Dear Kitsune Miko:

Thank you very much for your quick response on a very difficult subject.
Please accept my highest compliments as you are the first person in my
memory who was able to address this subject knowledgeably on this forum, and
I have been a member nearly since the IBC's original inception.

However, we may disagree on the application of an open, beginner's mind. I
will argue that the Zen quality, if any. resides in the
artist/creator/discoverer and perhaps even in the viewer, but not in the
object itself. The object, be a tree, stone, painting, tea cup, etc., just
serve as a bridge, a connection between two like minded persons.
My friend Lynn Boyd often reminds me that art is a social function, and like
a team sport it requires the cooperation of the participants and agreement
upon a common basis for appreciation.

If I have a "beginner's mind" and discover a stone that elicit an emotional
and artistic impulse in me where does the Zen quality resides? And if you
look at the same stone and you are unmoved by it what happened to that Zen
quality?

Our disagreement does not spoil my elation over the fact that you know what
you are writing about. I am in the process of reviewing a bonsai book that
is touting a subtitle that relates Zen to bonsai; its author has no clue
what Zen is and his use of the term "Zen quality" is arbitrary and
capricious at best. The book remind me of the saying "Give a kid a hammer
and the whole world will look like a series of nails!"

Thank you and Gassho!

Peter Aradi
Tulsa, Oklahoma

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