Understanding Zen through Calligraphy

Zen cannot be understood, I often hear or read. It can only be experienced. Maybe it’s my earlier training in science that I enjoy “understanding” as a very deep sort of “experience”. And that listening to nice words and feeling good is often not related at all with understanding what has been said.

In my own attempts of teaching Zen, I realised that the orally spoken word is usually appreciated by my students, but not understood. Not in a kind of “deep experience”. It might be well due to my lack of rhetoric capacity, or too much of it. I felt a change was necessary … so I established a new rhythm in our Dojo, closely linking the Dharma Talk during our monthly Zazenkai with the calligraphy exercise at the Hitsuzenkai two weeks later. During the Dharma Talk I interpret some traditional Zen saying (usually within a contemporary daily life context), and half a month later we write it with brush and ink.

The more I study the old Buddhist scriptures, the more I appreciate the short (usually just a few characters) Zen Words. They really capture the essence of what the man who called himself “the one who just came along” (Tathagata) was teaching.

During the first round in January I jokingly said to my students:

Our Dojo is truly unique. After twelve months you will not only know and deeply understand twelve Zen words, you will also be able to read and write them in Japanese!

Our January study was on 一期一会. I won’t translate here, my students can read and write and explain what it means, I am confident they truly understood.

I’m much looking forward towards the coming months. Will we all master our challenge?