Zen pro mod

[Trem]

I thought i had commented on that already and that there were actually Two of them you did, unless that was another thread or i'm just trippin...
Anyway, Awesome

[fullmetalguitar]

Love it! Great work. Makes me want a white Pro Mod even more.

[thetruthguy]

Moku ... cool ... didn't think anyone would know that. I actually always heard it phrased: "Enlightenment can be found in every experience" ... or something to that effect.

Actually I did the paint in acrylic gloss paint, which I thought would be permanent, but it wasn't. I eventually used some soap and water and took it off, so now the Charvel is back to plain white. And I think I'm going to pick up a black one later. I may rethink the designs, get a professional to do it at then re-clear it. I'm a novice at kanji and bamboo anyway lol

I also did something similar to my DK2, but I've sold it since. Didn't like having two white guitars, even though DK2 was a great player ... but Charvel won out

[moku]

Moku ... cool ... didn't think anyone would know that. I actually always heard it phrased: "Enlightenment can be found in every experience" ... or something to that effect.

well, that's a "very loose" translation.

some time ago i was actually going to paint the whole "heart sutra" in small kanji on one of my white guitars... but opt out. in order to do a really good job, i'd have to sand the clear off, use the right calligraphy brush to write and kanji, sand it smooth, clear coat it. i just don't have the compressor for the clear and didn't want to use krylon spray can or something like that.

well, if you're going to do it again, i'd do it right. get a professional to do it... preferably a native to write the calligraphy (at least the stencil part). otherwise the strokes are going to show that the kanji were written by a non-native. to a western eye it won't matter, but to someone who can read the kanji, it's obvious.

just my .02 cents anyway.... good luck in your project!

[RacerX]

if you care to know, it actually says, "Shikin haramitsu daikōmyō," which can be literally translated as "the perfection (paramita) of the rhyming of words is the great luminosity." but i guess it could be render (loosely) as "the perfection of poetics is enlightenment" or something to that effect.

I don't know where you came up with that, because I have several Asian co-workers:

I called over Hitoshi (full on Japanese): "Oh, this is not Japanese, that is Chinese"
Then I asked him about "Shikin haramitsu daikōmyō", he replied "does not make sense...shikin could mean money, as in a deposit", but could have many meanings.

Then I called over Qi (Chinese): "1st figure = poem; last 3 = honey, bigger, bright...middle figures could be names of villages but don't make sense"

[thetruthguy]

Characters are mostly seen in ninjutsu martial arts ... maybe only seen in them. Masaaki Hatsumi over in Japan teaches the art and I guess this saying came from him or was passed down through him. Most Japanese say the "nin" symbol in ninja means secret or assassin, but people who train under Hatsumi say it means perseverance or patience. Maybe its a code or something. Maybe shikin haramitsu daikomyo means one thing to the bujinkan ninjutsu practitioner and something else entirely to everyone else. Who knows. I haven't trained in the art in awhile, but the saying was always something I thought cool and liked how the kanji looked.

[thetruthguy]

Here's a couple of examples I found on the Web. I don't know if these are good examples of kanji, and I know my "artwork" wasn't very good, so maybe your Asian co-workers couldn't read it lol

http://www.stringerandassociates.com/images/80_Shikin_Hara_Mitsu_Dai_Komyo.jpg

http://kongoshindojo.com/graphics/ShikinHaramitsuDaikomyo.jpg

http://www.jinenkan-gent.be/fotogals/Japan0309/Chihaya%20buru%20kami%20no%20oshie%20wa%20tokoshie%20ni%20tadashiki%20%20kokoro%20%20mio%20mamoruran%20shikin%20haramitsu%20daikomyo%20new%20years%20writing%20of%20Sensei.JPG

And here's an explanation, though I've seen many variations:

http://www.ninjutsu.co.uk/downloads/shikinharamitsudaikomyo.pdf

[moku]

I don't know where you came up with that, because I have several Asian co-workers:

I called over Hitoshi (full on Japanese): "Oh, this is not Japanese, that is Chinese"
Then I asked him about "Shikin haramitsu daikōmyō", he replied "does not make sense...shikin could mean money, as in a deposit", but could have many meanings.

Then I called over Qi (Chinese): "1st figure = poem; last 3 = honey, bigger, bright...middle figures could be names of villages but don't make sense"

well, fortunately or unfortunately i'm one of those people who study the stuff for a living.... i read chinese, japanese, pali, and sanskrit fluently. your co-workers have little or no knowledge of east asian buddhism. these are technical terms.

japanese buddhism and it's whole canon, in fact, was written in "kanji," or in chinese, "hanzi." i'm not surprised that an ordinary japanese person don't recognize this, because in modern times, very little kanji are used. hiragana or katakana are used. but if you ask a japanese buddhist monk, and he'll tell you exactly what these words mean.

china was the big dog in premodern times. any japanese who wish to learn about buddhism (or culture for that matter) had to learn chinese or "kanji" (chinese means, "hanzi"). when buddhism was introduced into china, many sanskrit buddhist terms were not translated into chinese but transliterated (trans. the sound). for example, "boluo mi" in chinese or "haramitsu" (in japanese pronunciation) is a transliteration of "paramita" in sanskrit; it means perfection.

your chinese friend says it's "honey" because he's reading it not as a transliteration of a foreign term but as chinese words... and he's just guessing the meaning. he has no idea that it's a buddhist technical term.

i said these are japanese phrasiology because a chinese would not group these characters together like that because they make no gramatical sense. only japanese would do it because in their process of learning kanji (hanzi) they developed their own grammatical system.

ordinary people, japanese or chinese, don't know anything about these technical buddhist terms. i'm a historian of east asian buddhism; i study this stuff for a living.

[moku]

Here's a couple of examples I found on the Web. I don't know if these are good examples of kanji, and I know my "artwork" wasn't very good, so maybe your Asian co-workers couldn't read it lol

http://www.stringerandassociates.com/images/80_Shikin_Hara_Mitsu_Dai_Komyo.jpg

http://kongoshindojo.com/graphics/ShikinHaramitsuDaikomyo.jpg

http://www.jinenkan-gent.be/fotogals/Japan0309/Chihaya%20buru%20kami%20no%20oshie%20wa%20tokoshie%20ni%20tadashiki%20%20kokoro%20%20mio%20mamoruran%20shikin%20haramitsu%20daikomyo%20new%20years%20writing%20of%20Sensei.JPG

And here's an explanation, though I've seen many variations:

http://www.ninjutsu.co.uk/downloads/...sudaikomyo.pdf

the whole japanese culture--in terms of cultural values, language, the arts, etc.--can no longer be separated from the influence of buddhism. so i'm not surprised that there's cultural appropriations of buddhist concepts into martial arts, etc.

[RacerX]

well, fortunately or unfortunately i'm one of those people who study the stuff for a living.... i read chinese, japanese, pali, and sanskrit fluently. your co-workers have little or no knowledge of east asian buddhism. these are technical terms. blah blah blah
ordinary people, japanese or chinese, don't know anything about these technical buddhist terms. i'm a historian of east asian buddhism; i study this stuff for a living.

Well, OK then, but I like truthguy's explanation better:

I'm a novice at kanji and bamboo anyway lol

[RacerX]

Also

japanese buddhism and it's whole canon,

[tomanyjacksons]

Wow. we have some very intell...intill.. um smart people on here, that's cool.

[moku]

smart?... as you can see i can't even spell "its"!


racerx, i'm lucky to have a job...

[tomanyjacksons]

Their are a lot of awesome people on here.