A Zen origin story

By David D. Haynes
(First published on Substack)
daviddhaynesart.substack.com

Most of us who create art have some sort of origin story that explains how we got started. For some, art has been a lifelong pursuit. For others, it came later.

A few years ago, our family was going through a rough patch, and I felt a compelling need for calm amid the storms. I was in a book store around Christmas that year, and for whatever reason I ended up in the religion section. My eye was drawn to a book called “Peace is Every Step,” by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk. I’d heard of him but had never read his work.

What I found in that slim volume was a recipe for peace. In simple, straight-forward language, Nhat Hanh laid out principles for calming the mind. Live in the present moment, he wrote. You cannot change the past. You cannot know the future. He turned the western declaration: “Don’t just sit there, do something!” on its head. “Don’t just do something,” he counseled. “Sit there.”

Calm your mind, tame your monkey brain, listen to the soul.

Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the best known evangelists for meditation in the western world. Trained in Vietnam, he was exiled from his homeland for opposing the Vietnam War. He opposed both sides in the war - he just wanted the killing to stop - and he advocated for “engaged Buddhism” to oppose violence and rebuild shattered villages. He was a friend of both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - he helped King to see why the war was wrong - and also the great Catholic contemplative Thomas Merton.

After he was barred from returning to Vietnam, Nhat Hanh settled in France and eventually founded Plum Village, a monastery and retreat center near Bordeaux, as well as 10 other practice centers around the world. He wrote more than 100 books.

In his old age, the Vietnamese government allowed him to return. He died in 2022 at the Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, the same place where he had been ordained at age 16. He was 95.

What is the connection between an Eastern philosopher and my art?

Ensos.

Thich Nhat Hanh practiced calligraphy, and the Zen Circle Enso is a form of calligraphy.
It’s a circle, usually drawn in a single breath - a form of meditation and a symbol of Buddhist enlightenment.

I started drawing ensos as part of my practice. First, they were black like the one above. Then I bought some colored acrylic paint and drew them in colors. Pretty soon, I wondered: Can I draw a flower? A tree? A bird? I found that I could - crudely at first - but I didn’t care because the value was in the act of painting itself. It was meditative. Whatever the product of that act was secondary.

And, I found, anyone can improve with practice.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to take a class with my friend, Judy Gahn Murphy, a wonderful painter and an even better person, and I started to learn how to make art.
In time, I took up oils (another story) and grew to love moving the thick buttery paint around a canvas. That’s my preferred medium now.

I still meditate most days, and I still do ensos.

I’ll always value that chance encounter with Thich Nhat Hanh. He launched an artistic adventure.