Learn Japanese Calligraphy as Moving Meditation

Learn Japanese Calligraphy as Moving Meditation
Click on the image above to order your copy of The Japanese Way of the Artist. Including extensive illustrations and an all-new introduction by the author, The Japanese Way of the Artist (Stone Bridge Press, September 2007) anthologizes three complete, out-of-print works by the Director of the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts. With penetrating insight into the universe of Japanese spiritual, artistic, and martial traditions, H. E. Davey explores everything from karate to calligraphy, ikebana to tea, demonstrating how all traditional Japanese arts share the same spiritual goals: serenity, mind/body harmony, awareness, and a sense of connection to the universe.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Integrated Shodo & Meditation Instruction


Interested in practicing Japanese calligraphy and ink painting? Hiseki Davey Sensei has created an original program of instruction that integrates classical shodo with forms of meditation inspired by the teachings of Nakamura Tempu Sensei. No prior knowledge of Japanese language, art, or meditation is required.

Shodo
The Ranseki Sho Juku form of calligraphy and ink painting was created in the 1960s by Kobara Ranseki Sensei, recipient of the Japanese government’s Order of the Rising Sun. In addition to receiving awards from the Japanese Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for his excellence in art, Kobara Sensei was also the Vice President of the Kokusai Shodo Bunka Koryu Kyokai, an international shodo association headquartered in Urayasu, Japan.


Davey Sensei studied directly under him for over 20 years, and in 1993 he received the highest ranking in this form of calligraphic art. He has exhibited his calligraphy at the annual International Shodo Exhibition in Japan since 1988, where he’s won numerous awards. His articles and artwork have been featured in a variety of Japanese and American magazines and newspapers, including Yoga Journal, the Hokubei Mainichi, the Nichibei Times, Furyu, and Karate-Kung Fu Illustrated.

He offers instruction in orthodox Japanese calligraphy, with some lessons that overlap with traditional ink painting. The lessons are presented in a predetermined series that optimizes learning efficiency. Students of shodo can expect to realize deeper concentration, calmness, and willpower as byproducts of studying this very old art form.

Meditation
Shin-shin-toitsu-do was created by Nakamura Tempu Sensei in the early 1900s. It combines his training in Indian yoga and meditation with Japanese approaches to meditation to arrive at something entirely new and distinctive—an art featuring several methods of seated and moving meditation to help us realize our full potential in a wide variety of subjects. The emphasis is on unification of mind and body, a quality indispensable for producing high caliber art. As “proof” of the effectiveness of mind and body unification, after founding Shin-shin-toitsu-do, Nakamura Sensei began creating singular calligraphy and painting that’s valued by collectors even now.

Davey Sensei began studying meditation via Shin-shin-toitsu-do in childhood, and his practice continues to this day. His training in Japan and the USA has taken place under several top students of Nakamura Sensei, and Davey Sensei’s book on this subject, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation, has been acclaimed in Japanese, European, and American reviews. Students of Shin-shin-toitsu-do report improvements in physical health, mental attitude, and ability to relax under pressure.

Integrated Shodo & Meditation
In 1981, Davey Sensei founded a dojo (training hall) called the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, to offer instruction in the Japanese yoga and meditation comprising Shin-shin-toitsu-do. In 1993, he inaugurated a new program: Integrated Shodo & Meditation. And in 1999, he authored Brush Meditation: A Japanese Way to Mind & Body Harmony to explain his unique method that combines seated meditation, moving meditation, and classical Japanese calligraphy.

If you’re interested in developing greater calmness, concentration, and willpower, the Sennin Foundation’s Integrated Shodo & Meditation program is an effective way of accomplishing these goals. Combining private and group instruction in Shin-shin-toitsu-do and shodo, it offers participants a path to see deeply into their true nature and that of the universe. Meditation develops and reveals the ultimate nature of the mind, while the invisible character of the mind is seen in the ebony ink of the calligrapher’s brush. This ongoing process of training the mind through meditation, and unveiling the mind through shodo, can result in profound realizations into our own nature and that of life.

Despite the serious nature of this program, students enjoy the aesthetic creation of Japanese calligraphy and ink painting, while they have fun practicing mind and body coordination exercises and meditation. Training is conducted in a traditional Japanese atmosphere and an environment that also encourages laughter, positive attitudes, and enjoyment of Asian art.


For more information about the Sennin Foundation Center's Integrated Shodo & Meditation program:



The Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts


1053 San Pablo Ave.


Albany, CA 94706


USA

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