Good evening. Thank everybody for coming. This evening, Kazuaki Tanahashi is going to speak a little bit. Can you hear me? So many of you know Kaz from different venues. He's a Japanese gentleman who came to the States in the early 70s and then returned for good in the mid to late 70s. He's been affiliated with San Francisco Zen Center since that time. He's collaborated with some people in this room, perhaps, and lots of people who have come and gone from this environment. As a translator of Dogen and a translator of other texts that are sort of seminal in the current transmission of the Dharma in the West. Less known is this young man. He studied at Iwama Dojo with O-sensei and did a Kido. He's a... an anti-nuclear activist of some importance. He founded an organization called World Without Armies some years ago, and has worked closely with leadership in Costa Rica, which is one of the first demilitarized countries, and had an incredible enhancement in their public health system and educational system because of that.

[01:17]

And he's a Buddhist scholar of no small renown. But he's here tonight to speak as a calligrapher and to speak about his most recent work, which is a book called Heart of the Brush, I've known Kaz for 17 years and first met him at Crestone Mountain Zen Center doing calligraphy, and I've had the privilege and honor and joy of dealing with him since then at a variety of venues, usually in places like this. Zen centers all across the world. He does workshops of varying, and not just Zen, but Buddhist centers, varying lengths into diverse audiences, and we're all very, very grateful. The book that he's going to talk about this evening is a book on calligraphy. It's sort of a compendium of knowledge. If you are a calligrapher or a student in calligraphy, there's a lot of books out there. A lot of them are not very good. But if you have a lot of books, you can get a lot of things. But there's no book that has a lot of things in it. This book has a lot of things in it. Stephen Addis, who some of you know, is a scholar of Japanese art, but also calligraphy, has written some seminal books on calligraphy.

[02:25]

His commentary was, there are several books on how to do East Asian calligraphy, but Hard to Brush by Kazuaki Tanahashi is clearly the best. His explanations are clear and lively. His multitude of brushwork examples are thorough and generous, and he demonstrates how to do each character stroke by stroke. In addition, he makes the availability of different scripts an exciting opportunity rather than an overwhelming burden. In effect, Tanahashi invites us into many aspects of the dynamic and wide-ranging world of calligraphy, and we can understand why it has been considered... the highest of all art forms. Not a faint phrase. And a recent calligraphy journal called the Journal of the Friends of Calligraphy, which is maybe more Western-style calligraphy, but branches out, did a book review on his book also. It was quite good, a little linky, but we'll just take an excerpt that says, As with all of Kaz's writings, heart of the brush is wise, generous, lucid, inspirational and brimming with joyful charisma.

[03:27]

The world of calligraphy is much richer thanks to the arrival of this treasure of a publication. So please, . Good evening. It's very nice to see you, and it's so wonderful to be part of practice at Tassahara. A few days ago, I happened to hear your cabin crew chanting, and then there were some words that made sense. Wonderful. And then notice that it was in praise of Zazen by Zen Master Hakuin, 18th century Winsai Zen Master.

[04:45]

And I was very happy because I've been encouraging Soto people, the other school, also chant Hakuin's In Praise of Zahra. To me, it's probably the best poem about Zazen. And also, I realized that it was my translation. 37 years ago. So now you can guess my age. So the book actually has a subtitle.

[05:50]

Heart of the Brush. The Splendor. of East Asian calligraphy. Wonderful words, splendor. I wanted to use this word on the cover of one of my books. So finally, splendor came. The kind of mission of this book is to decode and demystify various aspects of East Asian calligraphy to general public in the West, in the Western world. Because often East Asian calligraphy, of course, It's a great art in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and places where Chinese people live, like Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Singapore.

[07:08]

And it is appreciated all over the world, the beauty of the calligraphy. often for Western people, why is this regarded as a masterpiece and this is not? What is the meaning of this? What's good about it? I think there are a lot of questions for those who are not familiar with that. So I'd like to sort of maybe open up various, you might say, secrets, techniques, aesthetics, history, and personalities of the artists. Who were the greatest artists, you know? When did they live and what kind of life they lived?

[08:14]

So, this is my mission. So why some of you living in the West kind of like to study calligraphy? So that's my question actually I'd like to ask you. By the way, thank you so much for your general introduction. What's your response to that? I started calligraphy after I started Zen training. I started Zen calligraphy after Zen training. I started Asian calligraphy after Zen training. I was a Zen student for some time, and I was drawn to the aesthetic, and I was looking for a teacher. And first I was a traditional Chinese teacher, which was Confucian in nature, and I saw calligraphy.

[09:19]

But then I met Kaz Crest-on-the-Mountain Zen Center, and at the same time that Kobo Ishida was at Shambhala Red Thunder, and worked with both of them in the Venokaza. Zen was my path to calligraphy, rather than my path to Zen. So, calligraphy is like a moving meditation. When you try, you'll know why. And... drawing lines correctly and repeating and drawing similar lines many, many times. So it becomes meditative. And often in East Asia, calligraphy is regarded as important elements

[10:23]

meditation practice. Also maybe meditation also helps the artwork. So traditionally we grind ink. So it takes a long time, half an hour or so, doing nothing, just grinding ink, just calming our mind. And that's the limitation. And also, we try to keep the ink stick straight so that we have to be mindful. If we are thinking of something else, the ink stick starts leaning. So the teacher would say, your mind is leaning. I think maybe... The difference between Zen meditation and cardigraphy is that in Zen meditation often we don't know, you know, after the meditation, was it a good meditation?

[11:40]

Not so good, it was pretty bad. But it's hard to tell. If you draw lines, it's very clear. Everything is there. When we are thinking about something else, the lines go somewhere else, zigzag. So, in a way, it's a very clear, interesting indicator of our state of mind. Let me maybe read some part.

[12:50]

Studying East Asian calligraphy is a cross-cultural experience for those from other parts of the world. as the formation of character is unique and the creative process in calligraphy is quite different from that employed in any other form of art. In following the predetermined stroke orders and recreating masterworks, you begin to interpret and then create your own style and work. This gentle progression of creativity allows you to gradually expand your artistic process. So it's a gentle creativity. You know, we are just copying master's works, ancient master's works, just faithfully copying.

[13:59]

over and over and over again. So it's not like painting still life, where there's a great deal of creativity is needed, composition, colors, etc. In a way calligraphy is very relaxing because we have great masterpieces in front of us and then we just copy and know, knowing that we'll never get close or get better. So just repeating, repeating, repeating. And gradually we get familiar with the the brush movement, spacing, and even maybe the feelings and thinking of ancient masters.

[15:06]

Little by little. And it's a wonderful process, and in a way, it's so relaxing because we're not trying to be better than the original. And we're not trying to be better than other people. We just, in a way, we face ourselves. These masterpieces came from the 4th century to 10th century classical period. Common era of Chinese calligraphy. All great masterpieces were Chinese, because Chinese single-handedly developed this writing system, but also this calligraphy. So we have a common standard with a calligrapher from Korea or Taiwan or Singapore or Japan.

[16:24]

The standard is Chinese classical pieces. So even though we speak different languages, but we use same symbols, and then we can appreciate works by other peoples. Also we can be critical because we have the same I think maybe the uniqueness of this book is that we have wonderful masterpieces 150 characters and each has basic styles formal script semi-cursive script and cursive script.

[17:31]

And then pronunciations in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. So in a way, it's inclusive. It's not Japanese calligraphy or it's not Chinese calligraphy. People in Korea practices same calligraphy. So we acknowledge and we include by saying these are pronunciations in different languages. So making a close study of ancient Chinese masterpieces is the most advanced study of calligraphy. So when People become really serious, started maybe more advanced studies or teaching.

[18:35]

Maybe the master will say, now he might like to find classical work and then start studying it by faithfully copying. And I think maybe I tell you about Japan's case. Calligraphy school is like an industry. Okay, you kind of start from the beginning, and then you get better, and then get sort of higher status. It's like martial art, done, degree. first degree and second degree and so forth. And then you become sort of maybe a teacher and a more advanced teacher and so forth. So in a way it's maybe good for the industry to have this hierarchy.

[19:46]

Okay, you studied this maybe formal script for a few years and then you're allowed to study semi-cultural script for a few years, and then you are allowed to study classical masterpieces and so forth. So that way, kind of, you know, the school can sort of maintain the populations. But to me, I'm not interested in kind of keeping... students and so forth. In fact, I say I don't have any students. I have friends who study calligraphy with me, but they are not my students. So I'm more interested in showing the best of learning experience and drawing experience to beginners.

[20:52]

So a weekend workshop or maybe even two hours workshop. I like people to experience the most advanced way of practicing, which is looking at the ancient masterpieces and then studying it. And then you could see the difference between by studying the manuals by a kind of contemporary master, or looking at the ancient Chinese master's works. And also there are different masters, so we can see the different ways of drawing even horizontal line. There are many ways, beautiful ways of drawing. And we get used to the entire field One difference of studying together with people in the Western world is that we don't use the entire text, you know, like, let's say, imperial edict or poems or something written by ancient masters.

[22:21]

I just picked maybe one character and then show different masters work so that we can concentrate on kind of small things to study. If you have any questions or comments or objections, please raise your hand. So what does make a piece a masterpiece? You know, what does make it good? Yeah, I think, you know, well, there are two types of masterpieces. Maybe if you create something beautiful, it could be a masterpiece. But traditional masterpieces are traditional masters.

[23:24]

people who maybe opened up a field like okay how to do the semi cursive script different from earlier masters you know maybe a little bit thinner lines kind of round lines and then so creating a style like that or maybe bold Russian movement or wild Russian movement or each master of course it should be beautiful but create something unique historically and so it's very hard to say okay maybe showing you a photograph of the kind of masterpiece and say, well, this is a great piece.

[24:30]

And you might say, oh, yeah, OK. But you may not understand why it's beautiful. So what I did here is picked just one character, the moon, formal script. And then I was explaining Maybe this is too small, but you can see in one column by different masters. The first one is the third century master, Zongyao. And he was the founder or inventor of the former script. So after that, that became real. maybe most common universal script. So I showed you the character of Moon, how he did it, and then how one Siesi, the fourth century sage of calligraphy, did the Moon, and then how...

[25:48]

I think four people in the 7th century, they were sort of in the same court of Emperor Tai, the second emperor of Tang Dynasty. How they did it different. They were kind of in the same court, but different. The last one was Emperor Tai himself. He loved and collected a great deal of and sent masterpieces, and he himself became one of the best calligraphers in the history of East Asian calligraphy. So we can show that. And how someone else did it is a little bit different. These are my pieces.

[27:00]

The farthest left one is the top is it means now and the bottom means heart or mind. So the mind over the present moment, that is mindfulness. The next one is one, the number one. This is my most favorite character, because it's the simplest, and then I just draw one line and say, this is my artwork. But also it is very difficult. These are all done on canvas with acrylic paint. Circles and circles.

[28:10]

Supposed to represent the complete experience of each moment. You might call it enlightenment. Heaven, and then compassion, and then other so-called answers. I started doing this Zen circle with colors. I thought maybe our society is a society of diversity, so we may not have to be confined to traditional ink drawing of the circle on white paper.

[29:17]

we need to do differently from other masters yes it's a little bit different and also maybe I like like that one that circle is like chaotic you know I like maybe I think peace should be actually chaotic if it's very orderly it's more like a dictionary or something Real kind of democratic peace is always chaotic, I think. So maybe enlightenment can be chaos, I guess. Yes. Is it necessary to go through the years of copying masters before you find your style and abstraction, or can people just go directly to the abstraction?

[30:24]

I think that's a kind of interesting question. Can you skip classical training and then create something beautiful? It's like, you know, okay, can you skip like learning maybe classical music maybe even including like jazz or something, and then creates beautiful music. By large, no, I guess, you know, you have to be well versed in the performance, whether it's music or dance or painting or anything. But nowadays it's like... you know, the contemporary art is like an invention.

[31:30]

You know, you kind of make something new, you know, like paint an entire sort of canvas with one color. And then if you go to another country, the museum of modern art, there's another color, same thing. And then Tsugabe does... maybe contemporary serious painting, you know, hanging in a museum. So in that case, you need almost any skill or knowledge of paintings. Calligraphy may be something. However, I think calligraphers are more like a classicist. If you don't study seriously, especially in classical masterpieces, your work may look inadequate or may look clumsy.

[32:41]

Sometimes people don't know whether it's good or bad, so often in the western world like logo is you know characters in the logo and sometimes just they look horrible one of my books are published actually by a publisher and then the publisher's logo is you know some character but It's not done properly. So, you know, people can tell. I mean, almost all East Asian people can say, oh, this is good, or this, you know, not good.

[33:42]

But people in the West may not know. So, you know, oh, this is good, you know. Like Alan Watto was saying. People say, my calligraphy is good, and then he published it in his book. But maybe he was not studying so much. So people can say, oh, that's wonderful. So it's quite tricky, I think. Yes? describing how through the process of copying you can really relax. It's very relaxed because you don't actually have to come up with anything new. But then when you're making new pieces, you can color and experiment in yourself. Would you say it's less relaxing, it's less to do with meditation? Well, I think after a certain amount of we'll be surrendering to a

[34:53]

great masterpieces. And then you start interpreting, kind of maybe exaggerating one part or pressing too hard or very hard or in different ways. You kind of, you do it in your own way. And then you create maybe more expressive work. So, Well, when you are doing your own expressive work, it's more relaxing. There's no kind of master saying, don't do this and do this and do that. So it can be relaxing anytime. Of course, you know, we can be nervous if we are being judged by people. Yes. How does acceptance and perfectionism enter into all this?

[35:59]

Just working with what is and not really critiquing so much what you've created. I think that's a very good learning is trying to notice problems and reduce problems. So there's always kind of work always self-criticism. I think self-criticism is good, noticing problems. But if we are unhappy about problems, that's the problem. You know, we don't have to be unhappy about problems. This can be reduced. We can never perfect anything with a brush because you know there's always some kind of if you look carefully maybe there's something a little bit not straight or not clean enough something is a little bit brush is broken and so forth it's part of the beauty so maybe we need to

[37:23]

be inclusive of imperfection. However, there is something called good calligraphy and bad calligraphy. So that's something else, too. Yes? As someone who's struggling in your workshop, I am very much depressed with the difference between the one way one creates the characters and the result. The result when you're done. And as a beginner, there's this terrible tension between trying to make it correct in that form. But I'm wondering, is it for you a kind of performance art in a way, that in a moment you are trying to maybe capture something.

[38:33]

Does that make any sense? Yeah, I think maybe, you know, okay, so there is no perfection. But there is something like, okay, this is maybe this can be sort of, let's say, acceptable, presentable. So, after doing some years, maybe everything you do, hopefully, is acceptable, presentable. So, in a way, demonstrations, public performances, In a way, very relaxing. Just kind of know that maybe you can sort of at least go above the acceptance level. Does it make sense?

[39:37]

I think we have like nine more minutes. So if you have maybe two more questions, if you have any comments. Yes. You are historically known for these very large episodes for Peace that you did do as public ones in this social action. And I'm curious to know what, on the flagship note at the moment, what the feeling was, what the participation of others was in those performances. Usually, you know, we're artists, so it doesn't matter you don't like it or like it. It's also my own art. But in the public performance like we did for the United Nations charter, signing charter, 50th anniversary in San Francisco, in a way...

[40:52]

It was a public performance, and then it was going to be installed in front of the War Memorial building where the charter was signed and the UN was born. So we had this big brush, and seven people from different parts of the world did the circle together. So we poured the paint first. So to do that, we did a lot of rehearsals, small things. Put the paint here and then do the brush and then see how it looked. We did many, many studies. And then when we actually did the kind of performance outdoors, I said, okay... If we don't like it, we'll touch up.

[41:54]

Because it's important that it should look good. So we all relaxed. And then we said, okay, smile and enjoy. There was music, drumming going. And then we didn't have to touch up. So it was wonderful. Finally, I'd like to read a passage from this book. In East Asia, calligraphy is regarded as one of the highest arts, along with poetry and music.

[43:05]

Although it requires skills, aesthetics and creativity, what is most appreciated is beyond these elements of art. Brush lines in calligraphy honestly reveal the artist's personality. level of accomplishment and presence of heart and mind. This is a higher criterion for appreciating and valuing the work of art than aesthetic and technical excellence alone. This being so, Cultivation of profound realization and the wholesome way of life is the ultimate practice of calligraphy. Thus, the presence of the artist is appreciated even when the artist is no longer physically present.

[44:12]

Thank you so much.

[44:14]

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