Our first online Shakyo 写経 practice event saw us come together from Scotland, and elsewhere such as the rest of the UK and Canada, forming a lovely group of sutra tracing and copying practitioners. Beginning with an introduction about the history of shakyo and the… Read More »Shakyo – bringing the Sutra to life with each brush stroke and pen mark
Try out writing spring (or vernal) equinox – Shunbun 春分 – using Japanese Shodo calligraphy, or in your own style in any language! These two kanji on their own literally mean spring and segment/part/share. March Equinox – this is the time equal day and night, when… Read More »Let’s write Spring Equinox
On a blustery day with the March sun shining through the clouds into the garden and our cozy workspace, we enjoyed practicing Tenkoku 篆刻 seal carving to create our own stamps or inkan (more commonly known as hanko). It is a captivating process and was… Read More »Seal carving and blowing stone dust at the Japanese Garden at Cowden
the heavens and earth are dark and yellow the universe and timeboundless Senjimon 千字文thousand character classic We continued to work from the Thousand Character Classic 千字文 – Senjimon this time at the last Zen Heart Brush, working with genkou 玄黄, partly inspired by the delightful… Read More »Mysterious universe calligraphy at Zen Heart Brush
At the last Zen Heart Brush we explored the Kaisho and Sosho styles of shodo calligraphy, working with tenchi 天地. We were inspired by the examples of calligrapher Chiei 智永 from his version of the fascinating Thousand Character Classic 千字文 – Senjimon. His name means… Read More »Inspired by the examples of calligrapher Chiei
Towards the end of the year as the dry leaves rustled across the pavements, Blair practiced Shakyo Sutra tracing at temples in Tokyo, working mainly from Genjo’s version of the Hannya Shingyo – Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. You can see the hanging… Read More »Tracing the heart of the Heart Sutra – Tokyo 2019
At the Zen Heart Brush in November, we practiced ‘生命 seimei – life’ in the cosy Kagyu Samye Dzong, Tibetan Buddhist centre. Winter has arrived and energy is waning in Glasgow just now but we vigorously enjoyed writing ‘life’! We talked about life, the elements,… Read More »生命 – life springing up with shodo calligraphy
In October at our Zen Heart Brush group, we hamonized with the season and decided to write ‘koyo, 紅葉’ autumn colours. To help us get in the mood and connect with the natural feeling, there were some red and golden leaves on the table to… Read More »Feeling the autumn colours in our shodo calligraphy group…
We had a lovely day at the Cowden Japanese Garden with enthusiastic people taking part, it was a colourful autumn day and tranquil atmosphere, a perfect setting to enjoy a workshop of Japanese shodo calligraphy. After a short talk about shodo we slowly strolled outside,… Read More »Japanese shodo calligraphy at the beautiful autumnal Cowden Japanese Garden
In June at our Zen Heart Brush Japanese calligraphy group, we practised the chapter title from poet and zen mater Dogen’s Shobogenzo “有時” uji – being time, and talked about the meanings of this, and the meanings of the individual characters themselves, which was surprising… Read More »Summer months of shodo calligraphy at Zen Heart Brush