subtily meets East in these two anecdotes. In the German
> view, sucess is the goal and the arts are supporting players to the ego's
> yearning for mastery. In Zen, sucess is considered a figment of the ego.
> Ultimatly nothing is gained, so the goal disappeares. There is only the
> moment, which calls the master archer's whole being into play. If you are
> truly one w/ the target, why bother to release the arrow?
> _____________
>
> There is one phrase, often shown in the caligraphy which may
> intrest you: "The Zen master is the world is the dharma."
>
> Also intresting was this: "Knowing the meaning of the characters
> [in the caligraphy] isn't really necessary. Intellectual understanding is
> not important in Zen; it may even get you wacked w/ the kyosaku (the
> training stick)."
Great quotes. But the one that really got to me was, "In Japan, Ms.
Seo says, Zen is not a philosophy but a monastic practice."
Sort of makes me wonder if Lila and ZMM are really Zen-like after all.
Or, maybe instead of talking so much about what the MoQ means, we
could lay down some guidelines on how to see the world from the MoQ
perspective in daily practice.
Incidentally, you can pick up the article on the NYTimes web site
under arts.
Platt
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