The One Taste of Truth

 MEMOIR,  Donna Watson,  cold wax, oil paints, collage, scroll

NOTE:  4 day workshop:  PERSONAL EXPRESSION:  A DESIGN APPROACH.  SEPT. 14-17

INSTRUCTOR:  Donna Watson.  At Matzke Fine Art Gallery, on beautiful Camano Island, WA.

For more information contact Karla Matzke at:  matzke@camano.net OR 360-387-2759.

(All mediums and all styles of painting are welcome as this workshop delves into each unique, creative participant as they find their way along their artistic journey.)

The tea ceremony incorporates the mindfulness, quiet and simplicity required for Zen study and meditation.   Most important in both is the awareness that each and every moment in unique, and is to be valued and savored.  

Over the centuries that both Zen and Tea evolved, literature developed in the forms of poems, phrases, fragments of Zen stories, and concepts.

THE BOOK OF TEA,  collage by Donna Watson

Displayed on hanging scrolls in the alcove (tokonoma)  of temples, homes or tea rooms, these phrases or fragments, or quotes provided contemplation that would encourage the right feeling for the drinking of tea or meditation.

TOKONOMA or small alcove, image source:  bonsaisur.mejorforo.net  

There are hundreds of these phrases or ichigyomomo - in Japanese - written on these scrolls.

They allow free and easy wandering among the ideas and emotions that the words on the scrolls suggest.  When one is drinking tea, one can read the phrases or poems, and contemplate the meanings of the words on the scroll.

Small scrolls created by Donna Watson

One of the most famous tea masters, Sen no Rikyu, called the scroll the most important implement of Tea.

Seth Apter,  wonderful blog here.

It is quiet and tranquil, empty and at rest.

It stands on its own, and cannot be altered;

Manifests itself in all things, and is never idle.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, about the ungraspable

OLD SCROLL,  by Donna Watson,  cold wax, oil paints, collage, scroll

The body is like a bodhi tree;

The mind is like a standing mirror.

Always try to wipe it clean;

Do not let it gather dust.

Shen-hsiu

ANCIENT SCROLL - detail,  by Donna Watson, acrylic, collage, stone

MU:  "emptiness" is no doubt the best-known character in Zen literature and calligraphy and found on many scrolls.  When one empties one mind while drinking tea or meditating, one's mind opens up to new ideas, and possibilities which can lead to creativity.