Word: zenning
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...share the enthusiasm the French Impressionists had for Oriental Art when we look at Boston's two exciting shows: Traditions of Japanese Art at the Fogg and Zen Painting and Calligraphy at the Museum of Fine Arts. As each member of the Impressionist group acquired something different from Oriental Art, so can each of us, whether by contemplating nature or appreciating the simplicity in Oriental interpretations of form...
...Fogg show and MFA show being similar, it would be stretching the comparison to say more than that they both deal with Oriental art. In fact, the Fogg show is limited to Japanese art whereas the Zen show includes Chinese (Ch'an) as well as Japanese (Zen) works...
Introduced to Japan from India by way of China, Zen is a sect of Buddhism. Zen's rejection of the written doctrine differentiates it from the other schools of Buddhism. Studying the sutras is part of the process in attaining Nirvana (Enlightenment) for most Buddhist followers, but the practitioner of Zen seeks to attain enlightenment through meditation and contemplation excluding study of the sacred writings. The Sixth Patriarch Tearing up a sutra (only on exhibit till November 25 due to its fragility) graphically depicts this rejection...
...rejecting the sutras, Zen Buddhism asserts that the Buddhist Truth is realized through direct contact of teacher with student, starting with the Buddha himself; Truth was and continues to be transmitted from mind to mind. In Zen, says the catalogue, "Enlightenment was a dramatic, sudden event that came unannounced," and not gradually through study. As a result of this belief, there is the constant effort of the teachers (Zen masters) to "shock and shake their pupils into realization of the Truth." This effort is reflected in the masters' eccentric questions, paradoxical retorts, and bizarre tricks, all of which are potential...
...Zen assertion, which implies that slamming someone's foot in the door or that twisting someone's nose might help that person to achiever Enlightenment, did not reject the written word, only the written doctrine. The other Buddhist sects looked at words for content, i. e., Buddha's words in the sutras which always begin, "Thus I have heard, and the Buddha spoke...." The Zen sect composed words to express the spirit of the man who wrote them. Calligraphy was believed to express the total personality of the writer. By contrasting the abstract characters of Heaven and Earthly Calligraphy with...