At our Shakyo Sutra Copying group we had a very peaceful and relaxing time for practice. It was a really nice atmosphere. We followed the inspiring Four Vast Bodhisattva Vows – 四弘誓願文 Shiguseiganmon. This is a short (just five lines including the title) but deep and… Read More »Rhythm and spaciousness in Shakyo of the Four Vast Vows
On the long sunny night of midsummer’s day we had our monthly shodo calligraphy group! We worked on the famous characters ei wa kyuu nen 永和九年 , which literally means – eternal, harmony, nine, year – from the beginning of the old classic by famous… Read More »Midsummer Shodo brushing the Orchid Pavillion Preface
At Tenkoku Japanese and Chinese Stampmaking group Blair showed participants some of the development of his three treasures zen Buddha Dharma Sangha stamp he was working on. He gave a demonstration of carving and then making adjustments to the stone, stamping, and discussed the process… Read More »Carving the Three Treasures Seal
Our May Zen Brush was very relaxed and an enjoyable time brushing together. We worked with two characters u mu 有無, which together can be translated as something like – ‘nature of being is free and untethered’. We brushed them in the kaisho style, tried… Read More »Shodo brushing the curves of 有無 Umu
At our May Japanese and Chinese stamp making group online on zoom we had a relaxed session with participants working on very different and unique stamps with a range of characters. We looked at example stamp designs, such as from Blair’s teacher Wakabayashi Shujo, and… Read More »Diamonds and ovals – Tenkoku stamp making
At our recent Zen Brush calligraphy group we brushed a lot of strokes and had fun laying out the kanji. The text we copied was the first line of Chapter seven of Lao Tzu’s mystical Tao Te Ching (道德經 The Way of Virtue Classic, expressing… Read More »Heaven and Earth in Shodo calligraphy
We had a lovely couple of hours of Shakyō Sutra copying, working on the second half of the Lotus Sutra Chapter 25 Bodhisattva of Compassion Universal Gateway (Fumonbonge). It is a fascinating, poetic and visually spectacular chapter, with many interesting characters to discover meanings from, and engage… Read More »Meditative Shakyo tracing of the universal gateway
We had a peaceful shodo calligraphy session together meditatively brushing. The theme we brushed was Zazen zen sitting meditation, and we preceded this with enso 円相 brushing, which is a great practice in itself and helps you express and feel interconnection with all things and… Read More »Brushing Zazen Meditation and Enso Zen Circle
We investigated the main styles used in Tenkoku seal engraving, such as tensho or inten, and ancient Chinese mysterious styles such as carved into animal bones or worked into metal, discovering how these were modified and cut into stone, or also brushed onto paper. We… Read More »Exploring the inspiring styles of seal stampmaking
‘If you are cast adrift in the huge sea, bothered by troublesome dragons, fish and demons, bring awareness to the power of Kannon (Avalokitesvara Perceiver of the Sounds of the World), and the billows and waves can’t drown you ..’ We had our meditative Shakyō… Read More »Breathtaking peaks and seas pull us into meditative Shakyo