Sho Brush

The selection of high quality Japanese calligraphy brushes is somewhat lacking in Waterloo it seems, so I decided to give a go at making my own. There are two types of hair used in brushes, with the badger hair being a stiffer brush (which I seem to prefer). I use a badger brush to foam up when I'm shaving, so I bought one of those brushes as a source for my bristles and then planed and drilled and glued up what you see below. It has a semi-octagonal barrel, which is my nod to the appreciation of imperfection in Japanese design. It was also a project that didn't involve any power tools, which is always a nice thing!

So far I'm pretty happy with it. The hairs are much stiffer than the ones in the cheap badger hair brush I had in my collection and the flow of ink seems to be more controllable too. Let's see how it works in the long run once it gets broken in a bit. I'm interested to see what my calligraphy teacher is going to think once she gets back from Japan!

初心 - Shoshin - Beginner's Mind

Shunryu Suzuki's collection of Zen thought was an "enlightening" read....get it...."enlightening"....


With recent years of my life spent at least partially as a teacher I found some ideas I liked a lot:


You have a teacher for yourself, not for the teacher.


There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment in every existence. That is the true teaching.


In the beginner's mind there are many possibillities; in the expert's mind there are few.


Zazen, or the practice of meditation that most people think of when they think of Zen Buddhism, is in my inexperienced and uneducated understanding a path to calmness, oneness, and enlightenment.


For me zazen is found on my bicycle.