You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The integration of psychoanalytic work with a lifelong practice of martial arts, Zen, and since 1990, Black-Ink Brush Paintings, has been much more than a hobby it is an avocation, for me. I want to start for the sake of self honesty with some disclaimers. I neither understand the Japanese or Chinese languages, nor am I a traditional, formally trained sumi-e brush painter. What I am going to write about and illustrate visually evolves primarily as part of martial arts training and my own particular approach to the Zen-ness of it. The understanding of the Kanji, i.e. the ancient ideogram structures, of the Japanese and Chinese language, makes it easier, if interpreted within the broad license given to so-called grass calligraphy in Chinese, which allows interpreting a letter as if it is a picture. It is possible especially if in a meditative state, to understand some of the Kanji without knowing anything formal about Chinese or Japanese. It is said in Zen that the energy of the lettering, if executed correctly (Zenga) will go directly into your mind without the intellect getting in the way with trivial riddles, and the meaning will emerge instead as an inspired thought-impulse (nen thought). For example, what does this mean? (see Figure 1).
I will try to evolve a mindset in you, the reader, created by the brushing themselves. I will show 10-12 figures and after this we will “collect” ourselves.
As I was collecting my thoughts for this work, I was also preparing for a major exhibition of my work, which has had an appeal to people with no particular interest in Zen, and certainly not in the martial arts. Those who have purchased my paintings refer to particular states of consciousness they experience. These states of consciousness intrigued me as I moved towards integration of it both in the solution of my own personal problems in the perfection of martial arts practice, and in the application to my work as a psychoanalyst. There is a co-creation here of analyst, Zen pai