平常心 heijōshin Presence of Mind

Presence of Mind in Japanese is 平常心 which is read heijōshin

平常心 (heijōshin): the ordinary mind, the composure one keeps under pressure. In a dojo it is the mind that holds steady when attacked: the composure a person keeps or loses. Presence of mind is the dictionary's gloss of that sense. Under it is the older and larger sense, the Zen one. There the ordinary mind is the Way itself, the mind before calm and agitation were ever a pair, and it needs no cultivation. That sense has its own reading, byōjōshin, and a monk answers a koan with it. Both are right, and the sword joined them. The shogun's fencing master read the koan and turned it into plain advice: do everything with the ordinary mind, and everything goes without difficulty. A person who wants composure has the modern word. A person who wants what the characters have said for twelve centuries has the Zen one. The choice is yours.

The Tang master Mazu taught that the ordinary mind is the Way. His heir Nanquan gave the same five characters, 平常心是道, to the young Zhaozhou when he asked what the Way was. That exchange is the nineteenth case of the Gateless Barrier. It came to the sword when Yagyū Munenori, the shogun's fencing master, quoted the koan. He turned it into plain Japanese for the archer and the swordsman. Do everything with the ordinary mind, and everything goes without difficulty.

The Japanese word heijōshin meaning "Presence of Mind" is composed of the kanji 平 (read hei) meaning "peaceful; even", 常 (read jō) meaning "normal, ordinary" and 心 (read shin) meaning "mind, heart, spirit".

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 平常心.

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The scrolls are 12 1/4" W × 43" H (31 × 109 cm) with real silk borders and Japanese paper that are layered so the scroll hangs straight and will not warp over time. The scrolls themselves are made by Sankō (株式会社三幸) in Gifu prefecture, which has been making high quality scrolls since 1947, and we have worked with Sankō for over two decades.

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds the rank of Shihan, the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy, from the Bokuteki-kai and the Bunka-shodo. About Master Takase