What is Kado Ikebana ?
Kado is a Way of life. The practice can open us to innate universal wisdom that is inherent in all sentient beings.
By being in touch with our wisdom we can experience life with less confusion, stress, and anxiety and life could be opened to accurate solutions as challenges arise in never ending change.
Kado developed in China approximately 2300 years ago and developed as a practice to teach and understand “The Tao” , The Way.
It was understood by the ancients that all living beings have innate wisdom, thereby using wood and flower material from nature, inner wisdom could be pointed out and experiencing directly.
Over time the practice could opened the mind-heart of students to realize that all sentient beings contain inner wisdom that is interdependent on the movement of the larger and smaller cosmos; that the individual entities separate and struggling against or for other is not natural or sane.
As Kado unveils that human are not separate from nature rather just another manifestation of it we realize we do not and cannot dominate nature but are a small part of the larger cosmos and subject to all natural law.
Connecting with our inate Universal Wisdom
We have to start by acknowledging that we do not see clearly the true nature of how things are.
For centuries people have discovered how to go beyond confusion of reality through sitting practice of meditation along with simple teachings illuminating how we continue to cultivate our inability to be clear.
When we see and understand our tendencies, our mental patterns that keep us blind, we are better equipped to connect with our innate wisdom. We can sense wisdom arising along side of the confusion, then it’s up to us to choose which to follow.
Innate wisdom doesn’t originate out of thinking. It is non-thought, or pre-thought. Some times it’s called “knowing”. It’s not learned and cannot be owned. Unlike solutions that arise from thinking innate knowing pops up in the moment and is appropriate only for the present situation.
Most of our inability to be clear is from allegiance and believing concepts created by cultural and by our own thoughts. We attempt to keep the same solutions from thought for every “ next time” which often prove incorrect in athefresh situation.
Meditation practice can cultivate liberation in our mind from the fixations we apply to reality, both of what we think things are or how they should be.
It cultivates the space and relaxation to flow within the ever changing unpredictable circumstances of every day life and within life itself.
Kado Ikebana is a spiritual practice. “Spirit" or “spiritual” means “aliveness” forever changing, forever evolving. It is not stagnant or dead.The word spirit comes from Latin “spirtus” literally meaning breath, or air. The Chinese name it “qui”,vital energy.
As a spiritual practice, Kado Ikebana is not meant to take the practitioner off this planet into a realm of paradise or fantasy but to bring us to the ground of life with clarity and the ability to work with all situations by connecting to and trusting our innate knowing.
By including meditation practice in our daily life we can understand all life not just our own. The outer shape and form of humans is different from other life expressions, but universal wisdom or universal knowing is the same in all sentient beings.
It is possible to lead ones life from natural wisdom mind which is always fresh and true from conceptual mind which is the ground of confusion and holds us deeply fearful and harming.
Training
The Ikebana forms used are from traditional schools developed in China and later in preserved in Japan.
Classical forms teach how all life unfolds organically, not from conceptual ideas, thoughts ideas or speculations of how life “should or must" be.
Nature unfolds organically responding to the total environmental manifestations in any given moment or location.
Nature does not lie. It is fearless. It is direct. It is both benevolent and sharp and sometimes benevolence is expressed through sharpness.
Kado learning never ends requiring openness and attention when working with the alive forms of plants and trees to understand all living forms in their constant changing relationships. Humans have very little control over the greater force of Nature if any at all.
Kado Ikebana teaches to accept the flow of endless change, inner and outer, to not be afraid of space, and to become a part of life celebrating the endless journey of discovery.
History of Kado Ikebana past and present.
Kado is Chinese meaning the “Way of Flowers”.
“Flowers" in this translation represents the entire manifestations of all livings plants from the smallest expression to mighty trees. The practice developed in China more than 2,300 years ago and eventually assimilated into Japanese culture. Through time, Japan changed the name to Ikebana which is a Japanese word meaning “Living or Natural flowers”.
A fresh school of Ikebana was one of many heart wishes of the late Tibetan meditation Master Chogyum Trungpa.
In the 1970’s he worked with students interested in art and introduced Ikebana as one of the arts forms to pay attention to.