Zen Art Essay

Finding One’s Completeness

From the Zen Art Book by Stephen Addiss and John Daido Loori, I’d like to compare the two pieces “Ax” and “Enso”.  Looking at both of these pieces one could find a better understand of the concept of Zen.

                In Enso, the circle represents a wholeness or completeness of one’s self. This completeness has always and will always be there, from birth to death. Zen focuses on the realization that all you need in life is your body and mind. If you attach yourself to anything more, you will find pain and suffering. The image of the circle represents the shape of one’s self. The grey/black color of the shape is the physical wall between the outside and inside of the circle. In the painting on page 51, the Enso is “broad, grey, dry and fills most of the format,” which suggests a notion of speed and energy. This speed and energy is what allows one to find freedom and ease. Freedom and ease is achieved with the realization that everything outside of the body and mind is an illusion that we should not cling to.

 The ax represents the action of removing all that is extra. If you are not one with the Dao, or if you are attached to more than just the Enso, then you will suffer. The image of the ax on page 49, is “depicted a[s] [a] jagged-edged.” I think that this characteristic represents suffering, because you will suffer when you are cutting off the excess with the dull jagged ax. The haiku in the picture says, “This ax of mine, does away with, people’s incompleteness.” This is expressing that the purpose of the ax is to remove anything that is outside of the Enso to move a person closer to the completeness.

                In a way the Enso is representing the body and emptiness in the inside is the mind. In order to achieve completeness you must forget the concept of the self. Your mind should be empty and indifferent to everything you experience. If you neither like nor dislike, then you will see the world the way that it is, true reality.  The inside of the circle must contain no-thing. Once you reach this point then you are one with the Dao.  

                If true, pure enlightenment is fully achieved at the beginning and end of life, then the entire time you are living it would make sense that you are not just complete, but that you are more than complete. Which to me is pleasant to think about, because no matter what happens to you in your life, you can rest assured that happiness can be found in life itself. Even when you are suffering, you are still living.