The Ginko and the Flowing Mind
Written by Stewart Wall, January 30th 2022
What is Ginko?
The tradition of ginko is an important part of the haiku-writing process. Ginko refers to the nature walks that poets would take, whilst waiting for inspiration to strike. After two years of Covid Pandemics I found myself spending almost everyday sitting in my chair teaching and engaging with people via the computer screen, and I started to look for something else, I found the ginko.
My natural habitat with photography is the street, and like many street photographers one of my inspirations is Henri Cartier-Bresson, who many associate with the ‘Decisive Moment’. But what is the Decisive Moment? Cartier-Bresson himself was inspired by a book by Herrigel titled ‘The zen in the art of archery’. In 2012 Kalamir Photography wrote:
“Photography is just like archery…it is all about concentrating, targeting and shooting”. To see the true nature of things, one has “to align the eye with the heart”. No need for a brain to press the trigger at the decisive moment. By training again and again, the apprentice has to master the technical skills and to let instinct rules. For Cartier-Bresson, the camera was just like a modern sketch book and “the zen in the art of archery” was the only manual a photographer needed…apart from going often to the art museums of course. (https://jcnorreel.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/zen-in-the-art-of-archery-the-ultimate-photo-book/)
Being in The Flowing Mind
As I go on my ginko, I just photograph. My sword, the Lumix G9, is on a creative programme mode, and I shoot without getting in my own way. My friend Al looks after the technical stuff for me, it is an unusual, but a warm experience. I know some photographers hate to hear ‘shooting’ applied to photography, and they claim they ‘make’ photographs, but maybe the ‘making’ of what you ‘shoot’ does not happen when you press the button, but happens before you raise the camera to the eye, even before you go out with your camera. What I am referring to is the ‘flowing mind’, which is something that occurs in martial arts. My mind flows, I shoot an image in a fraction of a second, and write my haiku in no more than 60 seconds. My friend says I create in ‘Fleet Street time’ (I was a press photographer), but is Fleet Street time about flowing fast to interrupt a long thought about phenomenon? I have been thinking about such a thing for over 40 years. I have not finished making stories about that thought.
On page 84 of his 1979 book Zen in the Martial Arts, Joe Hyams claimed Bruce Lee read the following quote to him, attributed to the legendary Zen master Takuan Sōhō:
“The mind must always be in the state of ‘flowing,’ for when it stops anywhere that means the flow is interrupted and it is this interruption that is injurious to the well-being of the mind. In the case of the swordsman, it means death.
When the swordsman stands against his opponent, he is not to think of the opponent, nor of himself, nor of his enemy’s sword movements. He just stands there with his sword which, forgetful of all technique, is ready only to follow the dictates of the subconscious. The man has effaced himself as the wielder of the sword. When he strikes, it is not the man but the sword in the hand of the man’s subconscious that strikes”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin_(mental_state)
