Enso Circle, Depicting That Which Has No Form, No Beginning And No End

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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Buy Zen Circle Print	Buy Zen Enso Print	Buy Zen Enso Painting Print


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