A few years ago I taught a short Japanese Calligraphy class to college students at Roger Williams University. As a college professor myself, I knew I had to grab the students attention right away, or I would lose their interest. These students did not necessarily have an interest in Japanese Calligraphy; I was a guest instructor in their Asian studies seminar course required for graduation.
I told the group I was going to get to know them a little. I had them collect their materials and passed a sheet of Hanshi (calligraphy practice paper) to everyone. I pulled out a sample of the Kanji EI (永) I had brushed earlier. The Kanji EI is composed of the eight basic strokes. If a student can brush the Kanji EI, they can technically brush any Kanji.
“Take a minute or two and brush this character,” I said as I passed around a sample copy of the Kanji EI.
Everyone sort of smiled, looking confused at the same time. I walked around the classroom and watched the students trying to brush a Kanji they have never seen while using a brush they have never touched before. Some looked around them to see what everyone else was doing, perhaps seeking validation for whatever scribbles they had come up. Some straight up copied what others were doing. They didn’t know where to begin or what order the strokes were supposed to go. Eventually, there was the “fuck it” expression on their faces, and they went for it and brushed something on the paper.
Naturally, every Kanji was different. Some students brushed thick, powerful lines, while others drew thin, delicate ones. Some of them brushed quick; others took their time. I walked around the class looking and marveled at their very first piece of Japanese calligraphy.
“Are you always in a rush?”, I asked, and she smiled. Her Kanji looked hastened. The lines looked unfinished, and there was no connection between them. She just wanted to get it over it.
“You must be anal about everything,” I said to another student. He friend next to her laughed. Her lines all looked the same— meticulously placed on the paper with care and precision. She also brushed the kanji very small, leaving most of the paper cleaned and intact.
While it may have seemed like I was pulling some cheap David Blaine like act where I was reading their minds, I didn’t need any magic tricks. It was all right there on the paper for me to read.
One of my Aikido teachers, Fumio Toyoda Shihan, used to say “technique is your mind.” I tell my culinary students their food is a reflection of their state of mind. Shodo is your mind on paper.
All of these practices, martial arts, cooking, calligraphy, are ways to absorb and project your mind.
But what is the mind?
Case number 29 of the Mumonkan (The Gateless Barrier) says:
“Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: “The flag is moving.” The other said: “The wind is moving.”
The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: “Not the wind, not the flag,mind is moving.”
The Mumonkan is a collection of Zen Koans used in the Rinzai Zen School as a way to understand the essence of Zen. Often called “riddles,” these koans can be perceived as incoherent or nonsensical. It is, in fact, the case as long as we try to understand them with a conceptual mind. The purpose is not to solve the cases, but to break down the barriers of conceptualism– to realize that the answers lie within the cardinal truth that originally, not a single thing exists. Often the answer is not even verbal but manifested through action.
The above Koan mainly deals with the concept of dualism. There are two objects; the flag and the wind. The two monks argued because they saw the flag and the wind as two separate things. The sixth patriarch, Huineng, had to correct them and pointed out that it is neither the flag nor the wind moving, but the mind.
What is this mind that moves?
To indeed brush calligraphy that comes from the heart, to fully express our true selves in each stroke, we have to become one with the brush. Our movement must not come from the hand, nor the brush, instead must come from the place where all things emerge.
What is the mind that moves Huineng refers to? If it is not your hand, nor the brush moving, what is this mind moving when you brush calligraphy?
The Kanji for the mind is Kokoro (心) and is also translated as the heart. However, Kokoro signifies not only the physical heart but also the emotional one. In the west, heart and mind are two separate things, but eastern philosophy makes little distinction between the two. The heart/mind is where emotions, feelings and the Self exist. It is the source of our inner spirit (SHIN 神) and life force (KI 気). Therefore our physical and emotional health is connected to the state of our heart/mind. In this context, we can now say that the Heart is not the organ that pumps out blood and the Mind is not the brain that process information. The heart is our feelings; the mind is our thoughts. Hence, a better translation for the word SHIN is consciousness– your awareness of your place in the cosmos: the source of feelings and thoughts.
One can argue that this is just a matter of perception. You may think it is your hand moving; someone else may think it is the brush moving. Who is right and who is wrong? Anyone can perceive things differently, and because both the hand and the brush move, we can conclude that both perceptions are correct. Huineng understood this. He needed to correct the monks because while they were both “correct,” they were also “incorrect.” The mind that moves resolves the dualistic problem of separating the hand from the brush.
Zen Buddhism teaches that the source of suffering in human beings is their dualistic view of the world. We see life and death; old and new; easy and hard; you and me; flag and wind; hand and brush. If we understand that all things come from the same source, that we all belong to the same place, we can genuinely harmonize with all things.
For this reason, everything we do is a reflection of the Self and the mind. Your habits, your routine, and your moods are all interconnected. You may be unaware of who you are, however, those around you that see your technique, your work, eat your food, they know you very well. It is why I knew who these students were by looking at their lines, because as Norio Yagamuchi says: “ Shodo is a portrait of the heart.” At that moment when I asked them to brush something utterly foreign to them, there was no separation between them and the brush. It was not the brush moving; it was not the hand moving, it was their mind moving. But how, you may ask, a bunch of college students were able to grasp such a profound concept in Zen that many practitioners spend years trying to realize? The answer is simple. They had no idea of what they were doing, and no intellectual understanding of the process. I gave them zero instructions on how to accomplish what I was asking. The only resource they had to brush the kanji was within themselves: their mind moving