In this thought I’m reminded of Norman Fischer’s thoughts about the one-stroke paintings of Kazuaki Tanahashi (or Kaz). Fischer wrote in an essay in Experience:
Here birth and death tip the balance of my time all the time. The sense of art as dangerous is secured here, yet art doesn’t need to be so significant. Compared to anything.
I’m also reminded of what Sir William once said during a conversation we had while waiting for the bus to PHSA. When I said that my relationship with Lea works because it allows me to write, he simply said, “writing isn’t everything.” In the preface to the Kyōgyōshinshō written by D. T. Suzuki, he translated a line that is often referred to nembutsu as a practice into a line that refers to it as life or living.
What I understand about writing from these related ideas is that writing shouldn’t be a struggle. It shouldn’t take precedence from all else. It shouldn’t be special. Its action should emerge naturally from daily life.
Instead of leaning into an artistic calling, lean into a religious calling, which is to say, to live life itself. I feel like here lies the shedding of any struggle often associated with an artistic life. How I see this happening is in my daily studies—my daily walks in the talahardin and outdoors where I continue to engage with ideas and language as life happens.