Zen Board

I got this Zen Board (from “Santa Barbara and Sun” it says on the back) given to me by a patient if I recall correctly. It’s great for writing on it with the brush dipped in water. At first, I used to write a greeting in English for the patient like “Welcome Bob!” The small difficulty was that if the patient did not arrive promptly at their time, then the water on the board would form drips – not pleasing. The very good news is that the writing in water evaporated quickly so that I could use it again within a few minutes.

It’s really quite excellent at writing brush strokes to practice calligraphy.

7,000/161

The characters are formed out of the magical seven strokes which we know are the seven mysteries. It is said that the horizontal stroke should be like a cloud that slowly drifts across the sky, the dot should be like the falling rock, the vertical stroke should have the growth of a strong vine stem, the sweeping stroke should rise and fall like the ocean waves, the hook should be like an animal’s claw and the diagonal stroke should have the energy of an arrow.