I have brushed this enso circle in the Zen tradition. After grinding a larger quantity of ink and doing sitting meditation for a while, the mind had become calm. I filled the brush with the deep black sumi and raising it above my head I grasped the enso from the world of MU/Emptiness. Moving the brush slowly downwards onto the white sheet of paper I then touched the paper with the tip of the brush where I concealed the beginning of of the enso within the brush stroke. From that moment on the enso circle came into existence, expanding slowly from the left, then upwards to the right, then downwards back to the left, and disappearing again into Emptiness. No Beginning, No End.
Then for a while I remained sitting in front of this circle and this thought popped up …
What is This?
One of the Chinese poets I like best, the Taoist/Zen poet Han-shan (“Cold Mountain”) said it masterfully in his poem:
My mind is like the autumn moon
Shining bright and pure in an emerald lake
With nothing to be compared to
Show me how to say it.
(My own translation)
He wrote this poem twelve-hundred years ago and still he pictured this very same mind that is shining bright, now and then, and which the Zen teachings urge us to discover; our nature, the Buddha within.
How would you describe your Mind, or depict it?
Perhaps with an enso circle?
So doing you would link up with the Japanese monk Yōsō Sōi, who in the 14th century “invented” the Zen painting of the zen circle, called “ensō” in Japanese.
Perhaps the wind had brought him this phrases of the Hsin-hsin-ming (On Trusting The Mind) poem by the third Zen Patriarch Seng Ts’an (Jap.: Sōsan)
The circle is like vast emptiness
Nothing lacking,
Nothing superfluous.
A high quality print of this enso circle is available here.
Buy an Original Black and White Zen Enso Circle or Zen Enso Print
If you would like to buy an original Zen Enso painting or a high quality black and white Zen Circle print, please click on the Zen Enso circles shown below.
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Enso Circle In Black Sumi | Enso – Clinging To Nothing |
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| For Whom Do All The Flowers Bloom In Spring? |
| Japanese calligraphy home | Shodo Art Gallery | Buddhist Art Scrolls |
| Brush Painting Gallery | Kanji Art Gallery | Sutra copying |
| About the artist |