Zen Aesthetics

Satori Zen is of immense interest to anyone pursuing authentic metaphysical knowledge because it claims to offer an astonishingly straightforward path to full Spiritual Enlightenment. And in terms of outright simplicity and immediate applicability, there is no other spiritual technique quite like it, in any other tradition anywhere. But does it do what it claims to do ? Can you really ‘power your way into heaven’ by brute meditative force ? And does this then mean that satori is equivalent to Supreme Spiritual Enlightenment ? This essay will examine the key elements and claims of Satori Zen in the light of independent and objective metaphysical knowledge.

In the recent decades, artists and researchers have shown an increased interest in applying new technologies to traditional arts in Japan, especially in the field of calligraphy art, painting, and the Zen culture. In one hand, modern calligraphers begin to use different media to create ‘digital calligraphy’ and collaborate with programmers to produce new experiences. In the other hand, media artists have been utilising audio-visual media to reinterpret the traditional aesthetics through emerging technologies, such as employing virtual reality technology to write the ‘spatial calligraphy’.

Besides, concerning the menace of losing traditional skills, researchers have developed the motion-copying system which can record the calligrapher’s movement precisely and reproduce faithfully as the original piece. They intend to use this technology to educate the young generation. However, following the rapid advance of technology and the permeation of digital media, there are several issues arose, such as : How can we evaluate ‘digital calligraphy’ and in which aesthetic standard? Without the mediacy of real brush and ink, can we express ourselves more directly by using fingers to write calligraphy on screens? How will the motion-copying system influence the relationships between masters, teachers, and students?

By delving into threes dimensions—aesthetics, technology, and social institution, this thesis points out the lurking jeopardy of substituting new technology for traditional pedagogy. Meanwhile, it also analyses the irreplaceable core of traditional aesthetics and the dilemma of interactive media artworks to show how the emerging technologies transform the traditional culture value from the analog to the digital, and suggest the new interpretation of ‘aura’ to retain in the postmodern age of ubiquitous media.

Keywords:
Shodō, calligraphy art, Ikebana, Rimpa, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, Zen, Enso, interactive art, extended mind, handwriting, motion-copying technology, virtual reality.

Supervisor/s: Prof. Dr. Oliver Grau & Prof. Dr. Naoko Tosa

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the image of the monkey in the paintings of two prominent monk-painters of the Edo period, Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) and Sengai Gibon (1750-1837). The paper shows that although Hakuin and Sengai’s paintings are part of the Zen ink painting tradition, which began following the importation of Zen Buddhism from China at the beginning of the Kamakura period, at the same time they express an emancipation of this tradition. At the base of this free attitude stands the idea of breaking rules, conventions and conceptions, an idea that originated in Zen Buddhism. As a manifestation of this attitude, as I will claim, Hakuin and Sengai's paintings express a freedom from the common conventions of the ink painting tradition. This freedom is reflected in their painting through an amateurish and playful expression resulting in less concern with depicting paintings that are technically highly skilful, as the traditional early paintings were. The precedence of the religious world over the world of art is expressed in Hakuin and Sengai’s artwork and biographies. Accordingly, as well as undertaking an investigation of their paintings, through both the formalistic origins of the image of the monkey and its iconography, the examination is supported further with some biographical facts about Hakuin and Sengai. These clarify their relations with the world of art and distinguish them from earlier Zen painters.

This volume contains Chapter III and Chapter IV. The first is entitled "La poética centrífuga del cuerpo femenino-feminista", and the second "Otras variables del cuerpo femenino-feminista: Una poética de los espacios secretos". I discuss the configurations of the nomadic, postcolonial, posthuman and postgendered feminine subjectivity, as these are depicted in the literary work of Carmen Cecilia Suárez, a Colombian contemporary author.

Na viragem do séc. XIX para o séc. XX, sobretudo através de Wenceslau de Moraes e de Camilo Pessanha, a literatura e a poesia portuguesas acompanharam o interesse pela poesia do Extremo Oriente que afectou igualmente outras literaturas europeias. Porém, uma influência mais alargada e regular apenas se consolidou desde a década de 1980 em diante. O conjunto de poetas envolvidos e a qualidade e continuidade da sua obra permite falar de uma migração silenciosa de preceitos formais, de obsessões temáticas e de modos de figuração oriundos da poesia chinesa e japonesa. Esse processo lento e subtil está a mudar a relação com a tradição poética e traz consigo novos modos de entender a escrita poética, que requerem a tentativa de leitura sistemática aqui conduzida. O pensamento Zen é igualmente analisado, dado ser claramente parte activa no interesse constante dos poetas portugueses contemporâneos pela poesia clássica e contemporânea escrita na China e no Japão.

Kunci kesuksesan penerapan kaizen dan zen yang begitu menarik dibahas dalam makalah ini mengenai Matsushita yang termasuk dalam lima puluh perusahaan besar di dunia. Produk Matsushita dengan merek seperti Panasonic, Quasar dan Technic dikenal luas di pasaran dunia. Pertumbuhan
Matsushita melesat tajam dan menduduki tempat tertinggi begitu mengagumkan. Faktor-faktor apa saja dan bagaimana perjuangan Konosuke Matsushita, pendiri Matsushita bisa membangun perusahaan menjadi perusahaan besar. Strategi apa yang diterapkan dan sejauh mana penerapan kaizen dalam perusahaan untuk mencapai hasil produk yang maksimal.

Shodo Japonca’daki karşılığı ile “Yazının Yoludur”. Tüm diğer Japon sanatlarında olduğu gibi bir felsefi disiplindir ve kökleri Tao ve Zen öğretisine dayanır. Bu sanatları çalışan öğrenci, doğanın döngüleri içerisindeki prensipleri gözlemleyerek, önce kendinde sonra uyguladığı sanatında bu ilkeleri doğurmaya çalışır. Japon yazı sisteminin sembollerden oluşması, kaligrafi sanatını bir kat daha derinleştirir. Çünkü semboller aracılığı ile insan, sembollerin kaynağı olan doğanın kendisine daha da yakınlaşma fırsatı bulur. Bu sembollerin insanda oluşan karşılığı erdemdir ve öğrenci eylemleri ve sanatı aracılığı ile dönüşür. Doğadan aldığı ilham ile doğanın hareketine katılır. Bir samuray deyişinde olduğu gibi:  “Dünyayı yaratan eylem, onu tamamlayan eylem ile aynıdır.”

Este trabajo ofrece la investigación de varios años sobre el modo en el que China, Japón y Europa, y en concreto España, han interactuado para dar lugar a nuestro arte contemporáneo. Se hace un recorrido cronológico por las diferentes generaciones de artistas desde mediados del siglo XX hasta el mundo actual.
This study is the fruit of several years, it´s focus on the way in which the culture of China, Japan and Europe, and specifically Spain, have interacted to give rise to our contemporary art. It is made a chronological journey through the different generations of artists from the mid-20th century to the current world.

This is a study in Japanese (Buddhist) aesthetics concerned with defining the "undefinable" and elusive meanings of one of the cornerstones of Japanese aesthetics, the concept of "yugen." The paper addresses the cultural-historical contexts and meanings of "yugen" from its remote origins in ancient China through the medieval eras of Japan, where the concept of yugen--and its complementary and overlapping aesthetic concepts of wabi, sabi, and mono no aware--became deeply rooted aesthetic principles chiefly under the influence of Zen Buddhism--in the artistic genres and media of Japan. Yugen, the author concludes, is a direct artistic expression and embodiment of the equally elusive truth-claims of Zen and an artistic exploration and analogue to Zen teachings.

One continuity in the works of Ursula K. Le Guin is the use of symbols that do not control the narrative but, so to speak, "condition" it, help to form it. The changes in the symbols chosen are guides to how Le Guin's thought develops and changes within the continuity of the use of such symbols.

This handout gives some key symbols Le Guin uses: of a formal, Eastern/Fictional-Western variety, with some context, but minimal context.

This article will discuss four conceptual artworks titled ‘Room Piece’, each appearing in Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit. Three of these pieces instruct the individual to ‘Stay in a room’ for varying lengths of time and to conclude their performance with whispering. The fourth substitutes a person for a room and instructs the individual to ‘Live on them’. Together these pieces offer a language of uncertain spaces manifesting within performed rooms. This article will consider both the artist’s Zen expressiveness, and ‘insound’ and ‘instructure’ notation as methods of constructing and deconstructing spatialised rooms.

Although the arts have always used virtual environments to conjured up consciousness, recent technological developments have created unprecedented aesthetic opportunities.  Digital virtuality breaks many if not all the representation barriers hitherto built.  Does the meeting of a largely reality-trained psychology and a completely enveloping and foreign artificiality create a new consciousness?  This paper presents arguments and artwork that use the new virtuality to generate novel conscious states by means of alien representations and aural qualities. A new mind can only be found at the interface with the yet unencountered, unconceived, and therefore truly alien 'other', in this case, virtuality.

To attempt to fill a perceived gap in Japanese aesthetics concerning music, this article sketches a possible way into conceptualising a Zen- or Kyoto-school-derived aesthetics of contemporary music. Drawing principally on Kyoto-School philosopher Ueda Shizuteru’s theories of language’s three levels (signal, symbolic, and hollow words), the author proposes a similar distinction between different kinds of musical experience. Analogous with Ueda’s analysis of poetry, the oscillation of signal or symbolic sound and hollow ones is found to be what gives certain contemporary music its spiritual power. By applying this poetic–religious theory of language to music, an entirely new way of understanding contemporary music becomes apparent. As test case of this new approach, Morton Feldman’s 1970 work The Viola in My Life (2) is analyzed. The final section addresses the differences between this method of understanding via nothingness and traditional Idealist approaches via the Absolute.

We can learn much about the nature of time on the theatrical stage if we study classical Japanese Nō theatre, an extremely slow, measured genre which radically manipulates the audience's perception of time. Why do so many members of the audience feel that a nō performance is infinitely long while watching it but, at the end of the performance, feel as if only a few minutes had passed? In my study I aim to explain this phenomenon with the help of the nō play Tenko 天鼓 (“The Heavenly Drum”) which is attributed by some to Zeami Motokiyo himself, and tells of a boy endowed with divine talent and a unique drum. I will also briefly analyze the Zen philosophical text Uji 有時 (“Being-Time”), written by Dōgen Zenji 道元禅師 (1200–1253), the founder of the Sōtō School of Zen Buddhism. Together these two texts will help us better understand the importance of the theatrical moment – the importance of the beats of «now».

Tanzan Kotoge, uno de los más reputados maestros de la cerámica japonesa actual, realizó en 2018 una donación de obras al Museo de Zaragoza (Aragón, España). En el presente artículo se hace una semblanza del artista japonés y se recoge la historia, el significado y el valor artístico de dicha donación.

Primeiro Teishō (提唱, palestra de Dharma) conferido pelo monge Kōmyō na ocasião de sua defesa na cerimonia Hossenshiki, em 10 de dezembro, 2017.
O caso apresentado é o 19, do Mumonkan. Trata de considerações sobre a Mente Simples, despojada, livre de impedimentos, que conduz o praticante sem impedimentos ao Caminho.

Presenta por primera vez las últimas creaciones de la pintora ovetense Kely. Son estudiadas desde el encuentro y la familiaridad de esta con el pensamiento zen y la plástica japonesa, tanto de sumie como de la escuela Rimpa. Resulta una novedosa aportación sobre esta destacada artista con amplia representación de obra en el panorama internacional.
It presents for the first time the latest creations of the Oviedo painter Kely. They are studied from the encounter and familiarity of Key with the Zen thought and the Japanese plastic aesthetic. It is a new contribution about this outstanding artist with a wide representation of her work in the international scene.

3rd Chapter of "Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses" (H-G Moeller-A. Whitehead eds, Bloomsbury 2018), a paper on Zen Aesthetics within a cross-cultural inquiry into the role of imagination in contemporary philosophy in a global perspective.

The connections between Cid Corman and Thomas A. Clark are many, and various. Their work shares similar central themes  and they also share key influences in their poetry and aesthetics.  On the most fundamental level, Alec Finlay observes in their work a shared desire to ‘re-engage with language’ in ways that give their work ‘an incredible variance within a narrow tone’. 

This paper focuses upon a particularly precise space of parallel between the poets: their mutual engagement with Chinese and Japanese poetry, primarily Zen Buddhist works. This shared engagement is most immediately apparent in Clark’s analysis of Corman’s translations of 19th century poet Santoka’s haiku, published by Alec Finlay’s Morning Star press in 1990.

Conferencia online para Laboratorio de Comunión Artística (LabCA). Desarrolla el concepto de vacío en el taoísmo y en el budismo zen, y de qué modo dicho concepto ha servido de apoyo al desarrollo del arte contemporáneo, especialmente desde mediados del siglo XX.
Este tema aparece ampliado en la publicación Zen, tao y ukiyoe. Nuevos horizontes de la creación contemporánea. Gijón: Satori, 2020

Untersucht werden Gedichte des Romantikers William Wordsworth, in denen er primär weder durch thematische oder formale Neuerungen einer literarischen Moderne zuarbeitet, noch durch Erzählung oder moralische Belehrung die Rückbindung an die Tradition sucht, sondern vielmehr der erlebten Gegenwart Form zu geben sucht. Diese Schreib-Weise zeigt Ähnlichkeiten mit literarischen Zen-Texten und hat möglicherweise zur besonderen Wirksamkeit des Dichters beigetragen.