Dermot Mac Cormack: Untitled #11

Dermot Mac Cormack, Untitled #11, 2011, audio Priests, Monks and Pilgrims of Kyoto, reissued by lyrichord discs. Dermot Mac Cormack is an associate Professor at the Tyler School of Art, the creative director of 21xdesign, and a student of Shuzen Sensei at the Soji Zen Center.

Women's Lineage Papers

By Peter Levitt

As part of a concerted effort undertaken by certain North American Zen communities to redress a significant historical wrong, this was among the first lineage papers in Buddhist history that acknowledges and honours Buddhist women ancestors.  Relying on years of research, performed mostly by women scholars in the academic world, it was created on behalf of the Salt Spring Zen Circle in British Columbia through the efforts of Zen teachers Zoketsu Norman Fischer of Everyday Zen and Eihei Peter Levitt of the Salt Spring Zen Circle.  It was designed by Barbara Cooper from Los Angeles.  In November 2007, on Salt Spring Island, male and female students of these two teachers were given this women’s lineage paper as part of their lay ordination ceremony, thus helping to end an overwhelming historical silence regarding women ancestors in Zen. The women’s lineage paper was bundled together with the male lineage paper traditionally given at this ceremony, and the two papers were received by the ordainees together.

 

The wheel of women ancestor names begins with the name of Shakyamuni Buddha’s mother, Mahapajapati, at the bottom, just to the right of the space at what would be the six o’clock position.  The names then ascend in a counterclockwise direction.  Names of women ancestors from India, are followed by ancestor names from China, Japan, and North America.  Of note is that at the top of the enso, in what would be the twelve o’clock position, the words “unknown women” appear.  This is to acknowledge the countless women whose sincere practice helped to nourish Zen and Buddhism throughout history but whose names, for a variety of reasons, were forgotten, suppressed, or left unsaid.

At the bottom of the wheel a blank space was left so that each new ordainee could have their name written in, and thereby be embraced by the ancestors.

***

Alongside his work as a Zen teacher, Peter Levitt is an accomplished poet, and most recently published Within Within. You can visit his website here, and you can contact Peter Levitt directly at his email address, levgram[at]gmail.com.

Sweetcake Enso opens at the Village Zendo this Saturday, January 15th!

Maria Wallace, Supercell, oil on canvas, 18x14", 2010

With ten new artists on board, Sweetcake Enso is on exhibit for one day at the Village Zendo this coming Saturday. Sweetcake Enso draws attention to the abstract circle as a symbol of presentness in daily life, and opens out the traditional calligraphy of the Enso to include the work, unlimited by media or training, of contemporary artists involved in strong Buddhist practice. Without motivation to define “Zen Art,” the interest here is in a shift from the monastic practice of Japan to a stronger emphasis upon lay practice in American Zen, and what this means for understanding contemporary art as Zen practice.   From cyclone to stillness, these works are individual offerings to the teachers that are with us now and who have come before.  In this exhibit sales will benefit the Village Zendo, and be met by a matching grant in honor of their 25th anniversary.

 

  

Emma Tapley, Water Reflection/Landscape Inversion, C-print, edition of 5

The third Sweetcake Enso exhibit opens Saturday, January 15^th at the Village Zendo, 588 Broadway, suite 1108.  Viewing is from 11:00-7:00, followed by a panel discussion from 7:00-900 pm.  Artists in the exhibit are:  

Miya Ando, Sanford Biggers, Ross Bleckner, Sam Clayton, Robyn Ellenbogen, Noah Fischer, Carolyn Fuchs, Max Gimblett, Rodney Alan Greenblat, Gregg Hill, Anne Humanfeld, Phyllis Joyner, Erin Koch, Liz LaBella, Peter Levitt, Timothy Reynolds, Karen Schiff, Fran Shalom, Bridget Spaeth, Emma Tapley, Leslie Wagner, Maria Wallace, Maggie Wells and Michael Wenger.

Please join us at 7:00 pm for a lively discussion of how Buddhist practice inspires and informs contemporary art.  Panelists include:

Max Gimblett, artist teacher and lecturer

Emma Tapley, artist

Rodney Greenblat, artist

Robyn Ellenbogen, artist and art editor of Zen Monster

Catherine Spaeth, art historian and curator

Ross Bleckner, Four Locations, color spitbyte aquatint with chine colle, 39x30" 2007

Carolyn Fuchs: This and That

By Caroline Reddy


The Sweetcake Enso exhibit presently visiting Zendos across the country displays a variety of Ensos that play in the dance of form and emptiness. In the pieces that were submitted for this exhilarating exhibition, form reflects the myriad conditions of everyday life—elements that equate daily existence are respected and celebrated. 

Inside some of these circles of enlightenment, composed by contemporary Zen practitioners and artists, viewers discover an array of phenomena: gliding red snakes, crows, skulls, fragmented neon stickers, layers of colorful shapes resembling staircases, gritty metallic scraps and morsels, cosmic bubbles, and orbiting squares—all impressions that exemplify and illustrate life in its entirety. Alongside many elegant ensos constructed out of ink, metal leaf, mixed media, homemade paper, and found objects, an interactive sculpture entitled This and That, created by local Empty Hand Sangha member, Carolyn Fuchs, absorbs the participant in the process of creating a black-and-white enso in space the moment that a handle is spun. A mirror, hung serenely on the wall, reflects the genesis of an enso.

This and That, a peculiar sculpture devised from cast, iron, wood, metal and acrylic paint is based on the phenakistascope: an early animation device that used the persistence of motion principle to create an illusion of motion.* The breadth between the artist, her creation, and the participant vanishes as a black-and-white enso surfaces.
 
“I was trying to decide what to do,” Carolyn—who also goes by Carrie in our Sangha—explains as she shares her impressions on the labor of the phenakistascope. “Originally I wanted to create a painting or a drawing but nothing seemed to inspire me.   I felt like I was forcing it too much, so I took a step back and thought about other ways to express an enso.” In order to emphasize the spontaneity  of an enso, Carrie decided to design a three-dimensional one; this format would allow participants to work with her to create the circle of enlightenment—accenting the energetic, and spontaneous, liveliness that ensos evoke. “I started to think about a sculpture with an element that someone had to physically actualize.  Each person would create the circle in space, activating a series of images that would be reflected in a mirror - their movement initiating the story. I wanted to give to the viewer, as my partner in the process, the moment of spontaneity expressed in painting an enso or experienced through a single brush stroke in calligraphy.” Without the participation of a viewer the images would remain static.

The enso in Zen represents emptiness. In an animated brush stroke a spontaneous moment emerges freely creating a circle of enlightenment; thus an aesthetic union occurs. There is no artist and there is no creator—just an energetic force that emanates and electrifies the space.  Ensos also “evoke power, dynamism, charm, humor, drama and stillness.” Traditional ensos emerge from the monastery custom, where students spend years with their teacher, mindfully practicing calligraphy and creating countless circles of enlightenment. Audrey Yoshiko Seo observes that “only a person who is mentally and spiritually complete can draw a true one. Some artists practice drawing an enso daily as a spiritual practice.” Forgoing the spontaneity of  one stroke painting, Carrie spent a length of time with This and That. “It was an open process; the animated content kept changing and I had to make a concerted effort not to fight that until I absolutely had to make a decision.” 

The animation is intentionally ambiguous. Carrie explains the symbolic allusion ingrained in the enso: “The animation features birds, an iconic and powerfully symbolic image. In this particular flight, a tangled ball of string is tethered to the bird’s feet.  Carrying the string could have different implications: a burden, unidentified/unfocused energy, or anxiety.  At a certain point in the animation the string snaps, unravels, and falls into radiating space; one can interpret this as a catharsis. And as it dissolves - as the tangle falls away from the bird - it disappears, only to reappear to start the process again.  This mirrors the symbolic cyclical nature of an enso.”  

The cyclical nature of the animation emulates the paradigm of creation.  In Zen Circles of Enlightenment, Seo links our hominal relationship to the circle. “Our connection to the circle is in some ways obvious.   We are embedded in the circularity of the horizon. We live on a sphere that, with other spheres, circles around the sun, in the vast celestial dome.  We are enamored with the moon.  In art, we highlight an abstract circle’s many natural forms—the ring, the sphere, the wheel. We create halos that float above Saints’ heads, and perform ritual circle dances.”

Traditional enso calligraphies are often brushed in black ink; likewise, Carrie designed her enso by omitting color from her palette. “I chose to paint the image in black-and-white to simplify the image; it makes the animation more crisp. If it was done in color, the images would be muddled on the disc and hard to discern.  I wanted the whole piece to be monochromatic and calming to the eye; simple and a little mysterious.”  It is the elusive nature of this sculpture that had many Sangha members, including the writer of this segment, spinning the handle before the phenakistascope was unveiled to the public eye during New Rochelle’s Art Festival on Saturday October 2^nd and 3rd. 

“Enso is considered to be one of the most profound subjects in Zenga (Zen-inspired paintings), and it is believed that the character of the artist is fully-exposed in how she or he draws an enso.”  Aware of this vital principle of an enso, Carrie also commented on what makes the circle of enlightenment so alluring.  “Ensos come from those who have forgotten about the bird and the tangle—the painter fades and the enso surfaces.”

The interplay of flight and entanglement also implies the relationship between the relative (conditional life) and the absolute (infinite); hence, Carrie envisioned her sculpture to invoke interdependence. “Flight is the activity.  The entanglement and the release become a natural result of flight.”  Linking emptiness and the shavings of daily life, This and That expresses non-duality differently and alongside of the many other pieces submitted for the Sweetcake Enso exhibition.

The phenakistascope allows many visitors a chance to play leading them to approach the whimsical instrument with an eager eye. “I wanted this piece,” Carrie explained, “to invoke a sense of wonder and magic, to invite curiosity and playfulness.”   

In The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman, Socrates, the protagonist’s mentor and spiritual teacher, associates child-like wonder to the Garden of Eden. “Every infant lives in a bright garden where everything is sensed directly, without the veils of thought—free of beliefs, interpretations, and judgments.” Perhaps, spinning the handle of this enduring sculpture echoes the famous koan: what did your face look like before your parents were born?

“When someone reaches out to turn the handle they are open to the unknown and momentarily forget themselves in the activity of watching and spinning. Then the image truly comes to life,” Carrie affirmed. This child-like innocence is precisely the reason why This and That has been aptly-nicknamed, by a few Sangha members, “the spinny-thingy.”

***

Millman, Dan. The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.  California: New World Library.

Seo, Audrey Yoshiko. Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment.  Massachusetts: Weatherhill.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/455469/phenakistoscope
 

Painting a Needle With a Pointed Life

By Dosho Port

Twenty years ago I spent most of a year at Bukkokuji, a Zen monastery in Obama, Japan. The teacher, Harada Tangen (Unfathomable Mystery), was the only surviving successor of Harada Daiun (Great Cloud) Roshi (1871 – 1961) the Zen monk who reintroduced koan introspection to Soto Zen and launched the Harada-Yasutani lineage with the Maezumi, Kapleau, Yamada and Aitken branches now so influential in the West.

The most striking feature of Roshi Sama, as Tangen’s students called him, was his powerful hara-based, joyful energy. His dharma talks and dokusan, in their unfathomable mysteriousness, almost always included his most important two words of Zen – “Ichi tantei!” Or “One doing!”
        
Dokusan with him was unpredictable in many ways, including whether Roshi Sama, who had studied English more than 50 years previously in high school, would have access to his mind’s English language file or not. But it didn’t matter much. Whatever I said to him, presenting the Mu koan, or cold, tired, hungry, clear, confused, or lonely – all might be met with him a hearty “One doing!” Or, depending on the day, it might also be the Japanese, “Ichi tantei!”
        
And despite his koan Zen orientation, his “one-doing” was exactly right from my previous training in Dogen Zen. In what follows, I will explore Tangen’s “One doing!” from the perspective of Dogen’s Zen, starting with a passage from Actualizing the Fundamental Point and follow with a fragment from the Healing Point of Sitting Zen poem.
        
The question that I want to explore is how to live life to the full. What I’ve learned from thirty-some years of Zen practice is that in order to live life to the full, it is critical to be clear about one point – where am I standing?  Am I outside looking in or inside looking out? Put another way, is Zen about the business of being free within this life of suffering, living fully in it, or being free from this life of suffering, transcending the world? 

Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, Tokyo, 1999, video still.

        
In order to investigate these questions, let’s dip into how Dogen’s thinking is translated and how the translations, perhaps due to constraints of English, lean to the transcendent or the immanent, sometimes of the same passage.

For example, in Actualizing the Fundamental Point, Dogen says, “Since the Buddha way by nature goes beyond abundance and deficiency, there is arising and perishing, delusion and realization, living beings and buddhas” (Shohaku Okumura translation).
        
From this translation it sounds like the Buddha way is transcendent – going beyond fullness and lack and all the other this and thats of this life. Other translations seem to support this. Tanahashi and Wenger have “leaping clear of” and Nishijima and Cross say “transcendent over.” However, other translators see the Buddha way as immanent: Cleary has the Buddha way “springing forth from” abundance and deficiency. Kim prefers “leaps out of.”
 
Looking at the original exacerbates the issue. Dogen used these characters: 豊倹より跳出 (hoken yori choshutu suru). The phrase at issue here can be read “go beyond” or “leap out from.” Perhaps there is a third place option, something that isn’t fully encompassed by either side of the freedom-from-suffering or freedom-within-suffering teeter totter. What would that be?
        
In another work by Dogen, Healing Point of Zazen, Dogen quotes a poem by an earlier Soto Zen master, Hongzhi. The most relevant part for our inquiry is this:

Essential function of buddha after buddha,
Functioning essence of ancestor after ancestor –
It knows without touching things;
It illumines without facing objects.
Knowing without touching things,
Its knowing is inherently subtle…

Remember, we’re exploring the question of how to live life to the full and what the Buddha and Zen masters suggest in terms of where we stand in relation to our life. In other words, is the Buddha Way transcendent or immanent?
        
The first point of this poem fragment is that the essential function and the essential functioning are marked by a kind of knowing that doesn’t touch or face the things of the world. It appears to be transcendent, yet it is “knowing.”
 “Knowing without touching things/Its knowing is inherently subtle.” What kind of knowing is this? In his commentary on this poem, Dogen cautions us that “‘…Knowing’ does not mean perception; for perception is of little measure.”

Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, Delhi, 1999, video still.

 
Our ordinary perception is small. Habitual unawakened perception can stand apart form the world, but this is different than the kind of knowing that doesn’t touch or face things of the world. Perception is also dependently arising – eye, eye consciousness, and red maple leaf interact. I (subject) see (sense organ transfers information to the mind that recognizes) the red maple leaf. As such, ordinary perception is a mental image, a shadow of the world and so is divided, and what is divided is suffering.
 
While perception is not Hongzhi’s knowing, it is also not understanding, because, Dogen says, “…understanding is artificially constructed.” For example, look at an enso, any enso. What do you see? Black color and zero form – and then the mind projects a meaning (including lack of meaning) based on some understanding. According to Wikipedia, the enso “… symbolizes the Absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the Universe, and the void.”

However, maybe for you (like me), it just looks like a zero. Maybe you like zeros and maybe you don’t (I do). Maybe you see a corporate logo (like ZenCorp.org) and all the associations and understanding that arise with that.

I suspect that in understanding the enso, you are not much more free or big happy than before you went to all the trouble to artificially construct something. Me either. However we artificially construct an understanding of the enso before us, there seems to be only a limited measure of essential functioning there. If so, then we know that we’re not sitting in the bull’s eye of Buddha’s essential functioning. In other words, given that the process of understanding involves a constructed meaning, understanding is not the knowing of which Hongzhi speaks.

Then what is right? Dogen says, “Therefore, this ‘knowing’ is ‘not touching things’ and ‘not touching things’ is ‘knowing.’

Knowing is not perception or understanding because it does not touch things and because it does not touch things, it is knowing. This begs the question, where can we go, how can we position ourselves, such that we are not outside, touching things? How about if we position ourselves “inside” and perceive and understand from there? However, this won’t do either because it falls into the same limitations of perception and understanding.

Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, Shanghai 1999, video still.

If the knowing of the Buddha’s isn’t realized from either outside looking in or inside looking out, then where do we optimally stand in our practice? Indeed, before breaking through the separation of subject and object, it seems impossible, like stopping the sound of the far-off temple bell. But it is not. It is very simple and close, now.

Glowing appellations of the simple-and-close don’t reach it. This is not some ga-ga bliss trip. Dogen continues, “Such ‘knowing’ should not be called universal knowledge; it should not be categorized as ‘self-knowledge.’”

It should not be called self-knowledge if that implies setting the self apart from other. That would be to transcend the things of the world.

What is the knowing that is the essential function of Buddhas? How can we do it? Dogen gives us two more clues. First, “…this ‘not touching things’ means ‘When light comes, hit the lightness. When darkness comes, hit the darkness.’”        

This admonition is attributed to a wild-and-whacky monk who was close to Rinzai, Puhua. He is known for wandering from town to town, ringing his bell and singing, "When brightness comes, hit the brightness. When darkness comes, hit the darkness.”

“Hit” in this context suggests the nuance of “hit” that is “…to come in contact with” and not in a violent way.  In other words, in whatever circumstance arises, meet it directly. If it is light, become light. If it is dark, become dark – with no space between, like a ball meeting a window. That is where to stand. But Puhua meant more, I suspect, than “become” – vigorously express light, vigorously express dark. Just one doing!

Dogen concludes with the second clue.  “This ‘not touching things’ means … ‘sitting and breaking the skin born of mother.’”

The essential function of the buddhas and ancestors, then, is hitting light when light comes, hitting dark when dark comes. In so doing, we break the hardening of all the categories, even the notions of the origins of this body from the body of our mother. Not that we didn’t come from there. Just that sitting means we break the skin, just like the baby’s head crowns in the birth process. Interestingly, the line doesn’t say whether we break in or break out, through or down – because that would suggest a separation.

So where does this leave us standing?  On my first day at Bukkokuji, after morning zazen and service, everyone shot to their cleaning assignments. The work leader, Kodo, grabbed a broom and danced along the main side-walk in front of the Buddha Hall, furiously brushing away the dirt and leaves. Zen temples are usually rather constrained and sober so I couldn’t help myself but to stand and stare at his dynamic presentation. Seeing me by the side of the passage watching him, Kodo continued his work but came directly at me, vigorously sweeping as he went. Stopping abruptly a foot away from where I stood, he said in rough English, “Me Mohammad Ali and I float like butterfly, sting like bee.” 

And away he went showing me just one doing.

Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, Tokyo, 1991, video still.

Dosho Port teaches from Minnesota for local sanghas as well as on line at his award-winning blog Wild Fox Zen. Dosho wrote the book Keep Me in Your Heart A While:  The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri, in honor of his teacher, and is currently working on a book describing his experience with Dogen.  From New York I was very fortunate to have been in an ango with Dosho Port, a small community living and dreaming Dogen's Zen with capping phrases and video dokusan.  From around the world students poked their heads up before the camera to meet face to face in the forceful teachings of Genjokoan.  Since then Dosho has made the leap and as a Soto priest formally taken up koan study with James Ford, David Rynick and Melissa Blacker.  Knowing that Dosho is involved with koan study as he writes his book on Dogen adds to the savoriness of his own one doing.

I first saw Kimsooja's A Needle Woman in the "Street Art Street Life" 2009 exhibit at the Bronx Museum of Art.  What you see here are stills excerpted from a video installation.  Kimsooja stands absolutely still in a standing meditation pose. A  video camera is installed behind her, registering her own body and pedestrian reactions to her stillness from a variety of places around the globe.  Sewing and the needle are a strong motif in her body of work, and here we might say that in her one doing she breaks through the skin born of mother on each spot she stands.  You can see and read more of her work here. 

Catherine Seigen Spaeth