So many thoughts about this, I don't know where to start. I'm very interested in that Ivan Morris quote, as well as "moral cultivation." I did piano, Japanese dance, tea ceremony, calligraphy, cooking, sewing...and was nagged at to read, read, read. I never thought of any of this as "moral cultivation" but I have to admit I get strange reactions from Japanese when I tell them that I'm very familiar with nagauta shamisen pieces because of dance, for example. It seems to telegraph something that I don't mean to telegraph, basically. But none of it was in a competitive vein, it was extremely laid-back and I was pretty terrible at calligraphy! I just took a refresher course and I am still bad!
This is fascinating. You are really helping me understand this book better, thank you so much! And I’ll be listening to this playlist as I write today!
I'm wondering if the strong aesthetic-ethical practice partially explains the wonder of Hagoromo, "Doubt is for mortals. In heaven there is no deceit." Aesthetic practice and training as a means of refining the tendency to cling (to ego, self, oneupmanship)so that the clarity learned through aesthetic practice is thus engaged with samadhi (grounded rather than transcended) and nirvana.
Thought-provoking! Picasso also comes to mind. Although I never read about his personal life with women, I have friends whose feelings about their appreciation of his work became as fractured after they learned of it as the portraits themselves show as fractured. An artist friend, a man (whose allegiance as a painter was to Titian), laughed off the whole thing, "Oh, Picasso's artistic value is as an animator." And that was that! Lol!
So many thoughts about this, I don't know where to start. I'm very interested in that Ivan Morris quote, as well as "moral cultivation." I did piano, Japanese dance, tea ceremony, calligraphy, cooking, sewing...and was nagged at to read, read, read. I never thought of any of this as "moral cultivation" but I have to admit I get strange reactions from Japanese when I tell them that I'm very familiar with nagauta shamisen pieces because of dance, for example. It seems to telegraph something that I don't mean to telegraph, basically. But none of it was in a competitive vein, it was extremely laid-back and I was pretty terrible at calligraphy! I just took a refresher course and I am still bad!
This is fascinating. You are really helping me understand this book better, thank you so much! And I’ll be listening to this playlist as I write today!
I thought I might share with you this new musical piece, with lyrics inspired by The Tale of Genji. https://paulbernstein.bandcamp.com/track/yona-nuki
I'm wondering if the strong aesthetic-ethical practice partially explains the wonder of Hagoromo, "Doubt is for mortals. In heaven there is no deceit." Aesthetic practice and training as a means of refining the tendency to cling (to ego, self, oneupmanship)so that the clarity learned through aesthetic practice is thus engaged with samadhi (grounded rather than transcended) and nirvana.
Thought-provoking! Picasso also comes to mind. Although I never read about his personal life with women, I have friends whose feelings about their appreciation of his work became as fractured after they learned of it as the portraits themselves show as fractured. An artist friend, a man (whose allegiance as a painter was to Titian), laughed off the whole thing, "Oh, Picasso's artistic value is as an animator." And that was that! Lol!