Essay 1- The Dharma and the Artist’s Eye
Beginning in March 2026, the Falmouth Soto Zen Sangha will read from Charles Johnson’s book of essays: Taming the Ox. A Renaissance man, he is an artist, writer, philosopher, translator, martial arts, and Buddhist.
There are twenty-two essays and we ask that members of FSZS select an essay to discuss at one of our Monday Night service talks. This presentation for this, essay #1 may serve as a template for each essay, notes and talk. Just select an essay and notify Mokuo Nancy Sherwood. You and she will set-up the time for your presentation. The essays do not need to be selected in sequence. Be sure to get your request in soon so you can pick the one you want.
I am happy to introduce Charles Johnson to the sangha as he has not just led a remarkable life but brings an essayist mind to” Zen in everyday life.” The essay on Dharma and the Artist’s Eye features Right View and Right Mindfulness aspects of the Noble Eight Fold Path. Here are several I wish to make as we read the essay and you also view the video below:
- Read the Preface to the book to gain insight into the author’s background and style as he explores the house holder zen ”… he shows himself subject to the five desires, yet he is also seen to practice meditation.”
- “How wonderful, chop wood and carry water.”
- Consciousness p1-3
- Vipassana
- Why Observing Your Thoughts Changes Them — Buddha’s Wisdom on True Mindfulness
- Early Buddhists as Essayists 3-5
- Art as Relative and Absolute 6
- “Ephemeral cliffs and mountain peaks were forms briefly manifested from a fecund emptiness (sunyata) that, mysteriously, was also a plenitude of being.” 7
- Ahumkara (I-maker), pratitya-samyumata (co-dependence), ahimsa (harmlessness to all beings) avidya (ignorance) annica, dukkha, anatta (everything is transitory or impermanent, universal suffering and non-self) 8
- Last paragraph on page 8 and top of page 9
- All forms of art play (a part) in spirituality 9
- Wabi Sabi: Art providing direct intuitive insight into things fresh, simple, quiet, and radiating beauty with age, and tea ceremonies, zen gardens, flower arrangement, poetry, and music 9,
- …and such features as impermanency, intimacy, the idiosyncratic, incompleteness, modesty and humility 10
- “ And it is through the everdayness of such an (un) remarkable art, that we are blessed to experience the ordinary mind as a portal to transcendence and liberation 10
Sangaku