Ikebana Quotes

In Japan, a number of time-honored everyday activities (such as making tea, arranging flowers, and writing) have traditionally been deeply examined by their proponents. Students study how to make tea, perform martial arts, or write with a brush in the most skillful way possible to express themselves with maximum efficiency and minimum strain. Through this efficient, adroit, and creative performance, they arrive at art. But if they continue to delve even more deeply into their art, they discover principles that are truly universal, principles relating to life itself. Then, the art of brush writing becomes shodo—the “Way of the brush”—while the art of arranging flowers is elevated to the status of kado—the “Way of flowers.” Through these Ways or Do forms, the Japanese have sought to realize the Way of living itself. They have approached the universal through the particular.

He stopped, pausing to arrange his words like an ikebana expert with his flowers, shifting, bending, adding, and taking away to achieve the results he desired.

A person who enjoys looking at twisted plants or bamboo might as well just be proud of having a hunchbacked lover or lame husband.

All Japanese art forms, such as chado (the tea-ceremony), ikebana (flower arranging), shodo (calligraphy) and even martial arts are greatly influenced by the unique Zen philosophy, while the art forms themselves were transformed by Zen into a spiritual discipline focused on calmness, simplicity, and self-growth. In Japan, there is a tradition of studying art not only for art’s sake but also for spiritual purposes and when this is practised with Zen principles in mind, art can be a peaceful journey and a way of self-cultivation – leading to calmness, serenity and concentration.

The Personal Job Advertisement These two activities are likely to have encouraged some clearer ideas about genuine career possibilities, but you should not assume that you are necessarily the best judge of what might offer you fulfilment. Writing a Personal Job Advertisement allows you to seek the advice of other people. The concept behind this task is the opposite of a standard career search: imagine that newspapers didn’t advertise jobs, but rather advertised people who were looking for jobs. You do it in two steps. First, write a half-page job advertisement that tells the world who you are and what you care about in life. Put down your talents (e.g. you speak Mongolian, can play the bass guitar), your passions (e.g. ikebana, scuba diving), and the core values and causes you believe in (e.g. wildlife preservation, women’s rights). Include your personal qualities (e.g. you are quick-witted, impatient, lacking self-confidence). And record anything else that is important to you – a minimum salary or that you want to work abroad. Make sure you don’t include any particular job you are keen on, or your educational qualifications or career background. Keep it at the level of underlying motivations and interests. Here comes the intriguing part. Make a list of ten people you know from different walks of life and who have a range of careers – maybe a policeman uncle or a cartoonist friend – and email them your Personal Job Advertisement, asking them to recommend two or three careers that might fit with what you have written. Tell them to be specific – for example, not replying ‘you should work with children’ but ‘you should do charity work with street kids in Rio de Janeiro’. You will probably end up with an eclectic list of careers, many of which you would never have thought of yourself. The purpose is not only to give you surprising ideas for future careers, but also to help you see your many possible selves. After doing these three activities, and having explored the various dimensions of meaning, you should feel more confident about making a list of potential careers that offer the promise of meaningful work. What should you do next? Certainly not begin sending out your CV. Rather, as the following chapter explains, the key to finding a fulfilling career is to experiment with these possibilities in that rather frightening place called the real world. It’s time to take a ‘radical sabbatical’.

unique toilet ikebanas.

I had the feeling that all the “still lifes,” the ikebanas, the “installations”—even the simple window decoration of a cheap Ikea vase housing an inspired two-guilder Xeno “shipwreck”—bore witness to the inhabitants’ subconscious fear of evanescence.

You, *Doctor Hiroguchi,” she went on, “think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you’re scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?

Do you understand Ikebana?" she asked in a soft voice.

We entered the Takashimaya department store through the basement level, and my eyes were joyfully assaulted by the sight of an epic number of beautiful food stalls lining the store aisles. "This is called a depachika- a Japanese food hall." The depachika was like the Ikebana Café with all its different food types, but times a zillion, with confectionaries selling chocolates and cakes and sweets that looked like dumplings, and food counters offering dazzling displays of seafood, meats, salads, candies, and juices. There was even a grocery store, with exquisite-looking fruit individually wrapped and cushioned, flawless in appearance. The workers in each stall wore different uniforms, some with matching hats, and they called out "Konichiwa!" to passersby. I loved watching each counter's workers delicately wrap the purchases and hand them over to customers as if presenting a gift rather than just, say, a sandwich or a chocolate treat. As I marveled at the display cases of sweets- with so many varieties of chocolates, cakes, and candies- Imogen said, "The traditional Japanese sweets are called wagashi, which is stuff like mochi- rice flour cakes filled with sweet pastes- and jellied candies that look more like works of art than something you'd actually eat, and cookies that look gorgeous but usually taste bland." "The cookie tins are so beautiful!" I marveled, admiring a case of tins with prints so intricate they looked like they could double as designer handbags.