Shin'ichi Hisamatsu Hôseki Art piece of art in Zen Buddhism In the culture of the Far East, China, Korea and Japan, he dominated a spirit of unity, pervasive, di carattere peculiare, sconosciuto in Occidente. Questo spirito, che germogliò in Cina già all’inizio del VI secolo d.C., si radicò alla fine del VII sec., fiorì lentamente e decadde all’inizio del XV sec. Durante questo periodo di quasi mille anni, che corrisponde al medioevo occidentale, lo spirito di questa cultura fu trapiantato in Corea e in Giappone. Particolarmente in Giappone, dove fu introdotto nel XIII sec., fiorì in pieno tra il XV e il XVII sec., per poi decadere. Tuttavia, non solo la sua inestimabile eredità è rimasta riccamente custodita fino ad oggi, ma le sue salde radici sono oggi sempre ancora vive.
In generale, questo spirito è poco conosciuto in Occidente. Non è ancora become a topic of scientific research. But for men in the Far East, permeated by this spirit and its tradition, and in particular that we Japanese have inherited and preserved its rich treasure, is an essential task, and even a need to introduce the historical western world true spirit of this legacy, and not only to a narrow circle of experts, but also to the wider public. In doing so, as I hope, you can render a service to the future world.
What is the spirit of this culture? What characteristics has the culture that has permeated? This is the spirit of Zen Buddhism or, more briefly, Zen, and culture in tune to it as it is the Zen culture, if one may use the term 'culture' in this context. The reason it is designated as the Zen culture can be recognized by seven essential features, which serve as a character of this culture and that all are based solely on the spirit of Zen. In other words, what is expressed in this culture, that is, the original structure of this culture, can not be sought elsewhere than in Zen. This enters the Zen spirit in almost all spheres of human life, eg in the field of religion, philosophy, ethics and etiquette, it also has an influence on other arts, like poetry, painting, calligraphy, the 'architecture, The garden art, applied art, and so on. So all these areas are imbued with common essential features that can be summarized in the following seven points:
1) bumps (or asymmetry),
2) sobriety,
3) austere dignity,
4) naturalness,
5) impenetrable depths and finesse,
6) freedom demondanizzata,
7) rest.
1) roughness, or asymmetry (fukinsei)
The 'bumps' appears only where art no longer remains enmeshed in the regular, symmetrical for the perfection and accuracy, but these characters beyond the normal range. This 'rough' is a peculiar beauty of the broken, the thinned and the disappeared. The beauty rests in a typical essential feature of Zen, which may be felt in the expressions "Nothing is holy" or "The law is no law" or "worldly desires fell without a trace and at the same time, the concept of holiness is totally devoid of meaning. "
2) Sobriety (Kanso)
The 'moderation' is in the negative, not in the verbiage and, positively, in simplicity. It is a beauty very strong, spontaneous and simple, not to search in the complex and detailed. The origin of such beauty is hidden in what Zen means by the expressions "Large", "extreme poverty", "There is no reality," "The One."
3) Austere dignity (koko)
The 'austere dignity', whose features are 'placed', 'old', 'dry', 'covered with patina', is where all the unnecessary and was not bitter no regard at all put off and passed through long-standing experience, and where only the core, ie the particular essence is manifested completely bare. This is a strong beauty, inaccessible, severe as it is sometimes that of a pine tree that has stood for many years the wind and snow, and so was able to overcome its youth immaturity and weakness. Its leaves are firm, its branches and sharp its trunk is often carved. From these cavities about an inviolable dignity. This beauty grave, never to be found in what is new and young, comes from the peculiarities of Zen, which may be indicated by the expressions "stripped of all the skin" or "a strict proof."
4) Naturalness (Shizen)
The 'natural', or, not, 'not affected', the 'unforced', is the character of 'having-it-like-it-is'. Here the term 'natural' does not mean 'natural', 'naive' or 'instinctual'. This is naturally contained in the creative art, but it is not artificial. A saying of the art of tea reads: "Only the tone of the patina that comes from the thing itself, by themselves, is good, the patina produced artificially, however, is bad." If the austere dignity or freedom demondanizzata are fabricated, they lose their beauty and become something unbearably repugnant. Instead, the rest naturally candid in what in Zen is referred to as 'heartless' or 'carefree'. These expressions do not mean at all the lack of heart or mind, but a kind of 'pure dedication to the thing itself '.
5) Impenetrability (Yugen)
The impenetrable depth and subtlety that is kept secret, which is hidden in the infinite, and not acute sense of fullness and mood. This inner wealth can in no way exhausted expression. Here dominates impenetrable darkness of deep, quiet and neglect. The origin of this character is what Zen means this: "Where there is absolutely nothing, is something inexhaustible variety of things hidden," or simply "no bottom", "impenetrable."
6) Demondanizzazione (datsuzoku)
The 'freedom demondanizzata' indicates an ease that imposes no limits, that does not let things affect the real world, but even by the Buddha himself. All that remains closed even in the same ease. This ease corresponds to a character of Zen called "act like the game" or "not-being-prevented the original self-being."
7) Quiet (seijaku)
The rest or, in other words, the calm relaxing effect not only in moments of calm, but more than ever in those rough and noisy. A Zen saying reads: "With the cry of the bird, the mountain is even more quiet." The deep quiet of a mountain is not disturbed by the call of the bird, but is even more quiet and deep. Such a peace is nothing but what in Zen is named as follows: "In speaking or silent, in motion or in stillness, the essence remains calm in the deep stillness."
We gave a quick glance at the seven essentials of Zen culture and art in particular relating to it. But these basic features do not exist isolated every man for himself, are perfectly fused and form a unified whole. In each of these seven traits are contained unit the other. Sure, it's possible that - depending on the situation of the moment - a particular trait on others and off-the others pass in the background. But in the that these seven sections form at any time a whole is the essential character of the work of Zen art, so that, for example, can be distinguished from the usual or the mere natural disharmony. So, what is accomplished in a work of art, determined by the essential features mentioned above, or - if you can say so - the original subject of this art, is the Zen itself.
What is this Zen? Although here we have to give a detailed explanation, based on experience and tradition of Zen, we can provisionally determine the essence of Zen in the following way: the essence of Zen is neither faith in the divine and nella santità, nella loro trascendenza contrapposti all’uomo, né nella cosiddetta ‘istituzione filosofica’, né nella ‘unio mystica’ in cui l’esser uno dell’uomo si realizza con Dio. L’essenza dello Zen consiste unicamente nel fatto che l’uomo si risveglia al suo originario, vero Sé. Attraverso questo risveglio si realizza il suo Sé originario. Il vero Sé è l’Informe (das Formlose) - sia riguardo al corpo che allo spirito. Poiché questo Sé è informe, esso non è legato a nessuna forma, ma può assumere tutte le forme. A proposito dell’esperienza Zen, disse una volta il maestro Zen giapponese Dôgen: "Il distacco (die Abgeschiedenheit) of body and spirit, this is the break (der Durchbruch) in Zen. "A Chinese Zen master, Obaku said the same thing with these words:" Body and Soul, this is not either. " A great master of Chinese name Rinzai said, "The real heart is formless way. So pervades the entire cosmos. "All these words hint at self-formless-and-no-way, where man can come only after turning away from spiritual and bodily forms. The real heart, as Rinzai says, is not considered the heart and their differences from the body, but nothing but the self-formless-and-no-way. The road leading from great doubt of Zen in which our habitual self-formal is thrown, the Great Awakening to the Self-formless. The so-called 'Satori', the decisive Zen experience, it is not absolutely know about some object, but an awakening to the formless and no-so in our self. Zen begins with doubt. This means that Zen puts everything into question, and even Buddha. In this extraordinary
doubt stiffened almost like an iron ball, and the great awakening that is the explosion, the Zen has an essential affinity with the philosophy, unlike the common religions. On the other hand, that this doubt and its resolution, that is, the Awakening, definitely not moving in the dimension of the intellect representative but always requires the whole man can not be represented in its originality, is its religious character, in contrast to the traditional philosophy.
'Buddha', the term 'Buddhism', means 'awakening', but in Zen it is nothing but the self-formless-and-no-way. The Zen doctrine not only Shakya, who lived in India 2,500 years ago, but every human being 'awakened' is Buddha. As the Buddha Shakya is to be exclusively in its wake. The true Buddha is not in a given time and at a certain place, but ever forward. So every time it can be realized in time and space, but without linking.
Nello Zen questo Sé originario viene spesso designato come ‘Niente’. Questo ‘Niente’, però, non significa affatto la mera negazione o il ‘non essere’, ma indica solo che nel nostro originario Sé non c’è forma né modo. Il nostro abituale Sé resta quasi sempre imprigionato in opposizioni e contraddizioni senza fine tra affermazione e negazione, tra essere e non essere. Solo se ci liberiamo da queste contraddizioni, il Sé-senza-forma-e-senza-modo giunge in noi al risveglio.
In breve, il ‘Niente’ nello Zen non è altro che il Senza-forma-e-senza-modo che noi originariamente siamo. Sebbene di solito ci allontaniamo da questo Sé, esso, che noi stessi siamo, è sempre desto. In tale veglia non ha luogo alcuna differenza tra ‘noesis’ e ‘noema’. Perciò essa non è affatto la coscienza, la cui condizione fondamentale è costituita dall’intenzionalità della noesis al noema. È una veglia che si situa sul fondo della coscienza e nella quale la coscienza e il suo oggetto (das Bewußte) fanno tutt’uno. E questo tutt’uno è senza forma e senza modo. Solo dove il Senza-forma-e-senza-modo si realizza nel nostro Sé a partire dal formale come occasione, viene creata l’opera d’arte Zen. È perciò senz’altro evidente che non c’è affatto un’arte Zen laddove non si compia il risveglio Self-formless-and-so. At a time when Zen in China came to a stage of over-ripening, ie the period between the end of the T'ang dynasty (618-907) and Sung Dynasty (960-1279), became the artistic expression of Zen very diverse, rich and refined. In this era were produced excellent works of art of great style.
Because Zen is a branch of Buddhism, one might think that the art of Zen - that is the Zen painting - is a part of Buddhist art, but painting is very different from the Zen Buddhist painting in the traditional context and tone. In general, painting Buddhist themes are chosen as the Buddha and anecdotes about his life. In Zen painting, however, as issues are represented in a special way the men who work in the world - for example the man or his disciples Shakya or Zen masters - Buddha, rather than the sublime, superhuman saints and the afterlife. Even in the landscape are represented not the supersensible world, mythological, like heaven or the Pure Land of bliss, but our real world and its affairs, such as mountains and rivers, flowers and birds, monkeys, cattle, fruit, and so on. The reason is that in Zen the awakened is already a Buddha and Zen Buddha gives no room for superhuman afterlife. So it is understandable that in Zen painting, instead della trascendente, santa essenza-Buddha e di ogni mitologico mondo dell’aldilà, sono rappresentati gli uomini reali, non santi, ma permeati dal Risveglio. Il dipinto del pittore cinese Liang K’ai Shakyamuni che scende dalla montagna ne è un eccellente esempio. Lo stesso vale anche per gli illustratori della vita del Buddha. Questo significa: mentre gli aneddoti sulla vita di Shakyamuni-Buddha, quali si riscontrano negli scritti sacri buddhisti, fissano sempre il carattere trascendente e mitologico, l’accadere della vita dei maestri Zen, ossia la loro varia esperienza, si presenta ogni volta in modo del tutto indeterminato, nell’occasione da ogni sorta di eventi e cose del mondo reale. Il Risveglio, quindi, accade ogni volta in a completely unexpected. Everything, in fact, may be the opportunity of awakening: to speak or be silent, a movement of any body or contact with things. The type and number of such opportunities are immense and unpredictable awakening. The famous painting of the painter of persimmon fruits Zen Mu-chi is just a small, simple operation, a sort of still life, which is six khaki. But in the light of Zen, this is an excellent image of sobriety of the Buddha, most of those considered sublime. Views on Hsiao-Hsing, Yu-chien of Monaco Zen Buddhism are incomparably the most solemn, magnificent images of Buddha's Pure Land.
The reason for this superiority images of Zen is that they, in sharp contrast with the usual Buddhist images, do not consider the most desirable form the Buddha and the world made it, but lead to the expression the real Buddha, prior to any shape and free from all forms , ie the self-formless-and-no-way. In an effort to make this former self-formless-and-no-way is the special character of the works of Zen art. The fact that these landscapes and still lifes impressionino us in a unique way and stimulate our particular interest, as does not happen anywhere else, does not depend on a casual curiosity or our interest in merely odd, but the fact that this self-formless -e-no-way, which remains deeply hidden in the depths of the human heart, is in those pictures. The fact that the self-formless-and-without-mode can be expressed in a work of art is possible only where this has come to self-enlightenment or at least where it has aroused keen interest among men.
The age of the T'ang dynasty, the Sung dynasty was very suitable for that por-is-in art-works of Zen. If the atmosphere was lost in the era of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Ch'ing (1644-1911), however, could be sent to Japan in the meantime.
regard to all these works of art, nor is a formal thing and has a self formal nor a formless Self aspires to paint a formal or a formal thing a self-formless, but here the self-formless-and-no-way, from time to time corresponding to the occasion, made work of art has come to expression. This is not the way an object can be described in an effective or realistic, but in how freely and originally self-without-form, starting from the opportunity of things, the work is being done. Any object can be represented in these works of art, the formless Self, there must be expressed in an authentic way. In conclusion, here is what he paints in the paint become that what is depicted, namely painting. Is that a painting is never before the man as an object, but the Self through what he paints is painted is expressed in the painting. In this sense, Zen painting belongs neither to realism or impressionism, but rather an expression of peculiar impression. In contrast, however, the expressionism of the usual expression of Zen painting is not the fact of expressing something formal, but in the por-si-in-opera-with its own independent work of the formless Self. From the things said here the various and unique essential features of Zen are now fully understood.
In Zen has made the radical liberation from the established Buddhist teachings as dogma. This is also a liberation from the Buddha enshrined as a transcendence, as well as the mythological Pure Land of Buddha. With this, the language of free self-formless-and-no-way, living every time, has become a living doctrine that takes place in any situation. The man woke up it becomes a living Buddha in this world and the place in which this self is being done, it becomes a real Land of the Buddha.
With this, the frame of the Buddhist painting is broken and a new, freer scope is opened. This change is manifest in all the typical themes that were chosen by Zen painters mentioned above, as Liang K'ai-, Mu-chi and Yu-chien. Although they were still represented the usual objects of traditional Buddhist painting, as Shakya, his disciples, Kuan-Yin (Kannon giapp.) etc.. They are no longer treated as sacred, the afterlife, but as humans, of the here .
not only themes but also for ways of drawing with a brush is the same change. It was created a way of drawing the appropriate brush 'por-you-in-work' of Zen. In other streams of Buddhism, described as 'seven of the doctrine', the Buddhist truth was founded in the finest details in a very meticulous, almost academic; the essential characteristic of Zen is to the contrary, that truth itself must be seized at once and the truth should be left well educated arise in operating in a breath, in a very immediate and bold. Zen does not move in a discursive, but jumps, not from a multiplicity variety to another or from a difference to another difference, but from the multiplicity to the One, the difference is not the difference. In short, the way of Zen has always led from the complicated to the simple, from formal to formless. Therefore, the por-is-in-opera Zen painting is to be made so that the One and the Formless are put to work at once, in a single stroke, that is faster, senza ostacoli, liberamente e repentinamente come un lampo. Perciò la molteplicità e il formale descritti non sono presenti per una qualche propria volontà, ma ci sono per lasciar apparire l’Uno e il formale secondo lo stato d’animo. Di qui viene determinata anche l’arte del pennello. Nel modo consueto della pittura tradizionale vengono disegnate una dopo l’altra le parti dell’immagine con il pennello con precisione e accuratezza, e in tale accumulo discorsivo di parti risulta alla fine l’immagine. Nella pittura Zen, al contrario, viene dapprima disegnato in un respiro un tutto in sé unitario, da cui e in cui sgorgano le molteplici parti. Qui non è posto innanzitutto il formale e il molteplice come soggetto painting, and the One who comes to the Formless, but dominates the One and the Formless as the original por-is-in-opera of the subject that occurs in multiple and in form. This way of drawing or painting with a brush fully corresponds to the character of flash of enlightenment in Zen. The sudden awakening is not the fact that we come and the One Formless, but on the contrary happens that the One Formless and through us is being done as the original subject. One word of china painting reads: "In painting china five colors (tutti!) are contained in all black of china." That are hidden in one color the other is the essential similarity of the art con lo Zen. Tra le varie interpretazioni della pittura a china il cosiddetto ‘Haboku’, cioè ‘far rompere il tratto di pennello’ e il ‘Hatsuboku’, cioè ‘spargere a spruzzo l’inchiostro diluito’, sono particolarmente corrispondenti all’essenza dello Zen. In tal modo l’intero viene in un respiro velocemente dipinto e l’infinita ricchezza delle molteplici parti è contenuta nascosta in questo intero rotto e spruzzato. Lo stesso accade anche per la linea disegnata o dipinta. Ad una sola violenta e grossa linea, nella quale sono nascoste innumerevoli linee, viene data la preferenza rispetto a quelle sottili e fini. Anche per la forma accade che la forma spezzata e deformata è much more appropriate for the whole of Zen painting and regular. The interpretations 'Haboku' and 'Hatsuboku' must have got the start in the eighth century. with the Chinese poet Wang Wei, and in the ninth century. with the painter Wang-Mo. Both interpretations, because of their correspondence to secure essential nature of Zen, during the post became the typical interpretations of china painting influenced by Zen. Through this radical transformation, both in theme and composition, painting Zen has come to real flowers, in stark contrast to the traditional Orthodox painting.
(Italian translation by GC Bong)
