Zen Art

It's not actually about the art—or at least, not *just* the art

This past weekend, the martial arts Dojo at Chozen-ji was transformed into a gallery of stunning Zen art and abundant, enlivening flower arrangements. The whole thing vibrated with the promise of an end to our pandemic years. 

The theme of the show was, "The Joy of Art", and in creating joy we were abounding in our success. People's faces lit up well before they even made their ways to the Dojo, where various kinds of Zen art—calligraphy, ceramics, books, etc—were on display and for sale. Emerging from their cars in the parking lot, perhaps not knowing what to expect in what's usually known as a rough-around-the-edges working class neighborhood, people's eyes would widen as they turned their faces up to the green mountains encircling us. In the center of the grounds, they saw our little hill, which once inspired the Native Hawaiian spiritual leader Pilahi Paki to recognize Chozen-ji as a sacred manawa and is topped with a calligraphy of an enso, or circle, engraved into granite. White brushstrokes on black stone, the small monument pokes up into the Hawaiian sky, which is at turns bright blue, encircled by rainbows, cloaked in mists, or vividly painted with the colors of a reflective sunset, depending on the day.

Down the driveway, which had been raked the day before so that even the grey gravel had a certain sparkle, they then made their ways to the Dojo where ornate blossoms stood side by side with simple, wild orchids, ferns, and irises plucked from the temple grounds. In the center of the array was a huge bonsai tree, 70 years old (or more) and bearing green and purple spheres of fruit on its trunk and limbs. 

And, of course, there was art: uniquely burnished ceramics from our wood-fired kiln, one of only two in a 3,000-mile radius, and pieces of calligraphy into which Zen students and priests had poured their concentration and energy, cultivated over hours, days, and decades of training.

Every few hours, I led a group of shoppers to a tatami-floored room towards the back of the grounds. In my kimono, I herded them and shared a clue as to what awaited: several beaming Tea students who had practiced for weeks in order to serve them sweets and Matcha green tea, bringing their months and years of Chado training to life. Wave after wave of visitors arrived until, finally, all was quiet again and the Art Show was over.

"Isn't it like a dream?" the Abbot asked after all of the guests had departed and the room had been cleared of its tables, pedestals, wall panels, spotlights, and art works. In only a matter of hours, the Dojo had been emptied and turned back into a place of serious training. The lightning fast transformation turned the event into a mirage, a memory to hold on to for next Fall, when we'll put on our Zen Art Show again, as we do every year.

Even more ephemeral but also more beautiful was what the people who came to shop could not see, or maybe only glimpsed along the edges. Several dozen temple members, teachers, and Zen students had all worked together for weeks to prepare the grounds. A few of us had been making the artwork that sold in the show all year. 

I know it may come off as cliche to say that seeing our community coming together was the most significant thing about the Art Show. And it would be easy, knowing that many hands went into making it real, to think it was just the spirit of volunteerism, obligation, or cultural pride that spurred people to be involved. But this one Art Show is only a moment in the long continuum of our training, which encompasses its methods (zazen, martial arts, fine arts, sesshin), its teachers (from Shakyamuni Buddha to Tanouye Roshi and beyond), and us, the community. That continuum began the moment someone stepped into their first beginners' class and will continue for as long as they train here, potentially for the rest of their lives.

Yes, the Art Show was beautiful. It was something we all worked towards with sincerity and great effort, an objective to reach so that, on opening day, the Dojo would be ready for a steady flow of visitors. But the very putting on of it was most stunning of all: school teachers and bankers, teenagers and octogenarians all sharing a commitment not just to the Art Show, not just to The Arts, and not even to Chozen-ji as a place or an institution. 

It boggles me, sometimes, the scale of the commitment people make to Chozen-ji. Coming up to train multiple days a week, jumping in to help at every opportunity, and showing up again and again. No single event, not even the Art Show, is the real object. What binds us all together is our neverending training, understood broadly as life as training and training as life. Training may happen in the silence in zazen or in the cacophony of Kendo class, but either way it is always pointing to a way to live fully, moment to moment, Art Show to Art Show, and lifetime to lifetime.