An interactive excerpt from
THE FOURTH TREASURE

Part One

Theories of Consciousness

 

Berkeley

Kiichi Shimano, founder and sensei of the Zenzen School of Japanese Calligraphy, dipped a brush into the well of black sumi ink. He gently pressed the brush against the inkstone until a precise droplet of excess ink had oozed back into the well. Then, with a fluid motion of brush on paper, he drew a simple horizontal stroke. "You see," he said to Gozen, his number-one student, "when the angle is too flat, the brushstroke lacks life. Try again." Gozen nodded and wet his brush with ink.