As we near the year 2000, more and more people in both the East and West, particularly in metropolitan areas, are searching for a way to rediscover their innate connection with Nature. Kado presents a time-honored means of doing just that, and arranging flowers can help you to realize your original, eternal link with the Universe.

As you might imagine, these are only a few ways in which Japanese floral art differs from its Western counterpart. This is, likewise, not to suggest that one art is better or worse than the other is. On the other hand, it is important to note that ikebana has its own unique technical principles and aesthetics, which have caused it to spread throughout the world.

Flower Arrangement and Other Japanese Arts
Since all of the Japanese arts share the same aesthetics, ikebana enhances the study of budo (martial Ways), shodo (the Way of calligraphy), and other Japanese art forms. (This is one more reason why you can benefit of studying Japanese flower arrangement-its concepts tie into other Japanese arts, making it easier for you to learn them, and its principles relate to daily life as well.) The same sense of balance that is needed for "sculpting" a successful flower arrangement is also vital in Japanese brush writing, in which each character must exhibit a dynamic balance. In odori dance and the martial arts, participants must also master a dynamic or moving balance that is equal to the asymmetrical balance used in kado.

The same unity with Nature that is stressed in kado is also emphasized in martial arts like aikido and aiki-jujutsu. Shodo requires an incredibly exacting attention to detail and brush form that is also not unlike the formal precision cultivated by students of ikebana. Cha no yu, or the "tea ceremony," is based on wa-kei-sei-jaku (accord-respect-purity-solitude), and flower arrangement involves the harmony of heaven, earth, and humanity. These aesthetic, perhaps even spiritual, qualities are universal for all Japanese art.

In short, ikebana can allow you to realize these qualities in such a way that its practice can enhance the study of dissimilar Japanese art forms. Of course, the reverse is true as well. Unfortunately, many students of various Japanese cultural arts in the West often miss out on the importance of these spiritual and aesthetic concepts, and as the result have only a pale imitation of the real art that they are studying. This may be due to cultural differences, in some cases a language gap, and in other instances outright ignorance. Still, studying one of Japan's cultural arts without a grasp of these important artistic principles is like trying to eat the imitation sushi seen in front of Japanese sushi bars. It may look like the genuine article, but it sure doesn't taste like real sushi, and its nutritional value is pretty low.

The Universal and the Particular
Japan has traditionally excelled (due in part to the influence of Zen) in "spiritualizing" relatively ordinary activities such as the preparation of tea, the military arts, and the arrangement of flowers. One's ultimate goal in these Do forms, or "Ways," is to understand the whole of life through a particular endeavor or singular aspect of living. Master calligrapher and Muto Ryu swordsmanship founder, Yamaoka Tesshu Sensei, felt that the primary principle of both arts was "the practice of unifying particulars and universals." He also wrote in his Notes on Kumitachi: "Within these varied techniques there is deep meaning. Cast off subject and object, function as one; abandon self and others, form a single sword."¹

Zen authority D.T. Suzuki likewise made reference to "the One in the Many and the Many in the One," In kado, one finally observes a flower in a state of such heightened awareness that no distinction exists between the observer and the observed.

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1. John Stevens, The Sword of No-Sword, Boulder and London: Shambhala, 1984, p. 142.