{"id":323,"date":"2020-04-04T23:32:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T23:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/?p=323"},"modified":"2020-11-13T07:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T07:02:04","slug":"understanding-zen-through-the-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/understanding-zen-through-the-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Zen Through The Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='full_slider_1'  class='avia-fullwidth-slider main_color avia-shadow   avia-builder-el-0  el_before_av_section  avia-builder-el-first   container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><div   data-size='featured'  data-lightbox_size='large'  data-animation='slide'  data-conditional_play=''  data-ids='352'  data-video_counter='0'  data-autoplay='false'  data-bg_slider='false'  data-slide_height=''  data-handle='av_slideshow_full'  data-interval='5'  data-class=' '  data-el_id=''  data-css_id=''  data-scroll_down=''  data-control_layout='av-control-hidden'  data-custom_markup=''  data-perma_caption=''  data-autoplay_stopper=''  data-image_attachment=''  data-min_height='0px'  data-src=''  data-position='top left'  data-repeat='no-repeat'  data-attach='scroll'  data-stretch=''  data-default-height='28.666666666667'  class='avia-slideshow avia-slideshow-1  av-control-hidden av-default-height-applied avia-slideshow-featured av_slideshow_full   avia-slide-slider '  itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" ><ul class='avia-slideshow-inner ' style='padding-bottom: 35.953177257525%;' ><li  class=' av-single-slide slide-1 ' ><div data-rel='slideshow-1' class='avia-slide-wrap '   ><img src='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/3-Wave-Pattern-Bowl-Metropolitan-Museum-of-Artc2-1196x430.jpg' width='1196' height='430' title='' alt='3 Wave Pattern Bowl Metropolitan Museum of Art'  itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\"   \/><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n<div id='av_section_1'  class='avia-section main_color avia-section-small avia-no-border-styling  avia-bg-style-scroll  avia-builder-el-1  el_after_av_slideshow_full  el_before_av_section   container_wrap sidebar_right' style='background-color: rgba(10,90,130,0.19);  '  ><div class='container' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-small alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-323'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div  style='padding-bottom:0px; margin:0 0 0 0; ' class='av-special-heading av-special-heading-h1  blockquote modern-quote modern-centered  avia-builder-el-2  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  '><h1 class='av-special-heading-tag '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Understanding Zen Through The Arts<\/h1><div class='special-heading-border'><div class='special-heading-inner-border' ><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><!-- close content main div --><\/div><\/div><div id='av_section_2'  class='avia-section main_color avia-section-small avia-no-border-styling  avia-bg-style-scroll  avia-builder-el-3  el_after_av_section  avia-builder-el-last   container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><div class='container' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-small alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-323'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_three_fourth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-4  el_before_av_one_fourth  avia-builder-el-first  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p>READING TIME: 2 MINUTES.<\/p>\n<p>The image of the sea and ocean waves can be seen on various forms of Japanese art: ukiyo-e paintings, kimono and other textile patterns, pottery etc. Considering that Japan is an island and the sea plays an important role in the lives of its inhabitants, this is hardly surprising. What many do not know however, is that there is a deeper, spiritual meaning that the pattern represents &#8211; Zen Buddhism\u2019s concept of Ku or emptiness.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_324\" style=\"width: 384px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-324\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-324\" src=\"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Wave-bowl.jpg\" alt=\"Wave Pattern Bowl, The Metropolitan Museum of Art\" width=\"374\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Wave-bowl.jpg 397w, https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Wave-bowl-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 374px) 100vw, 374px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-324\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wave Pattern Bowl, The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Ku<\/em> refers to the essence of the Universe, the infinite, eternal and empty of form energy, from which all material forms arise. You may call that God, the Creator or Source &#8211; whatever term speaks to you. Just like a wave rises from the endless see and then merges back with it, so do we and everything in our material world will eventually return and merge back with the endless energy of the Creator.<\/p>\n<p>To me what makes esoteric teaching like Zen so difficult to understand sometimes, is that they were never meant to be intellectually understood to begin with. They were rather meant to be experienced, to be <em>seen<\/em>. Once you have the experience, the words begin to make perfect sense. The waves in the sea allegory gives us such an experience of the esoteric concept. One has to admire how powerful art is as a medium of both expression and of experience of spiritual ideas. Being so experiential, it speaks from and directly to the soul.<\/p>\n<p>Did the artist who made the bowl above know the spiritual meaning of what they were painting? We can\u2019t know but there must have been something of the eternal that touched them, to make them want to freeze this brief moment of form in the sea of formlessness, and paint it on their piece.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><div class=\"flex_column av_one_fourth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding   avia-builder-el-6  el_after_av_three_fourth  avia-builder-el-last  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><div  class='avia-builder-widget-area clearfix  avia-builder-el-7  avia-builder-el-no-sibling '><section id=\"archives-3\" class=\"widget clearfix widget_archive\"><h3 class=\"widgettitle\">Archives<\/h3>\n\t\t\t<ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2025\/05\/'>May 2025<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2024\/08\/'>August 2024<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2023\/05\/'>May 2023<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2022\/07\/'>July 2022<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2021\/09\/'>September 2021<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2021\/03\/'>March 2021<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2021\/02\/'>February 2021<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2021\/01\/'>January 2021<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2020\/09\/'>September 2020<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2020\/08\/'>August 2020<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2020\/07\/'>July 2020<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2020\/06\/'>June 2020<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2020\/05\/'>May 2020<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li><a href='https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/2020\/04\/'>April 2020<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\n\t\t\t<span class=\"seperator extralight-border\"><\/span><\/section><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><!-- close content main div --><\/div><\/div><div id='after_section_2'  class='main_color av_default_container_wrap container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><div class='container' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-small alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-323'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The image of the sea and ocean waves can be seen on various forms of Japanese art: ukiyo-e paintings, kimono and other textile patterns, pottery etc. What many do not know however, is that there is a deeper, spiritual meaning that the pattern represents &#8211; Zen Buddhism\u2019s concept of Ku or emptiness&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritofjapantours.com\/staging\/8667\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}