zen in the art of dressage : zen quotes



  Kenneth Beittel


"A potter's labor is consumed WITHIN the work...
the craft within the art."

"We imitate our masters only because we are
not yet masters ourselves, and only because in doing so
we learn the truth about what cannot be imitated."

"Young potters are like determined oaks;
old ones like flowing willows... "

"It is true, nevertheless, that advanced lessons
assume relative mastery of beginning ones,
and so, just like stages of initiation,
the lessons are hierarchical, even though the
same mysteries of practice, form, and art,
if rightly understood, shine through all levels."

"Centering is a quieting of motion
without loss of vitality."

"... the Japanese word hara as bodily roundness...
the centering of gravity in the sphere of the belly."

"Meditation is thus not removed from tradition as understood in the East.
Even as hatha-yoga postures can be acts of meditation,
the same is true of shooting an arrow from a bow
or wedging and centering clay. In subtle ways, the mind
negates the mind, requiring one to be a disciple of a deep tradition
- to partake, in other words, of the true meaning of discipline.
The true self is not the clamoring, willful ego;
it is more like the Zen ideal of being totally absorbed
in whatever one does, whether chopping wood or forming clay."

"... without emptiness,
the bowl cannot overflow with contents."

"There is no transference of secrets from master to disciple.
Teaching is not difficult, listening is not difficult either,
but what is truly difficult is to become conscious
of what you have in yourself and be able to use it as your own."

"Zen ki in art, then, is that which merges self
and mind completely and forgetfully in the nature
of precisely and presently what one is doing.
The distance between suject and object completely disappears."

"To be 'unhampered by senses and intellect' is to
dwell openly within the world of the creative imagination.
The master of a traditional art represents this state
where action and creation spring effortlessly
'out of formlessness and soundlessness.'
Paradoxically, this state is reached when
unrelenting discipline and practice have purged the rituals
of the tradional art from the interference of
both senses and intellect, so that the 'isness' of
the simplest act, such as preparing one's clay for the wheel,
contains all that there is to being in the universe.

"The master, thus draws the apprentice slowly away
from preconceived ideas, theories, and even history,
toward life as fullness of present action.
This profound lesson cannot be communicated orally,
in the didactic or philosophical mode.
We can know and share much more than we can say.
In addition to head knowledge,
there is hand knowledge,
eye knowledge,
and heart knowledge;
and heart, eye, and hand fuse
through selfless practice and example."



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