ESSAYS

02/ Lovely Water Channel - To Look

Fading Predicates

…It is an agricultural canal that runs north-south through the lowlands along the River Sagami. .. It was a view from the bridge across the canal. Being agricultural, the water gushes out at certain times of the year. It is just an ordinary bridge. There are pipes for drainage protrude from the riverbank. And at the bottom of the river, concrete pieces that have hardened the banks and the pebbles can be seen through the water. The surface of the water reflects the pylons that stand in the vicinity.

And this is important. Those were the channels ‘to draw water into the rice fields’, the roads ‘to carry people’ across the channel, concrete ‘for waterwalls’, pipes ‘for draining’, and the pylons ‘to transmit electricity’. Useful predicates which make up my world are tightly bound to them, and even the clouds reflected on the surface of the water may become the ones that may cause the rain and make me put on my rain coat on my way home from work…

Those predicates are just so easy to understand that I pass by those scenes every day without realizing. In the morning as thinking about the new day, and in the late afternoon about what I was going to make for supper…

Yet, at one point or at certain time, predicates such as coldness of the pylons, hardness of the pebbles, colour of the sky and the heaviness of the clouds that were tied there start to disappear occasionally… sky and the pylons reflected on the surface of the water are distorted by the ripples…then shadows of pebbles at the bottom of the water are diminished by the thickness of the water. And even the water itself and its shapes are changed by the wind and gravity… there becomes less and less words that describe the moments and the meaning of them gets very vague…

What would appear then? What is the ‘content’ that can be glimpsed through the gaps between the predicates? I think that is actually the true nature of what the scene is, and it is also the way how ‘things ought to be’…

When I face this scene by the channel an image came up to me. It was as if the scene was inhabited by a personality, breathing deeply and slowly. The scene is again covered with countless predicates, but they are also diffusing outwards and condensing inwards as they breathe.

And… only in my imagination, this scene is breezing through its nose. Its mouth is shut and its back teeth are lightly chewed. So the shape of its mouth is either ‘m’ or ‘n’. Yes, it is ‘mu’. There something is about to be said, and also something are just said. The predicates are disappearing from things and at the same time, they are to be added.

‘mu’ is a state which holds such tremendous energy. The water surface I have met drinks such energy and stand still. The way it is is so divine, awe-inspiring and lovely.

‘mu’, To Be, To Look

I used the word ‘content’ but there may not be anything inside. This is because I cannot see whether there is something inside. I just feel there ‘is’ something. What does this mean…

I am going to repeat that the scene is covered by countless predicates, and they disappear and come back, seemed hardened yet diffuse outwardly. There is something here…

There is something which has wight and gravity in order to keep the countless predicates. And it is invisible. But even if it was visible, it soon becomes a subject of description and may just give another thickness to the layers of predicates which covers the outside…

What I can do is to stay with the motion of the predicates which continues its contraction and relaxation. That is to say that I just ‘be’ there. I ‘just be’ there not just ‘to view’ what is there for an appreciation in the place where all the predicates disappear and appear again and that it is so divine, awe-inspiring and lovely. This being becomes ‘Looking’.

So this ‘looking’ does not restrict to the visual act. It is to use all the senses of the body. For me ‘to draw’, ‘to stick’ and also ‘to tell’ someone about the scenes are also to ‘look’. And this is the approach towards the nature of the scenes.

So I use my body as the scenes contract towards the ‘easy to understand’ vision, and on the other hand, I sharpen my senses as they diffuse into ‘not easy to understand’ vision. The way I shake the brush onto the paper… and to stick a few pieces of paper… work on the ‘easy to understand’ predicates that cover the channels, The channels as channels, or something else apart from it and stand in front of us just as it is in itself.

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