This calligraphy mounted on a hanging scroll was written by the Zen monk Sogan Kogetsu, who lived from November 8, 1574 to August 19, 1643, in the Momoyama period in the early Edo period. He was the chief priest of Daitokuji Temple. He was the son of Munenori Tsuda, a wealthy merchant in Sakai who served Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi as a tea master. In 1611, he took over the Kuroda family's family temple, sub-temple Ryuko-in which contains, Mittan, a national treasure tea room which I visited last year. Kogetsu's calligraphy is popular for tea ceremony hangings.

The calligraphy characters are: 斗指両辰間 - toshi ryoushin no kan

斗 means "dipper" and refers to the Big Dipper which always points to true north.
指 means "to point".
Together, they mean to point to true north.
両 means "both" and 辰 means "dragon" and "間" means space. "両辰間" mean the space between the two dragons. The two dragons represent extremes in a dichotomy such as good and evil, light and dark. The phrase means that you should find your true north and follow it and navigate between the extremes. The "middle way" is often described in Buddhism.

This hanging scroll is also very appropriate for this year because it is the Year of the Dragon and somehow relevant to my own life. It's currently hanging in the President's office at the Chiba Institute of Technology.

I was reading Souoku Sen's book on Tea recently and he writes about how when you look at the 茶会記 (tea ceremony logs) of the period, they describe the hanging scroll's colors, dimensions, etc. but usually don't record what the scroll actually says or means. It could be that most people couldn't read them. This was a bit heartening for me since Japanese calligraphy is very hard to read and understand, but often rewarding once you do. (Souoku is a descendant of Rikyu and the current head of the Mushanokoji School of Tea.)

Thick Nhat Hahn, one of my favorite Buddhist monks​​, often said, "No Mud, No Lotus." This is very similar to the saying, deichuunohasu (泥中之蓮, でいちゅうのはす), which translates to "lotus in the mud." In Buddhism, the mud symbolizes suffering and darkness, from which emerges the lotus flower. Without the mud, the lotus would not emerge. There are sutras and meditations where one imagines oneself as the seed of the lotus emerging out of the mud.

Recently I've been studying and practicing Japanese tea ceremony, and one of the key elements of the tea room and the ritual is to choose a hanging scroll, often with something written on it by a monk. In my group, I have started exchanging seasonal Zen sayings and proverbs before tea sessions as a way to study both tea and Japanese. I've also started practicing my Japanese handwriting and calligraphy, which is in an abysmal state.

This week's proverb was "泥中之蓮" which is seasonal because this is the week that lotuses are to begin opening according to the Japanese seasonal calendar. (It looks like the lotus blooming at the temple next door is already over. I guess we need to adjust the calendar for climate change.)

As I repeatedly wrote the proverb in my slowly improving, long-neglected handwriting, the characters emerged from my brush like the lotus trying to grow out of the mud. Along with the characters emerged a resonance with my own life which feels like a lotus trying to emerge from the mud of the last few years. It is also a societal metaphor for our society trying to come together around a common purpose and harmony in the midst of a truly mud-like moment in history.

And with this vision, I start this morning with a new metaphor and image to meditate on as we attempt to emerge from this submergence.

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It turns out that "乃" is not the right "の" for this proverb. It should be "之". I'm leaving the wrong "の" as is to preserve the muddiness of the moment. I'll try to post a correct and better looking rendering of this proverb once I practice my calligraphy more.