Documentary Recommendation: In Search of Wabi Sabi

Movie Recommendation: Tokyo Story

I’ve seen this twice now, and can’t speak highly enough of it:

Quote of the day: An Ancient Zen Translation

Great harvest

from arid sources

Pleasure

from restraint

Movie Recommendation: The Life of Zen Master Dogen

A dramatisation of Dogen’s travels in China, where he reached enlightenment, and his return to Japan where he introduced Zen:

The Karate Kid and Balance

I was born in 1975, and when I was a kid, Star Wars was huge. The other B-movie kind of saga which had a big impact on me in the eighties was the original Karate Kid trilogy. I started doing Seido Karate when I was about eight, and made my way to yellow belt, but I stopped there, because it really wasn’t providing me with that something sacred which I hoped it might.

All of these years later, I think of when I was diagnosed with Sjogrens Syndrome as the chaotic factor in my life which was out of balance in a big way. Then, one day, a friend told me about a Chigong master who was coming to town and doing individual healings. He advised me that Zhineng Chigong was what I needed, and so I committed to learning it. My teacher told me that Chigong was the original martial art, because healing and consciousness precede the need to learn to fight. The blissful feelings it brought about, along with the positive culture, and techniques I could incorporate into my daily life were providing the disciplined sacred space that I needed.

Fear, worry and self-doubt are all part and parcel of being diagnosed with any disease (especially when Western medicine tells you there is no known cure!). Michio Kushi, in his Macrobiotic theory, talks of there being a background and a foreground, and that usually our preoccupation is with the foreground, which is occupied by our fears, vices, and perceived flaws. The background is the positive things which are going on in our lives, often brought about by our efforts to remedy the negative.

So I don’t think my aim is to become a Pollyanna, brimming with positivity  no matter what, but to develop something like dialectic reasoning, as Mr Miyagi does effectively in this scene where Daniel is focusing on the foreground of the Karate tournament (the object of his fear). Mr Miyagi reminds Daniel of the lesson about balance, and shows him the photo of Ali (the object of his love and happiness).

I like to think of the Cobra Kai as being the disease, as its credo seems to be ‘No Mercy”.

That little master is the wise centre in us all.

 

Hand Painted Sacred Symbols

It occurred to me that the watercolour with salt technique I’ve been developing would look good with well known sacred symbols, since the effect definitely makes me think of what we refer to as the formless void, where limitless Chi awaits to be manifested into form and structure.

The pink lotus was the first one I thought of, since water is indeed symbolic of the void, and the lotus blooms on the surface of the murky water. The blue could be symbolic of the “blues”, or of peace.

 

Next on the list was the Yin and Yang symbol, otherwise known as Taiji.

I thought that I pretty much knew what this symbol was all about, but when you do the actual drawing, you learn some interesting things:

• It actually contains five circles, and three centres.
• For those that think this symbol justifies the view that there are no straight lines in nature, it might help to consider the vertical axis which aligns the centres of the two small circles.
• When looked at as a line drawing, devoid of any black or white, it’s easy to see that the two circles which form the heads of the yin and yang look very similar to a double wave form, or double helix.

 

Continuing Along with Painting and Chigong

Zhineng Chigong was working well for me, so the following year I learnt the second method, otherwise known as “Body/Mind Form”. It involves a lot more stretching and opening up of the meridian channels than the first method. I was devoting two to three hours of every day to chigong. I was taking steps to change my diet, as I had read a graphic novel called “Epileptic” in which the author writes about his being brought up with a brother who had severe epilepsy, and his parents’ struggle to try to find an alternative treatment for him. Their journey at one point lead them to stay at a Macrobiotic commune, where the author’s brother enjoyed quite a lengthy period without seizures, until the commune had to move off the land, and so was fractured, leaving him and his family having to search for another solution.

I just happened to be looking on a clearance table in a bookstore one day, when I came across “The Macrobiotic Way” by Michio Kushi. I think it was marked down to ten dollars; what a bargain for such a great little book! I had been struggling with my diet, as taking Tegretol had made be somewhat irregular, and a diet based on whole grains just seemed to make perfect sense to me. I had decreased my tegretol dosage a little by now, and was taking 100mg fast release in the morning, and 400mg slow release in the evening (as I have nocturnal epilepsy).

I had taken it upon myself to seek out a part time job, which I knew would be tough, considering the arthritis, the need to wear shades to prevent my eyes both from bright light and from dryness, and the fatigue. I got in touch with a local agency set up to help those with disabilities find jobs, and long story short, I got a permanent part time position with a market research company, which allowed me to work from home. The idea of “cold calling” and the thought of having to deal with disgruntled respondents didn’t bother me, as I saw the opportunity to put into practice some of those Toltec and Chigong principles and techniques I had been learning, in order to stay calm and focused in tense situations.

The extra money I was earning allowed me to fund my own solo exhibition in an underground gallery which had just started up in the central city at the time, called simply “The Room”:

      

            

      

      

The show was called “Swallow Or Be Swallowed”, a quote I had taken from Joseph Campbell whose books i was reading at the time which seemed to sum up the attitude one needs on the healing and artistic journey.

Basquiat, Dubuffet, and Cy Twombly were heavily influencing my stylistic and technical approach at the time. I had found in Neo-Expressionism a way to release my anxiety, and to create large paintings (A1 or A2 size) which could communicate in a very graphic way thought feelings and ideas as they arose.

I was still dissatisfied with the lack of consistency of style and theme.

I was hoping to find a way of resolving this issue, and to have another show at The Room in maybe 6 to 8 months. Little did I know, however, what was in store for Christchurch City…