Art Comes from Your Heart

[PureInsight.org] I had been thinking about engraving one of Master Li's poems in Hong Yin on a piece of bamboo when I found a thick and long bamboo stick on the beach. It looked like an old friend who had been waiting for me. I reverently cut the bamboo into segments. I counted the segments and there were 13 of them. Westerners do not like the number 13. But the Chinese people think of the number differently. According to a famous book of prophecy titled Ke Yian Yi Lu (格庵遺錄), number 13 is a positive symmetrical number in the 72 Palaces of the "Book of Changes." In history, there is also the famous story of "13 Buddhist monks, each with a club at hand, protecting Emperor Taizhong of Tang Dynasty." So I decided to keep all 13 segments. I decided to do a series of calligraphy works on bamboo. On each bamboo segment, I put a different number of Chinese characters. Some have two characters, while others have three or four. I then read both Hong Yin and Hong Yin II. When I read "Plum Blossoms," I decide to use the poem for my engraving.

I counted the poem and there are 42 characters in the poem. At the end of the poem, Master Li had signed it with a note that has a total of 11 characters. I also decided to add 1 character as my signature stamp. So all together there is a total of 54 Chinese characters. I decided to use a circle as my signature stamp design. It represents emptiness in Buddhism. As far as the typeface, I remembered what Master Li had said about the cursive style in "Teaching the Fa at the Discussion on Creating Fine Art." So I decided not to use it. Instead, I combined the calligraphy style of regular script, Wei tablet inscription and the official script together in my engraving. I wanted the characters to yield the meaning of Master's poem "Plum Blossoms." To me, the changes in the structure of the characters are of secondary importance.

"Like pure lotuses in the muddy world – millions and billions of plum blossoms
In the bitter wind, looking more lovely
[…]
Be steadfast in righteous thought
From the ancient to the present
Just for this moment"
(From "Plum Blossoms" in Hongyin II, provisional translation subject to further improvement.)

Whenever I read the lines, I had the feeling that is hard to describe. I treated every character as a picture. From the perspective of shape and meaning of the characters, I tried to complete the calligraphy as a cultivator in the Fa rectification period without pursuit and with righteous thoughts. When I wrote the character "present" in the sentence "from ancient to the present," my heart was crying. The top part of the character "present" (今) is the word root for "person" (人). The bottom part is a dot and a crooked line. I couldn't help thinking that today people have become so twisted and always talk in a roundabout way.... I intentionally staggered things so that the words "steadfast in righteous thought" would stand out from other characters. The character "steadfast" (堅) appeared as firm as rock because I used the style of the Small Seal to write the character. The character "righteous" (正) bore a pyramid shape. I wrote the word root for "person" (人) and the word root for "heart" (心) in the character for "thought" (念) very steadily. When I wrote down the characters, I did not write them on paper and then copy them to the bamboo. I just wrote the characters lightly on the bamboo using pencil, and then engraved them on the bamboo immediately afterwards. When I looked at the finished work, I thought it had turned out very well. It turned out better than what I normally could have done after spending a lot of effort on it. I felt that it was because my heart was very pure like a kid when I wrote the characters. Once again I experienced the joy of not having any attachment in the heart. After I finished it, I felt as if I was seeing Master Li doing the Lotus Flower Palm. I also felt that I heard the Dafa music….It seems that the poem was trying to tell me something. Tears filled my eyes. Once again, I felt the sacredness of Dafa and the mercy of our master.

The bamboo was several years old. It had experienced wind and rain for a long time. It had also been soaked in seawater. There were small seashells inside of it. It also bore scars from burning. The bamboo had the experience of going through all the vicissitudes of life. It is not easy being a human. It is also true for that piece of bamboo. I felt that it was a gift for me from the heaven. At that moment I remembered a line from one of Master Li's poems, "brushing off the dust to see the weak points and strong points." The line opened the door of wisdom for me, and helped me understand the meaning of "real art is from heaven." A beautiful piece of calligraphy doesn't come from one's hands. It comes from the heart. Generations after generations of artists think that diligent practical training is the most important thing to be a great artist. I think it is very wrong. Seeing a piece of art is the same thing as seeing the artist himself. No wonder sages will know everything about the person by looking at his handwriting.

Su Dongpo, a famous writer, poet, artist, calligraphy and statesman of the Song Dynasty, said, "Art comes from your heart. A true artist is never alone." He was very gifted and is extremely famous. Not too many people know that he actually he was a very reverent cultivator. He understood the relationship between being a human and creating art. There are many famous artists today who spend a lot of efforts on utilizing the correct technique, tools, and material. There is a saying, "A craftsman must sharpen his tools before he is capable of delivering quality work" It is a true statement for human beings. But once one goes to a higher level, the situation is different.

Why did I use bamboo to do my engraving? It is also acceptable to use regular wood to do the engraving. I chose bamboo because of its unique character. There is a Chinese saying to describe bamboo, "It has pride even before it breaks out of the ground. It is filled with modesty when it is high enough to reach the clouds." That is why so many Chinese artists have praised and painted bamboo. It is different to find any wooden material that has bamboo's hardness and endurance.

A number of practitioners participated in the process of cleaning the bamboo, engraving the characters and polishing the finished work while doing the "Three Things" that Master has asked us to do. We would like to humbly present the finished work to our great and merciful Master.

Translated From http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2006/1/9/35261.html