Zen, The Sword, The Brush and David Lynch

I have taken a break from writing for a bit so that I could do a little bit of research, reading, making art, playing music and celebrating Christmas.  But now I am back and want to spend a little time making some connections between what I have been reading and making art.  This is slightly off of the normal creative thinking topic that I normally write about, but it’s related and worth an examination.

I recently changed schools and classrooms and I share a very large space with two other teachers.  They have made a point of collecting old books that are heading for the recycle bin, particularly if they have an art slant to them.  The book I picked up is entitled Zen and Japanese Culture by Daisetz T. Suzuki published in 1973.  I have, in the past read several text about Zen, some I’ve retained, others I haven’t and this one I am hoping I retain for a while to come, this is in part why I am writing this article.  To date I have only finished the first four chapters, the nature of what Zen is and its relation to sword play.  If possible I will attempt summarize nearly three hundred pages of material into a short paragraph.  The sword is an instrument of life.  It administers justice but puts its bearer the in the position where if not executed properly will result in death.  The swordsman trains the techniques, learns them by heart, puts himself to the utmost physical challenge.  Why?  because the swordsman must get to the point where no mind is used to execute his maneuvers.  When the mind stops to rest on a thought during a fight it will hesitate, it will not flow it will think and that brief pause of thinking is enough gap for an opponent to strike one down.  Beyond just knowing the maneuvers a swordsman must learn to let go of his thoughts and allow his subconscious to make the right moves, to be aware of the body’s actions but not allow the conscious mind to control them.  To say that the swordsman needs to be fearless is not stating the situation strongly enough.  He must have no concept of death, he must be beyond life and death so as to not interrupt the subconscious mind at work.

Aside from physical training the mind needs to be trained to access the subconscious.  Practice in not thinking while employing simple daily tasks is important.  Meditation is also of great importance.  By sitting and quieting the conscious mind one reaches into the areas of the subconscious, it creates a stronger link to the waking life we live everyday.  Through this conduit one can live one’s life beyond life and death.

If we are to substitute the sword for the brush I believe we will see that the same correct actions will come about.  The arm and the hand will move in correct, precise order.  The need to make decisions will be unnecessary because the subconscious knows what to do.  But to reach this state the same physical and mental training needs to be put into action.  The artist must train, push through strain and mental hardship.  I hate to use the word hardship because it sounds cliché, however, I believe we are all aware of the suffering artist stereotype and in this situation there is a valid connection.  Exactly what manner of hardship is difficult to say.  My opinion is that the artist push their skills far beyond what they believe is capable.  She must work tirelessly on things that are difficult, challenging, incomprehensible.  Also she must lean to reach into that subconscious, to lose herself in the painting, or sculpting or whichever art  form is being executed.  I believe not only the correct actions will come about, but also new ideas, ideas that cannot be accessed in the conscious state.

David Lynch talks about this, he describes it as “The real big fish”.  The great ideas/big fish are in deep water and to get one fishing line into deep water one needs to still the shallow.  I really like this metaphor and whether you like his movies or not I think most will agree that his ideas, stories and imagery are among the finest examples of creativity in the last fifty years.  I wrote an article a while back about the graffiti artist and movement and I still believe that this connection between movement and art is there.  The graffiti artist must know his art because it is executed on a grand scale.  The movements must be correct and precise and the body must not hesitate lest the line or the fill has a hitch in it that disturbs the entire work.

I will leave you with a verbal painting, something I have been meaning to work out visually.  One rectangle on top of two squares and another rectangle below the squares.  In the top rectangle a scene from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where the two heroines are discussing the relationship between swordplay and calligraphy.  In the square to the left a graffiti artist at work, the square to the right a photo of Chinese brushes and a calligraphy workbook and in the rectangle at the bottom the following quote: “Therefore do not get your mind stopped with the sword you raise; forget what you are doing, and strike the enemy.  Do not keep your mind on the person who stands before you.  They are all of emptiness, but beware of your mind being caught up with emptiness itself.” Suzuki 1973

Not Sure Yet

So this entry is going to be a thinking entry, at present I do not exactly know what I am going to write about, however, it will be related to my most recent creative thinking work.  I set the task for myself to first investigate any apps at apple's App Store that had to do with creativity  and when that was only so-so I looked up thinking, less that so-so  The two quality apps I found were WordMpress and Ulysses.  The reason I liked Word Press is because it gives one a variety of tones, styles and whatnot to create posters and they are generally designed to fit together so that no matter what you do it will look like good design.  This being said after you make neat posters it really doesn't do much more and if you are slick enough with Photoshop one could  do it on one's own.  Ulysses intrigued me more because because it offered writers a wide variety of tools that I suspect are going on in writers heads' as they write.  One can write and you will get different prompts for word choices, definitions and research on the spot.  My impression that it allows one to multi-task without leaving one window.  Pretty slick, but I don't write and I probably will not write.  Thinking did not present much in lines of aids for thinking but the process lead to me contemplating programs like Mind Node and then another I saw later in John Medea's talk on TED where a company structure could be mapped out and one could view not only the connections between departments but also keep track of the kinds of correspondence (in electronic form) that a member of a company has with that person.

Sine this did not push my thoughts too far forward I went onto another task I set for myself and was to watch at least two talks on TED about creativity and this time keep notes hoping to find confirmation of my existing ideas, or realize new things that others are doing, thinking about or reveal.  I watched for like the fifth time Sir Ken Robinson's lecture about schools and creativity, John Madea's discussion of design, technology, art and leadership and finally Issac Mizrahi's discussion on his own creativity.  Several things came to my mind but I am only going to discuss one right here.  As I said before this is a thinking entry so what follows is unstructured but hopefully helps me reveal an idea to myself.

Movement as a creative thinking process.
The thought process started from here.  Ken Robinson discusses in a joking fashion that university professors use their bodies as transports for their heads and that these people live almost entirely in their head.  My mind started churning and I will copy verbatim what I wrote in my notebook:  Professor - head - body is only a transport   Then can we say that action should be encouraged as thinking?  If so how can we use action as a creative thinking tool?

I am going to reach back into my history and memories and recall something I heard said in a cabin at a YMCA camp.  One of the lead male councilors was discussing his love of sport and they way he described it was like this:  When a person moves, completes an action like a dunk it is perfect artistry, the manipulation of the muscles to create in time something that is both useful and beautiful   In regards to professional sport even the usefulness of it is inconsequential.  While we make take very seriously how our favorite baseball, basketball or football team does, this has little effect on matters of the world.  So in essence that dunk is art for art's sake.  It's the creation of something beautiful simply for the purpose of performing the act.

So how do we turn movement into a tool for thinking.  Personally, I have only weak ideas.  One of my drawing teachers had the class exercise before beginning a studio drawing.  Simple Qi Gong which I am not embarrassed to say worked exceptionally well.  At times I have had my own students get up and move around to get the blood flowing, hopefully to the correct part of the brain that gets them excited about work.  I've often told them to pat their heads and rub their bellies because it feels good and moves the blood around and will get them energized for drawing, painting or even just thinking.  Most the time I get rolled eyes or laughter but the occasional student will oblige.  I've never collected research on how this works.  Another instance comes from my training in Wing Chun.  I will by no means claim to be an expert in this field, but from what I have learned we are studying movement and sensitivity, as force comes in, roll away from it and into its source, as it retreats follow it towards its source, attack the center of your opponent.  I also tell my students this, sit square to your work, focus on it, always go straight for its center.  But most of what I have just written is about approach to working not thinking.

So how? I am hoping my friends who teach drama or my friends who dance can enlighten me.  My ideas are that when given a way to think and then asking the body to speak that way, the individual will be revealed new connections, ideas and can translate that to completing a thought or solving a problem or making art.  I am anxious to see what becomes.

P.s. As I was searching for the right photo for this entry the figurative lightbulb went off over my head.  I chose a photo of someone who may be myself and friend making graffiti in Beijing.  I like this photo (which maybe someone who is my girlfriend took) because when drawing on the wall, especially bit letters, movement is quite important and it is in movement that form revelas itself, not all my graffiti is planned out, I just center myself and release.  Ah here is a key.  More exploration ahead.  And while on the subject also when playing the trombone, moving the arm is an art that effects the art of sound and Yoko Ono's word piece "When one is playing the violin, which is incidental, the sound or the movement of the arm"