“Ego is something that covers your good personality”
- Shunryu Suzuki
According to Zen Master Suzuki in Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, what we look for in art is personality without ego. “Everyone has character, but if you don’t train yourself, your character is covered by ego.” And that prevents people from seeing the artist’s true personality in the art.
It takes accumulated practice and training to let go of ego, and the Japanese word Neru describes this process well. Suzuki explains: “Neru is how we refine silk by washing it many times so that the threads are white and soft enough to weave.” Written in another character, Neru also describes how iron is beaten to temper it while it is hot, to make it strong. And a third meaning of Neru is to bake something in a fire.
Last week, a good friend named her new art gallery Neru, and I felt privileged to contribute a reflection on its meaning. And as I wrote it, that meaning also revealed itself in my own life experience, quite like Chi follows whatever my mind focuses on in my body.
Neru means bringing out the best potential in each person. I realized that with practice, it is possible to let go of the ego that covers my own true personality. And with good character revealed, creating and enjoying art can truly become a celebration of life for me.
As I ‘showed up’ again to write this post after an intense period of travel, work and personal growth, I realized that my life has an abundance of bubbles of actions. I need some spring cleaning, and I reflected that the coming mid-year in the month of June is a good time to do this.
- Shunryu Suzuki
According to Zen Master Suzuki in Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, what we look for in art is personality without ego. “Everyone has character, but if you don’t train yourself, your character is covered by ego.” And that prevents people from seeing the artist’s true personality in the art.
It takes accumulated practice and training to let go of ego, and the Japanese word Neru describes this process well. Suzuki explains: “Neru is how we refine silk by washing it many times so that the threads are white and soft enough to weave.” Written in another character, Neru also describes how iron is beaten to temper it while it is hot, to make it strong. And a third meaning of Neru is to bake something in a fire.
Last week, a good friend named her new art gallery Neru, and I felt privileged to contribute a reflection on its meaning. And as I wrote it, that meaning also revealed itself in my own life experience, quite like Chi follows whatever my mind focuses on in my body.
Neru means bringing out the best potential in each person. I realized that with practice, it is possible to let go of the ego that covers my own true personality. And with good character revealed, creating and enjoying art can truly become a celebration of life for me.
As I ‘showed up’ again to write this post after an intense period of travel, work and personal growth, I realized that my life has an abundance of bubbles of actions. I need some spring cleaning, and I reflected that the coming mid-year in the month of June is a good time to do this.
Yet why wait for the future? So I took half an hour yesterday while waiting in Starbucks for my car to be washed (after 3 weeks, not a pretty sight for a white car), to write what to do more of, and what to reduce or cut out altogether. I used a mix of notes and mind mapping arrows.
The power of habit is one I wish to tap into more. I already adopted several new habits over the past years that allow me to live better. I want to add some more. Writing and speaking are two habits that are just around the corner, waiting to be adopted in my mainstream living.
Another one is delegation, which for me is about taking on the role of facilitator to set up partnerships rather than allowing tasks to end up in my in-box as the final destination.
As I go about making these changes, the co-existence of leadership and Neru is becoming clear. Good things in life don’t happen without exercising leadership and working hard to see creative ideas transformed into actions and results. Yet this can be done without ego. Full commitment to the task at hand doesn’t have to take the form of attachment.
More and more, I learn to act, dedicate, and let go. I am discovering Neru on a daily basis.
Photograph: Neru on the go, in this car sticker.
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