Aesthetics; Beauty; Japanese Buddhism; Misaki, Gisen
摘要
Japanese aesthetic consciousness has been influenced by Buddhism since the Heian era, especially by the Tien-tai sect concept of Mo-ho-chih-kuan. Chih-kuan (samatha) is a practical training in which a priest gives up the ordinary feelings and seats on quietly as long as he needs, in order to comprehend all beings in their true meaning. The priest who has accomplished the ultimate enlightenment by this Chih-kuan practice can recognize everything as a spontaneous realization of the dharma itself, and enjoy every aspect of life and nature as natural expression of the Buddhist truth. Therefore the Tien-tai thinking affirms beauty and admits art to be a path leading to Buddha. This thinking was inherited by Zen and other sects in the Kamakura era. Ippen, Jokei, Koben, Dogen and Muso always loved Nature and wrote many poems. When they felt beauty in the blowing wind or the moonlight, they took a very profound insight concerning how the beings and they themselves should be. Their aesthetic consiousness, however, was not any human aestheticism but the natural comprehension of Beauty through Chih-kuan practice.
