Living the Japanese Arts & Ways was reviewed in Spirit of Change magazine. You can find the review below, and you can visit Spirit of Change at http://www.spiritofchange.org/index.php.Spirit of Change Review
As Westerners, we are all familiar with the calm beauty of flower arranging, tea ceremonies, calligraphy and Aikido. Yet another path to our awareness of the present moment is presented in Living the Japanese Arts & Ways which helps us “find the beauty in every fragile facet of life, even in the fading of a flower or the aging of a friend.” We learn that the ultimate nature of the Japanese arts involves underlying principles that are discovered “in the doing” through these moving meditations in the course of daily life. In his attempt to communicate the essence of these arts, H.E. Davey provides us with generous access to their historical, philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings. Living introduces the various cultural influences of Taoism, Zen, Confucianism and Shinto, and their contribution to the transformation of Japanese arts and activities into a spiritual path. Davey offers us a deeper look at the artistic expression of “Do,” including concepts somewhat foreign to our Western sensibilities: elegance with a feeling of austerity (wabi), a detached connection with nature (furyu), a beginner’s mind that allows us to see timeless permanence in constant change (shoshin), and the inclusion of the imperfect beauty found in naturalness (funi). Peppered throughout the midsection of the book are experiments to be performed with a partner which enables readers to actually experience the dynamic balance of mind and body in the correct and natural use of ki (“the elementary essence of existence.”) In the final section of the book, we are reminded that the ways “don’t involve philosophical speculation, but actually doing something.... offering us the chance to explore unification of body and mind in the instant.” Davey concludes with the hope that the study of the Japanese arts and ways enables us to realize not only a unity of East and West, but also the “the union of humanity with the way of the Universe.”
