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One enso circle over fibrous white silk paper, drawn by a mediating taoist, partially vanishes mid-way into thin air, wind writes emptiness. Japanese ink minimalist style. Single dark brush stroke across faded paper, with faint ink bleeding at the edges. A green pine bonsai tree with "S"-shaped main trunk and several sub-branches, created using the jin technique to strip the bark to reveal beached wood to mimic weathering by the elements, growing from a moss covered soil, can be seen in the background, dissolving into mist within the Enso circle. Abstract evocation of impermanence, silence, and whispered distance. Juxtaposed with a mediating wooden Buddha statue. Japanese Calligraphy on the left upper side. Red Chinese seal in the right lower corner.
A young monk asked the master, "Why do you spend years shaping the life of a single bonsai, cutting its branches and twisting its trunk, while a great oak in the forest grows wild and free?"
The master, without looking up from his work, replied, "The great oak is free, but it must obey the will of the storm. The bonsai, though bound by the hand, has no fear of the wind."
The young monk pondered this for a moment and then asked, "So, to be shaped is to be free?"
The master cut a single, tiny branch and said, "The bonsai lives a hundred years in a pot one hand's length wide. The oak's shadow falls upon the entire valley. Which has the greater world?"
This is the core of the koan. It turns the question of freedom and constraint into a question of internal vs. external worlds.
The oak's world is external and vast, a physical presence that dominates the valley.
The bonsai's world is internal, contained within its own small pot. The "hundred years" it lives suggests a longevity that transcends its physical size. Its "world" is not one of physical dominance, but of internal peace and a long, stable life.
