From Mushin:
If we use only language to explore Zen practice we confine ourselves to words. But Zen practice points us towards who we are and how this life is unfolding outside of words and letters. This is the framework for what we are now opening up in this spring creative modalities ango. There are traditional Zen Arts such as calligraphy, flower arranging, tea ceremony. But during this ango we’ll spring into the modern art forms that we engage in our culture to bring a fresh, non-verbal instruction to our practice at SJZC.
Through the sense gates we experience life. By bringing together art and zen we’ll be encouraged in an agility of mind and heart, not necessarily to create a product, but to encourage a wide and experimental attitude. We’ll challenge fixed views about creativity and light up our habits of reaching for something other than the life we already have. “Creative” reaches way beyond any “product”, is the heart of all living energies. And the creative eye is not separate from the Dharma eye. We can open to many more ways that we touch direct experience, not only through words, but also sound, image, imagination, and play.