Shodo. Shozo Sato
such brief abstractions, however, they often appear obtuse and incomprehensible. Through the practice of writing ichigyo mono over and over again, a student may gain a greater and deeper understanding of the philosophical meaning. These statements are universal in nature and can have interpretations that go beyond the boundaries of any one religion.
Two very important phases in my life, spanning two vastly different countries, influenced the writing of this book. As a young man I lived in Kamakura, Japan, the home of many temples of the Rinzai sect of Zen, built during the Kamakura period (1185–1333 CE). Living in the vicinity of Kenchoji, Engakuji and many other famous Zen temples, I became well acquainted with their occupants, from the young monks to the abbots, who taught me much about Zen philosophy. The seeds that led to my interest in Zen philosophy thus began in those early years. When I was nineteen, I also began to take lessons in chado, “The Way of Tea,” under Kosen Kishimoto Sensei of Tokyo. I passed all the rigorous tests to obtain a certificate as Master of Tea at the young age of 21. I was able to obtain such a degree at this age because even before preschool days in early childhood, my total focus was in the arts.
In 1964, I was invited to teach in the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Campus. My brief was to develop a curriculum for the School of Art and Design on comparative cultures through the traditional arts of Japan. One part of the curriculum involved activities in the two-dimensional arts of sumi-e and shodo using the brush, ink and handmade paper (the first step was for the students to understand the fundamental differences between using a ballpoint pen and a brush and to observe how one line created with a brush had so much more visual impact). Another part focused on the study of Zen aesthetics through chado, “The Way of Tea.” An ichigyo mono—a hanging scroll bearing a zengo, a one-line statement from Japanese philosophy—was always on display in the tokonoma or alcove of the tea room where I met my students, and discussion on the meaning of the ichigyo mono was an integral part of each lesson. The zengo selected for display were drawn from the 1,500 official statements in Japan, but were chosen based on their relative simplicity as well as their relevance to the occasion and contemporary American life. The paradoxical nature of these enigmatic statements always led to a great deal of meaningful discussion. The wall hanging was changed each week, which necessitated a very large collection. As budgetary restrictions made the purchase of such scrolls prohibitive, I began to write suitable zengo myself. Some fifty years have passed since then, but clearly the seeds for this publication were sown in those early teaching days. I still receive letters from former students thanking me for “sharing the treasure in a moment of enlightenment” and sometimes suggesting a new meaning for a particular zengo. Over the years, Zen statements in ichigyo mono have personally given me much spiritual encouragement and helped me develop a deeper understanding of the meaning of life. It is my hope that the zengo in this book will also be a guide leading to a moment of enlightenment for readers beyond the walls of a university course. This book has been written from the viewpoint of my capacity as a tea master, where all of the arts (including the craft arts) are a part of the discipline of chado, many of them living arts such as cooking and landscape gardening.
Bokki: The Spirit of the Brush
The combination of sumi (black ink) and brush used to create Chinese ideograms is called shodo or “The Way (do) of Writing (sho).” To create sho as an art form requires not only physical preparation but also mental preparation. The sho creator must learn breathing control and how to concentrate energy or ki (chi) in the lower part of the abdomen. (Since ancient times, the martial arts disciplines of Asia have required this same centering of a person’s ki energy in the lower abdomen.) The sho creator, by concentrating and internalizing energy, can then pick up the brush and in a matter of seconds execute an ideogram. But those preparations are not needed when using the same tools for writing personal letters or business documents; for those prosaic tasks one can casually pick up a brush or pen and write.
In shodo it is considered sacrilege to go back and touch up the work. Any adjustment or touch-up would be apparent, and would interrupt the ki, and therefore the created work wouldn’t be an honest representation of the artist’s energy and personality.
In the preface it was mentioned that sho exposes the personality of the writer. (This phenomenon is not limited to ideograms, of course, as handwriting analysts in the West attest.) The act of grinding sumi ink on a stone is another way of transferring human energy to the writing of an ideogram. Sumi is created by burning oils of various kinds, and the soot is collected and mixed with animal glue. Because the soot is basically carbon molecules, when a stick of sumi is ground on the suzuri (grinding stone) with water, the extensive back and forth movements create static electricity in the liquid. Sumi ink that has been ground on a suzuri thus becomes charged with human energy (similarly, recall that our nervous system conducts electric messages to the brain) and when a sho artist who is using concentrated energy writes an ideogram using this ink, it is said that the lines contain bokki (bo=black ink, sumi; [k]ki=energy).
A very significant study connecting this type of energy and its physical manifestation was done by the highly respected Tanchiu Koji Terayama, director of Hitsu Zendo. The English translation of his book’s title is Zen and the Art of Calligraphy (transl. by John Stevens; Penguin Group, 1983). In an effort to understand the importance of bokki, Terayama enlisted the assistance of scientists. He had small sections of shodo masterpieces from centuries past magnified to a value of 50,000x with an electron microscope. The researchers discovered that the carbon particles of sumi in a masterpiece showed a distinct alignment, while in a look-alike forgery of the same work, the carbon particles were instead scattered.
Down through the ages, the concentrated energy or ki of certain individuals has been transferred to their art, and that energy of the artist is called kihaku. A common expression in Japan is that “unpitsu no kihaku”: power in the movement of the brush can be permanently recorded in a brush stroke. When an artist creates a work in a state of kihaku with the use of sumi ink, that work continues to provide strong impact and emotional appeal to receptive viewers across the ages.
When you visit a museum and see ideograms on display, bokki might not necessarily be obvious at first glance. The artwork may seem to be quiet in appearance. But when ki is present in an ideogram, it will spiritually affect the viewer. Each line or dot containing the full power of bokki will impact the viewer and add to his or her understanding of the statement and the source from which it comes. For this reason, bokuseki that is written by Zen monks focuses on the beauty of the ideogram, but also endeavors to reach the viewer’s heart and soul with the power of potentially opening or expanding an individual’s realization.
Obviously, such powerful ideograms filled with “the spirit of the brush” are not written easily. Students of shodo must constantly practice the strokes in the required order using kaisho, so that writing the ideogram correctly becomes second nature. Finally, then, without striving for the perfection, form and order of the strokes, the sho artist can create an ideogram that is permeated with spiritual beauty rather than merely visual beauty. This is the ultimate goal for all sho artists.
Many years ago when I was a preteen, my sumi-e teacher took me to a museum to see historic, famous sumi-e and sho. I still remember his admonition: “In order to appreciate the work, one’s heart must be pure and receptive and then this ancient calligraphy will speak to you.” This comment was strange to a naïve young boy. Seventy years ago the understanding of how molecules and carbon electrons worked was not common knowledge; however the great artists from centuries ago must nonetheless have recognized that their power of ki did impact their work.
Look at the example on page 2, “Bokki, Spirit of the Brush” by Zakyu-An Senshō. It was written to convey the foundation of bokki. It depicts the ideogram for ichi, meaning “one.”
The Chinese Roots of Shodo
The Chinese roots of Japanese calligraphy have a long history. Some 3,500 years ago in China, the hard surfaces of animal bones, tortoise shells and stones began to be inscribed with sharp instruments to produce documents for administrative purposes or with statements or predictions from the gods. These pictograms, chiseled in the form of a script based on squares of uniform size and using