Week 8 - Calligraphy, Seal Engraving & Zazen

久しぶり！ (Hisashiburi : Long time no see!)

Hey everyone, sorry for the long time since last message... I had been very busy with school & cultural activities! Here is what I did two weeks ago ;)

Week 8 : Calligraphy, Seal Engraving & Zazen (Seated Meditation)

Lot of activities on week 8! First of all we started with the Calligraphy and Seal Engraving at the International Salon of Kanazawa. I loved it! This is not as easy as just painting some lines. Calligraphy is really an art and you need a lot of practice to be able to paint a nice Kanji with the correct stroke orders, dimensions, spaces and lengths. Anyway with my beginner skills I had been able to draw some nice Kanji's that I could take with me at the end of the session. After the calligraphy we had the chance to create and engrave our own "Kanji" Seal in a stone.

The seal engraving designed our seals and we had to engrave it with some nice tools. Engraving in a stone is not an easy thing and you need to be strong but precise so you get nice lines. At the end of the engraving session we had to seal all our previously drawn calligraphy kanjis. Our favorite calligraphy has also been displayed in our school so everyone could enjoy them.

The next day we had the chance to go to a Temple where we could "learn" how to meditate. This meditation session (30 min) is called Zazen which means seated meditation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen). This meditation session was very interesting. Meditation is not easy and specially when sitting in a Lotus or Half-Lotus position. The Lotus positions consists of having the legs crossed in front of you. Half Lotus in only the left foot on the right one. Then you need to have you back perfectly straight. You have to keep your hand in front of you in a Cosmic Mudra position. Finally you have to have the eyes half opened half closed and look in front of you at an angle of 45°. Then meditate! Actually meditation is the art of not concentrating on any particular objet. You have to avoid to try to control your thoughts.

In this position and with a slow breathing you should automatically start to meditate. The essential thing is, by neither falling into distraction (thinking) nor dullness (drowsiness) to let zazen sit zazen (Actually this sentence is not from me but from the Zazen pamphlet).

This is all for this very interesting week! Here are the pictures...