The Japanese Arts and Meditation-in-Action

The Japanese arts (dō) provide a rigorous, ritual-like set of structures which involve moral and aesthetic training, as well as providing techniques for body-mind synchronization (constituting as such: meditation-in-action). The article explores the links between the Japanese arts and Zen Buddhist i...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wiseman, Harris (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2022
In: Zygon
Year: 2022, Volume: 57, Issue: 3, Pages: 744-771
Further subjects:B Craft
B shugyō
B
B Mindfulness
B kyudō
B sōtō zen
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The Japanese arts (dō) provide a rigorous, ritual-like set of structures which involve moral and aesthetic training, as well as providing techniques for body-mind synchronization (constituting as such: meditation-in-action). The article explores the links between the Japanese arts and Zen Buddhist ideals (particularly Sōtō Zen) of enlightenment being nothing other than the consistent practice of one's art. Japanese archery (kyudō) will be highlighted to illustrate this, as will the Japanese lifelong learning philosophy (shugyō). The article concludes by bringing into contrast two very different notions of what spiritual development consists in, one of which is highly conservative with respect to its traditions (per the Japanese arts), and the other which explicitly characterizes spiritual development as a process of renewing one's tradition as one practices it (per Margaret Masterman and Richard Sennett). It is suggested that, for better or worse, maintaining the extreme purity of one's practices is unrealistic in today's profoundly interconnected world.
ISSN:1467-9744
Contains:Enthalten in: Zygon
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12806