{"id":255,"date":"2017-01-11T10:25:59","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T15:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/?p=255"},"modified":"2017-01-26T23:44:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T04:44:33","slug":"miyamoto-san-tenryu-ji-and-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/kyoto\/miyamoto-san-tenryu-ji-and-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Miyamoto-san, Tenryu-Ji, and Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was another full and rewarding day. We started out with a fascinating visit to the Buddhist sculptor Miyamoto-san. He told us how he makes the sculptures (with over 150 tools!), what his personal philosophy and goals are, and what inspires him.\u00a0As a sculptor\u00a0who creates traditional Buddhist sculptures, as well as more modern, stylized versions, and also does restoration work, Miyamoto-san\u00a0had a lot of interesting perspectives on tradition and modernity in his art.<\/p>\n

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Even in his traditional sculptures,\u00a0Miyamoto-san finds ways to add his own\u00a0aesthetic, drawing on his experience in fashion design to\u00a0make the design of the clothes especially soft, flowy, and realistic. Moreover, rather than seeing tradition as restrictive, he ultimately sees it as a rich and essential source of meaning; without it, he said, his more modern sculptures\u00a0would have no meaning and there would be no point in making them. To that end, he employs traditional colors and plays off of established\u00a0characteristics of Buddhist figures even as he modernizes them with his own aesthetic. For example, he took the idea that Bodhidharma\u00a0meditated in a cave for so long that his limbs atrophied, and he sculpted a cute, colorful little Bodhidharma head, with moss and mushrooms growing out of it. He thinks that even if people don’t necessarily buy his modern pieces for their spiritual value, if he makes them accessible\u00a0and appealing, people might then become\u00a0interested in their spiritual meaning and, in this way, he can work to fill what he views as an existing hole in spirituality in Japan.<\/p>\n

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Miyamoto-san does not identify with or create sculpture in the tradition of a single branch of religion, but, instead, draws upon all of the Buddhist\u00a0sects and even Christianity. He showed us a fascinating sculpture he’d made that was a fusion of the Virgin Mary and Kannon. The role of spirituality in his work was also evident when he talked about\u00a0the eye-opening ceremony, which puts a\u00a0spirit or soul into the wood of the statue. I found this particularly interesting in the sense that it doesn’t have to do with the craftsmanship of the sculpture itself but, rather, with spirituality and ritual. Again, he seems to see meaning\u00a0almost as flowing\u00a0from an external source rather than from him directly. I had the sense that he doesn’t feel that he creates meaning so much as he facilitates it or acts as a sort of conduit for it, creating statues to\u00a0house spirits and doing so in a way that builds off traditions and their meanings.<\/p>\n

In addition to drawing inspiration from\u00a0traditional Japanese sculptors,\u00a0Miyamoto-san looks to fashion trends, Japanese culture, and Western artists, in particular Michelangelo. He’s pretty unique in this way, but rather than seeing this as being in opposition to tradition, he resolves the tension by thinking about the ways in which many of the artists we now admire and view as ‘traditional’ and well-established were once innovative and daring in their own ways. I thought that this was a very useful perspective, especially as we often have a tendency to heroize figures as time goes on. I wonder if maybe Miyamoto-san’s work in restoration connects him to\u00a0past artists and their work in a way that allows him to view\u00a0them in a more realistic, humanized\u00a0way.<\/p>\n

Miyamoto-san showing us how the statue that he’s restoring can be taken apart. The inside is hollow, and artists often write their names on the wood and sometimes even place objects in the statue.<\/p><\/div>\n

Miyamoto-san told us that Zen Buddhism is a way of life, not just a religion focused on death and the\u00a0afterlife, and I felt that you\u00a0could really see that belief reflected in his work ethic and even the aesthetic of his house\/studio, which was extremely clean and organized. Our visit and interview with him also made me think that the same could be said of his art; Buddhist sculpture as not just a profession but a way of life, a lens for thinking about and responding to the world.<\/p>\n

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Ideas about meaning, spirituality, and lifestyles remained in my head when we had the opportunity to explore Tenryu-Ji Zen Temple\u00a0after parting ways with Miyamoto-san. Having studied some Zen Buddhism, it was incredible to visit\u00a0another very important Rinzai Zen temple, and, again, I was powerfully moved by the atmosphere of the entire place. Sitting in a practice room on the cool, soft tatami mats and meditating for a few minutes as I heard the birds and soft rustle of bamboo outside was a truly special experience. I also loved walking in and around the gardens. A pond with Koi fish, quiet little\u00a0streams, stone lanterns, undulating mossy slopes, and blooming flowers were some of the delights that I discovered with each turn along the path. Especially magical was the\u00a0Arashiyama bamboo grove, which transported me to what felt like an entirely different world. The light inside was a cool\u00a0greenish purple, and I loved the way the bamboo swayed and whispered in the wind.<\/p>\n

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We finished\u00a0the day with a trip to Nishiki Market, a covered market filled with little shops with all sorts of interesting and unique foods, including a variety of pickles, mochi, and a shop filled with all sorts of\u00a0matcha foods, like matcha popcorn! Then we headed to a very nice grocery store (picture wooden floors and ceilings, tasteful layout of food, perfect looking fruit, etc),\u00a0where I enjoyed browsing around.<\/p>\n

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I had no idea that you could pickle so many types of vegetables!<\/p><\/div>\n

We used these two shopping excursions as a chance to buy ingredients, and I had a lot of fun cooking dinner with everyone after we got back to our hostel. Ayami and I\u00a0discovered that grilled avocado and sugar snap peas are delicious, and Cassidy taught us how to make sweet banana and chocolate gyoza. We also got to try Kyoto’s special soft tofu and some amazing Japanese strawberries, which were some of the sweetest strawberries I’ve ever had. A big part of what made it so special though was just spending time together as a group\u00a0and having some good conversations.<\/p>\n

From sculpture to meditation and gardens to shopping and cooking, it’s hard to believe that we did so much today. What’s really nice is that I feel like we’ve been doing a lot but also managing to have\u00a0immersive and meaningful experiences.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was another full and rewarding day. We started out with a fascinating visit to the Buddhist sculptor Miyamoto-san. He told us how he makes the sculptures (with over 150 tools!), what his personal philosophy and goals are, and what … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kyoto"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/17w-japn-025-kyoto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}