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Encounters through Experience, Poetry & Reading
This text is written in English and spans 39 pages. To receive the full version, please feel free to get in touch with me. I'm glad to send you a PDF version.
You can find An Entry here, offering a few selected passages from the larger whole.
The Principles of Zen
They are strange things to search for, to be honest. It felt wrong at first. In a practice like Zen, you experience the principles directly; you don’t translate them into singular, coded scriptures and words that reflect only an idea, not the thing itself. It’s similar to Magrit te’s "Ceci n’est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). The reflection of the pipe is not a true resemblance of the real thing—it is not usable, smellable, or touchable. It is merely an image representing an idea.
Despite my initial doubts, I found it exciting to search for the principles, to sense how they move as a way to guide my own practice of holding space, making meaning, and existing with presence. This search is less about answers, and more about cultivating a way of being. Do they even exist? What are they? I quickly realized something I had already suspected: Every book, person, website, and school related to Zen offers a different interpretation. The principles are understood in various ways depending on the source. To me, this is one of the most beautiful aspects of Buddhism.
“The practice adapts itself towards society, time, need, and belief,” said the Buddhist at the Buddhist Institute of Schoten. “That’s also why there are so many different kinds of schools, approaches, aesthetics, and divergent interpretations of Buddhism, each shaped by the context in which they arose.”
There are similar stories and teachings throughout Buddhism, but there is no single, omnipresent text like those found in many religions. In these writings, you will find my experiences, anecdotes, theories, and excerpts from poetry and books. I aim to immerse myself in the practice and philosophy of Zen over the next four months, questioning how its principles form space, how materials interact with them, and where contradictions arise. Through this exploration, I hope to understand how this act of searching could be integrated into my art, creating spaces and objects that try to embody and practice Zen’s striving for simplicity and depth.
The opening words of the oldest Zen poem say:
The perfect Way (Tao) is without difficulty,
Save that it avoids picking and choosing.
Only when you stop liking and disliking
Will all be clearly understood.
A split hair’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart!
If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.
—Seng-ts’an, Hsin-hsin Ming (Sosan), d. 606.
Quoted in Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, p. 115.
The Characteristics of Zen
Shin’ichi Hisamatsu (1889–1980), a doctor, philosopher, and Japanese tea ceremony master, was a professor at Kyoto University. In his book Zen and the Fine Arts, he explores the aesthetics of Zen. He writes, “The seven characteristics found in every one of these examples are: Asymmetry, Simplicity, Austere Sublimity or Lofty Dryness, Naturalness, Subtle Profundity or Profound Subtlety, Freedom from Attachment, and Tranquillity (S. Hisamatsu, Zen and the Fine Arts, 1971, p.293).”
These are not to be mistaken for principles. Rather, Hisamatsu identifies characteristics that define this particular branch of Buddhism in art. At the time, art was closely linked to craft —it encompassed pottery, calligraphy, architecture, and the creation of functional objects. He carefully describes these characteristics while also questioning how they might have come into existence.
A philosophy like Zen, which demands practice, also asks how it can manifest in all aspects of human life. Hisamatsu relates this to the geographical conditions in which Zen developed and the historical context surrounding it. His clear and direct descriptions made me think of the concept of Wabi-Sabi, which he briefly mentions.
Holding Space: The Practice of Sitting
A participant asked, "Why wasn’t it mentioned explicitly on the website that we would sit all day?"
Tom Hannes replied, "Because you signed up for a Zen meditation. I thought it was obvious we would sit. What did you expect?"
I hadn’t read his books or even heard of Tom Hannes before registering for his class. I wished I could attend his future meditation sessions too, but my calendar had already decided otherwise. Hannes' way was straightforward and clear.
We were about twenty to thirty people, sitting in a large circle, preparing ourselves for a long day. After welcoming us, Hannes outlined the schedule. We would sit for sessions of twenty to twenty fi ve minutes, then stand up and slowly, slowly walk in a circle for one minute before returning to our pillows for the next session. Every few rounds, there would be time for questions. I would have l oved to ask him about the principles of Zen, but at that time, those questions had not yet formed so clearly in my mind.
He asked about our bodies: "Please let me know now if you have any complications that we need t o take into account."
Some participants mentioned they might have to change sitting positions due to hip or knee surgeries. In the corner of the room, chairs were available, and throughout the day, a few people chose to switch to one. The task was clear: we would sit together for about seven hours like a steady rock.
Hannes demonstrated the best sitting posture—spine straight, active, and awake, sitting slightly toward the front of the pillow, legs crossed so the knees could touch the floor. Some people made small adjustments, adding extra support for their pelvis or other limbs. "It’s nice to pla ce a small blanket in your lap to support your hands," he suggested. One hand resting on top of the other. The body relaxed, except for the spine—always active, reaching toward the heavens and down to t he pillow.
The posture had to be both relaxed and alert. Even though, as Hannes mentioned, the Zen master for whom he once translated a class might occasionally doze off, this was not the intention.
One thing he made very clear: "Silence is fragile. Try not to break it during our sessions. Hold in your coughs, your movements, your itching… we must bear and hold the silence together."
Though Buddhism teaches that you are free to do whatever you want, at that moment, we were not.
"Hold in your pee, your needs, your frustrations. If you really must go, do it during our walking meditation—that interrupts the flow the least."
And so it was done. The rules were clear. The day started fresh and simple, but over time, the i ntensity of sitting crept in.
The space itself? I haven't described it yet. But in truth, there’s not much to describe. It was just an open studio with high windows and a wooden floor, designed for multiple purposes —probably mostly dance. Nothing about it was designed specifically for Zen meditation, which made it perfect. I t fit seamlessly into the minimalistic and natural aesthetics of Zen related to Wabi Sabi—not controlled or manipulated, simply accepted as it was.
The real space was held among us—through our silent, present bodies. Through respect, selflessness, and, of course, the steady guidance of our teacher.
perceive without becoming attached
To see form without being tainted by form, or to hear sound without being tainted by sound, is liberation. Eyes that are not attached to form are the gates of Zen. Ears that are not attached to sound are likewise the gates of Zen. In short, those who perceive the existence and nature of phenomena without becoming attached to them are liberated.
—Bodhidharma, de oorsprong van Zen, p.75
Aesthetics: Zen and the Arts
There is a painting by the Zen monk Josetsu (c. 1405–1496) titled The Gourd and the Catfish (fig. 1). It functions like a Zen koan — a riddle or paradox used to break open fixed patterns of thinking. Koans are not solved through logic but lived through direct experience. Zen continually points to emptiness as the nature of mind. “Form is emptiness,” says the Heart Sutra. Josetsu’s painting becomes a visual meditation on that paradox — an attempt to express the formless through form.
Art historian Yukio Lippit describes the painting extensively in his essay Zen Buddhism and the Impossible Painting, clarifying Josetsu’s gesture. The image is deceptively simple: a man on the riverbank tries to catch a catfish with a gourd — a vessel far too smooth, too hollow, too absurd for the task. D.T. Suzuki adds:
“This reminds us of our useless attempt to ‘catch’Zen by means of ratiocination.”
How do you depict something that cannot be grasped or fully understood? Many critics and historians agree that this painting offers one of the most graceful attempts to explore that very question. That’s precisely why it resonates with me — I too feel as if I am trying to capture something that defies logic, something that may lie beyond our comprehension.
According to Zen scholar Yoshizawa Katsuhiro, both the catfish and the gourd are metaphors for the mind — elusive, shifting, and inherently ungraspable. The impossibility is not absurdity, but instruction.
This echoes the well-known exchange between Bodhidharma, the first Zen patriarch, and his disciple Huike:
Huike, troubled, asks Bodhidharma: “My mind is anxious. Please pacify it.” Bodhidharma responds: “Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it.” Huike searches and replies: “I cannot find it.” “There,” says Bodhidharma, “I have pacified your mind.”
— quoted in Yukio Lippit, Zen Buddhism and the Impossible Painting, 2016
In this view, the mind is neither fixed nor tangible. The moment we try to hold it, it disappears. The gourd fails to catch the catfish just as the mind cannot seize itself.
In this light, The Gourd and the Catfish is not simply a visual riddle — it is a meditation on the nature of self, perception, and space. It raises deeper questions: If the mind is always shifting, how does one hold space for it? And if Zen teaches non-attachment, what does that mean for how space is shaped, inhabited, or made present?
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