See our article on Bamboo Myths and Misnomers if you’re looking for the other kinds of myths. Across Asia, there are legends, myths and folktales describing bamboo’s supernatural capacities. Such a fast-growing and ubiquitous plant, it’s easy to see why sages of the East would associate bamboo with fertility, long life, and even immortality. The structure of bamboo embodies these mysteries almost to perfection. Such are the teachings of the Buddha.Ĭonsider also the Zen koan, which states that “Emptiness is form, and form is emptiness.” A koan is a riddle meant to be contemplated, not solved, but one interpretation of this saying would suggest that objects and beings do not take shape according to what they contain, but rather from what they lack and from what surrounds them. Once free from worldly attachments, s/he begins to find relief from suffering and to attain real wisdom.
When the initiate has learned to embrace emptiness, s/he becomes a vessel for the universal spirit. Characteristically hollow, bamboo is emblematic of Buddhist enlightenment. More than a mere model of brute force, the one who knows when to give in and how to sway in the breeze is the one who will truly weather the storm and survive.Īs important as it is to go with the flow, in the spirit of Taoist philosophy, bamboo goes beyond even that. But the real genius of bamboo lies in its pliability and resilience, its ability to flex and bend without breaking. We’re all familiar with bamboo’s remarkable strength and hardness, qualities that inspire respect among both man and beast. It’s no mystery why primitive people would assign bamboo a sacred status, and revere it as a bona fide gift from the gods.īesides these life-giving properties, bamboo also contains a spiritual message that resonates deeply in the Far Eastern ethos. Since time immemorial they have used bamboo to build houses for shelter, to build weapons for hunting and defense, and to eat its tender shoots for sustenance. Throughout Asia and beyond, people look to bamboo and admire it as kind of a miraculous plant. And that can get really interesting, because people have been using and thinking about bamboo for at least 10,000 years, making it about 10 times older than the Magna Carta and 5 times older than the Bible, just to give a little perspective. That’s when I start to think about what people think about bamboo. No doubt, we spend plenty of time talking about bamboo, writing about bamboo, and thinking about bamboo. You might say our lives are imbued with it. It’s on our minds, it’s in our mouths, it’s in our gardens, and we wear it on our bodies. Here at Bambu Batu, our lives are literally filled with bamboo.
0 kommentar(er)
