Eri's Choice · VD6B
Eri's Choice is a design that does not keep strictly to one style; it is Master Takase's own artistic choice.
本来無一物
honrai muichimotsu
By Nature, Having Nothing
From the beginning, not one thing.
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
本来無一物 (honrai muichimotsu): from the beginning, not one thing.
In 本来無一物, 本来 is how things have always stood, not where they came from, and 無一物 means not one thing. In everyday Japanese 無一物 also means having nothing to one's name. The Daijisen and the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten both gloss the five characters: since all things are empty from the beginning, there is not one thing to cling to. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten adds a mind free of everything. Its readers have had to say what it does not mean: Ōbaku, asked whether it means that nothing exists, answers that nothing is just as wrong, and Tōzan warns that saying it is not yet enough. Whether you take it as a teaching or as a reminder to let go is yours.
The line is the third of the verse that, in Chan legend, won the illiterate Huineng 惠能 the Sixth Patriarch's robe; it is absent from the oldest surviving text of the Platform Sutra, a Dunhuang manuscript that Philip Yampolsky dates by its hand to the ninth century, is quoted in Ōbaku's recorded teaching, whose preface is dated 857, stands in the verse in a Chan history of 952, and has been in the sutra's received text since 1291.
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 本来無一物.
