Of the many exports Asia delivers to the international stage, of significant interest are those ideas which have been translated into world trends. Marketing departments and businesses around the world are awash in the idea of zen. As if Zen has anything to do with business or the skewed values of the market for that matter. This cultural reappropriation is perhaps one of the many confusions humanity must continue to bear in this mad-digital-push to connect and contrive a world where everything has meta-data for mass-consumption.
Nevertheless, there are still seekers after the true unknowable essence of Zen, even in the 21st Century circa 2010. They are after the purity of Zen. The rugged paradox of Zen. To dissect or formulate the journey of unlearning which Zen truly requires would be like adding frost to snow.
Yet, a few links are offered for the intrepid and inquisitive visitor.
In his book, Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
“Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.”
NMG describes Wabi-Sabi thus: “Wabi-Sabi is observing and expressing reality as it truly exists. Without judgment, without aesthetics. Without error or accuracy. Without culture or subjective points-of-view. It is an acceptance of that which is wholly natural, which entails the living elements of both order and chaos. It is an understanding of the cycles and seasons encompassing not only things but individuals, nations, planets, stars and galaxies. It is neither left-brain or right-brain. It is a united consciousness affirming that which can be understood and that which is beyond understanding. Wabi-Sabi is simple and direct yet intuitively contradictory. In effect, Wabi-Sabi is an idea of the most human proportions: limited and limitless.”
Wabi-Sabi is a phenomenon best experienced and something which can be experienced anytime and anywhere. All you have to do is unlearn how you were taught to see the world.
A few links are selected to unguide you in that direction.
The dance of utter darkness. Madness. Insanity. Horror. The raving ghosts of nuclear holocaust. Butoh is not merely a form of dance. It is Art Incarnate. Life and death exhibited in perfect splendid quintescense.
As of 2010, The Daily Gaijin has witnessed (as in a crime scene) two Butoh performances (from two separate troupes). Both of which were in Houston, Texas. One was at the Jewish Community Center (1999) and the other at the Barnevelder Arts Complex (2005).
Butoh dissolves into the bleeding edges of both Zen and Wabi-Sabi. Its mere existence and enactment invokes suffering and enlightenment like the mind of a mental patient. It is the territory of a state-of-mind only the most adventurous artists dare to venture. Will you journey to the end of the night, across the razor’s edge, into the mouth of a monster to find butoh dancers undulating in ecstasy as they are being ground to pieces?
If you are a gaijin, steeped in the love of Japanese novelty, catch a butoh peformance if you can and...experience the meaning.
That which blossoms
falls, the way of all flesh
in this world of flowers.
–Kiko, 1823 from Japanese Death Poems
The above poem encapsulates the deep appreciation of the topics of Zen, Wabi-Sabi, Butoh and...Ruins. The Daily Gaijin first discovered the Ruins theme from the Japanese photographer, Shinichiro Kobayashi. While many photographers, past and present, have taken photographs of similar aesthetic, very few have taken this theme and conducted symphonies of imagery with them. As with all outputs of genius, others will lovingly imitate in an attempt to steal the fire of greatness originally siphoned from the collective unconscious.
A few links are offered to delve deeper into the fascinating world of ruins.
ala Kanji Site-f
