Thread: RE: Elegance
View Single Post
Old 09-08-2012, 01:51 PM   #22
oisin bourke
 
oisin bourke's Avatar
Dojo: Muden Juku, Ireland
Location: Kilkenny
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 359
Ireland
Offline
Re: Elegance

Here are the words of a master of the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute.

I think it resonates with this topic.

"Geido (the Way of Art)

The secret of the way of art is in wabi and sabi. Like seeing all of life in a single stem of a flower, as a player you put all of life's force into the sound of one note, and this transcends life and death. This is true of any Eastern philosophy and art. Sometimes its called kyo or mu. With the tangible you participate in the intangible. With the visible, you go into the invisible. These are deep and high truths, and hard to understand by lay people. Shakuhachi koten honkyoku is an extreme example of this. So when you live in the rarified world of koten honkyoku where nothing is there, that is where you live limitlessly. Like Bashō, Rikyû, Saigyõ, you live in Jakubaku (aloneness).

"Autumn evening, This path, no-one is walking
At the foot of the mountain in Winter,
is there anyone else who is enduring this loneliness?"

Unlike Western culture which analytically tries to express the height of the human spirit (extrovert), Eastern culture looks for the heavenly world in this invisible, hidden arena of wabi and sabi. "Willow is green, flowers are red" That is the essence of creation. "Duck's feet are short, crane's feet are long". We want to cultivate the goodness of Eastern culture and learn the benefits of Western culture. Everything goes back to one-ness
.'

This was taken from
http://www.japanshakuhachi.com/jinnyodo.html
  Reply With Quote