Kobara Ranseki--Part Two

Saying Goodbye
At the beginning of 2005, the members of the Wanto Shodo Kai presented a calligraphy exhibition in San Francisco in honor of Kobara Sensei’s many years of teaching in Oakland. He and I demonstrated shodo together for the public, much as we had on many different occasions over the years. The event was a resounding success, and Sensei was frail but joyful.

Later in 2005, he gave what would be his last speech at the International Shodo Exhibition in Urayasu, where he was acknowledged by some of Japan’s top shodo artists for his contributions to shodo and this annual exhibition. He happily told me how he visited many of his favorite places, and after a long search, he found a restaurant serving a particular kind of abalone, his favorite food. And he saw a number of relatives that he hadn’t had direct contact with in numerous years. I think he knew this was his last trip back to his former home.

Shortly after Sensei received the Order of the Rising Sun, we held an end of the year party for Kobara Sensei and Wanto Shodo Kai members. I sat with him and his wife. Sensei softly said he was very happy, but that it was hard for him to breathe. He radiated contentment at the close of the event, when he bid goodbye to many of his students.

Not long after the party, I spent the holidays in Hawaii with my wife’s family. Just after Christmas, I got a phone call from Kobara Kazuko telling me that her husband was hospitalized in intensive care. I immediately phoned some of his other senior students. I returned to California, but before our plane landed, Kobara Sensei passed away.

On January 6, 2006, I carried his casket, along with his family members, into the Buddhist Church of San Francisco. Sensei was famous throughout the Japanese community in Northern California for his preservation of traditional Japanese culture, and the outpouring of grief was massive. Nearly 500 people crammed into the church.

After the tolling of the temple bell, I offered incense with his family before his open coffin. The funeral was attended by the Consul General of Japan, the Urasenke Tea Ceremony Tanko-kai of San Francisco, the Japan Club of the Bay Area, the San Francisco Shimane Prefecture Residents Association, the San Francisco Buddhist Women’s Association, and the Buddhist Church of San Francisco. Telegrams and faxes flooded the Kobara home, several of which were read at the funeral service, including condolences from the current and past Headmasters of Urasenke tea ceremony and the Chief Director of the Kokusai Shodo Bunk Koryu Kyokai. A large number of people, who’d never studied tea ceremony or shodo with Kobara Sensei, spoke him as being their teacher . . . their sensei for life.

They spoke of his deep compassion and patience. One mourner told me that whenever he saw Kobara Sensei walking toward him, he saw his beaming smile and felt a palpable wave of benevolent warmth rush over him. I told him that I’d felt it too . . . many times and in many different ways. In a sense, Sensei’s kindness was not only the hallmark of his teaching style; it was the very foundation of his life.

After the closing address, it took a long time for hundreds of mourners to file past the casket and pay their final respects. When they were done, his relatives and I bore Kobara Sensei’s casket to a waiting hearse.

On January 9, Sensei’s family and I again acted as pallbearers as we carried his coffin into a crematorium in Colma. Far fewer people were present—just myself, his wife, his children as well as their spouses, and Kobara Sensei’s grandchildren. Around 10 of us were there, along with two Buddhist priests. Before the cremation, I bowed before my teacher’s body for the last time. Kobara Sensei had been my friend, supporter, and teacher for 20 years.

After the cremation service, his wife took us to the graveyard where her husband’s ashes would reside—the same tiny cemetery in Colma where his artistic skill was first recognized over 50 years ago. His daughter Rumi rode in my car, and as we pulled into the parking lot, she asked, “Can you see Daddy’s calligraphy?”

We walked to the Kobara plot, with tall tombstones surrounding us, and it seemed like the majority of them were filled with Kobara Sensei’s singular calligraphy. As my teacher’s body was leaving this world, I felt that I was walking through a vast forest of his art.

The Legacy of Kobara Ranseki Sensei
Once Sensei’s funeral was over, I took a long motorcycle ride down the Pacific Coast Highway to Southern California. Being alone and silent on my bike, I reflected on Kobara Sensei and his artistry.

I’ve described Sensei’s unique style of calligraphy to others as being “elegant,” “graceful,” or “refined.” It’s all of these things, but alone in the wind I realized it was something more. The most distinctive quality of Kobara Sensei’s artwork—the tree from which all other branches of its beauty arises—is compassion. In short, Kobara Sensei’s calligraphy looks the way it does because of the deep well of kindness that he developed over the course of his life, and his artwork was an expression of this. Kobara Sensei and his art had become one.

After Kobara Sensei’s passing, he was given the posthumous Buddhist name Chiko. It means “Light of Wisdom,” and I like to think the appellation was inspired by the name Chiei, “Eternal Wisdom.” It was, after all, Chiei’s calligraphy that Kobara Sensei studied for over 50 years.

And while Sensei expressed his wisdom verbally and directly in his teaching of shodo, his deepest teachings were nonverbal. Whenever I studied with him, I felt uplifted, not by what he said, but by his very presence. He developed a way of teaching that embraced and encouraged those around him . . . without the need for words. It is an uncommon and unteachable gift, and its expression in ink is Kobara Ranseki Sensei’s true legacy. What’s more, it is a legacy I’ve pledged to preserve.

Not long after I received the name Hiseki from Sensei, we were sitting alone in his home in San Francisco. He told me that he thought I had the ability and motivation to perpetuate his form of shodo after he was gone, and he asked me if I’d do him this favor. I assured him that I would, and this article is just a first step in that direction.

In the autumn of 2006, Stone Bridge Press and I will release The Japanese Way of the Artist detailing the aesthetic and meditative principles that underline all Japanese art, with an emphasis on Japanese calligraphy and flower arrangement (http://www.japanesewayoftheartist.blogspot.com/). Of course, I also plan on continuing my program that integrates meditation and shodo at the Sennin Foundation Center (http://www.senninfoundation.blogspot.com/). Finally, I hope to further discover within myself the deep tenderness and kindness that Kobara Ranseki Sensei showered upon me for over 20 years.