Archives for category: Woodworking

Wood, Gratitude, Zen and Poem

November 29, 08 //

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Cutting Boards and Wooden Spoons

There is a lot to be thankful for. Here is a short list.

My sweetheart’s companionship
Boykan the wonder dog
A warm (in many ways) home
Work that is interesting, challenging and contributes
Health and well being
A rich spiritual life
The time to work with wood
Living in a technological age
Woods to walk in
Friends to meet with

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These quotes came from “How to Cook Your Life : Dogen’s classic Instructions for the Zen Cook with commentary by Kosho Ucyiyama Roshi”. They really bowled me over.

In Zen, “…we learn to live out completely that Self that settles upon itself… When I usethe term Self, I am not referring to some fixed entity; the Self is life and life is functioning. Functioning means activity which works toward the world in which the Self lives. When I talk of a “Self settling upon itself,” do not interpret this to mean a withdrawing and escaping from society. On the contrary, this expression means that your life manifests itself as life. It is a Self that works to settle or bring composure to everything you encounter in our life. ”

“Merely to study Buddhist thought and philosophy through books, or to do zazen only to become entranced by satori as some rapturous and esoteric state of mind without actually putting our bodies to work in our day-to-day lives as taught in (Tenzo Kyokun), leaves grave doubts as to whether we have any idea at all of live out the what it means to truly buddhadharma.”

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Dungeon

He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon.
I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into
the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.

I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand
lest a least hole should be left in this name;
and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.

Rabindranath Tagore

Flow

November 1, 08 //

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Ox Eyed Daisy

Serendipitously, flow or the notion of being lost in ones passion has brought two wonderful tidbits into view. The first is a short 18min video of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Feb 2004 talk at TED. View it if you have any interest in creativity and how to develop it. Csikszentmihalyi is an author and researcher that pioneered the work that lead to our current understand of creativity, fulfillment and coined the term “flow” to discribe the experience of immersion one has when lost in ones passion. Csikszentmihalyi states the it takes about ten years of study, practice or immersion in a field before flow is possible. I see it a little different. Little practice equals little flow, great practice equals great flow. Maybe ten years is magic maybe not. We’ll see. I’m developing a new skill of carving wooden spoons. Some how I got it in my head that I’ll have to make 400 before I’ll get any good. Yet already I’ve created some wonderful spoons and I’m only on 23. (21, 22 & 23 are being worked on at the same time.)

The second tidbit is via “The Writers Bag”, a blog on writing from which I continue to learn from a lot. Cool stuff indeed.

The Hindu sage named Patanjali wrote this in his Yoga Sutras ::

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations. Your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than what you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

Wooden Spoons

April 20, 08 //

I’ve been making a few wooden spoons and finally got around to photographing them. Stay tuned as I’m having a blast with these and more are in the works.