Cursive · sōsho 草書 · VC2B
Cursive or sōsho (草書) styles are the most simplified styles and Master Takase's favorite. While very beautiful, these styles are often difficult to read even by specialists.
無心 mushin No-Mindedness
No-mind, the mind clear of obstructing thought.
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
無心 is a mind that settles nowhere. The sword master Yagyū Munenori put it plainly: it does not mean having no mind at all. It is only the ordinary mind, and with it every stroke lands. The Zen master Takuan, writing to him, said the mind of no-mind is the original mind. The deluded mind is like ice, he wrote, while the original mind is like water and stays in no one place. Before them, the nō actor Zeami wrote of acting at the level of no-mind. A modern book on Japanese archery says no-mind is not the elimination of thought.
No-Mindedness, our title, is the form a Kenkyūsha dictionary prints for this sense, and many English books call it no-mind. The Japanese word has other lives that the English does not carry. It can mean innocence, or things that feel nothing, like grass and trees. In everyday speech it can also mean asking someone for money. The design carries only the Zen sense.
The Japanese word 無心 is composed of the kanji 無 (read mu) meaning "no; nothingness" and 心 (read shin) meaning "heart; mind; spirit".
The word is in the 莊子 three times and became a term in Guo Xiang's commentary of about 300, five centuries before the Zen masters took it up; in Japan it is in the court anthologies of 814 and 818, and the sense the design carries, the mind that stops nowhere, is the sword-Zen teaching of Takuan and Yagyū Munenori in the 1630s.
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 無心.
