Block · kaisho 楷書 · VB5C
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.
不知最親切
fuchi mottomo shinsetsu
Not Knowing is Most Intimate
Not knowing is most intimate: a Zen master's answer to a young monk who had just said I don't know.
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.
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Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
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Explanation
不知最親切 says that not knowing is the closest thing of all. Banshō, whose commentary carries the koan, reads its verse both ways: the not-knowing is reached only by shedding every last thread, and yet the not-knowing at the end is like the one at the start. He also warns that people who hear the line and settle on just don't know have missed it. 親切 here keeps its older sense, close and right on the point, not today's kind. We read it as said to a young man who had just admitted he did not know, telling him that this not-knowing was where he stood closest.
The line is the master 桂琛's reply to the young monk 法眼文益, who, asked on his pilgrimage what the pilgrimage was about, had said he did not know; the exchange was first written up, in the canon as searched, with 法眼 waking at the line, in the 景德傳燈錄 of 1004, about fifty years after 法眼's death in 958.
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 不知最親切.
