Block · kaisho 楷書 · VB2C
Block or kaisho (楷書) styles are the most common and recognizable styles. Block styles are easily read and are noted for their angular form and their vertical and horizontal lines.
了了知
ryōryōchi
Complete Understanding
Knowing clearly, clearly.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
Gift-Ready
Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
Sending it as a gift? Add your message at checkout and we will include it with the insert.
Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
Your scroll ships from Master Takase's studio in Washington State. Shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship worldwide.
30-day money-back guarantee
Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping.
Explanation
Knowing clearly, clearly: three characters of plain Buddhist Chinese for knowing clearly. The one sense is found in three registers, and the three characters carry all three. In the sutras it is the knowing of those who see the Buddha, and the Buddha's own knowing, complete and present. In a Tang poem it is a man's plain knowing that he is being cursed. In Zen it opens a master's line: knowing clearly, seeing clearly. The master put it at the head of a dying regent's verse in 1284, and that verse is why the line is remembered.
Complete Understanding is our English for it, a fair gloss of the literal. Doubled, 了了 means clearly. In the cursive and Design styles the second 了 is written as a repeat mark.
The three characters are an ordinary Buddhist phrase, in Chinese scripture from a translation of 179 and in a Tang poem of Hanshan's; the six-character Zen line they open, knowing clearly, seeing clearly, is known first, in the Taishō canon as SAT searches it, from the Chinese master Mugaku Sogen, who used it twice in his recorded sayings, once to open the verse he gave the regent Hōjō Tokimune at his tonsure in 1284, on the day Tokimune died.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 了了知.
