Life as Art: 

An Essay in Three Quotations

I 

 

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: 

"Certainly Allah has prescribed Ihsan (beautification/benefaction) on everything.

 So when you execute, beautify execution:

 when you slaughter beautify slaughtering. 

(Every)one of you

must sharpen his blade

 and should make it easy for the slaughtered animal." 

 

II

“The artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of artist.”



Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (d. 1947)

III

Cutting Up an Ox

 

 

 



 

Prince Wen Hui's cook
Was cutting up an ox
Out went a hand
Down went a shoulder
He planted a foot
He pressed with a knee
The Ox fell apart
With a wisper
The bright cleaver mumured
like a gentle wind
Rythm! Timing!
Like a sacred dance
Like the Mulberry Grove
Like ancient Harmonies
"Good work!" the prince exclaimed,
"Your method is faultless!"
"Method?" said the cook
Laying aside his cleaver
"What I follow is Tao
Beyond all methods!"

"When I first began
To cut up oxen
I would see before me
The Whole ox
All in one mass"

"After three years
I no longer saw this mass
I saw the distinctions"

"But  now I see nothing
With the eye. My whole being
Apprehends
My senses are Idle. The spirit
Free to work without plan
Follows its own instinct
Guided by natural line

By the secret opening, the hidden space
My cleaver finds its own way
I cut throught no joint, chop no bone

Then I withdraw the blade
I stand still
and let the joy of the work
Sink in
I clean the blade
and put it away.

A good cook needs a new chopper
Once a year

I used this same cleaver
Nineteen years
It has cut up a thousand oxen
It's edge is keen
as if newly sharpened."

Prince Wen Hui said, "This is it!

My cook has shown me

 How I ought to live my own life!"

(Chuang Tzu III:2)

 

Wu-Wei: Effortless Action