Jade Bradbury, who curates the artwork in the Los Gatos Town Council chamber, feels she has scored another major coup with the exhibition coming up—the calligraphy of Rev Ito, who earned a master’s license as a Zen Buddhist priest after retiring from his management position at IBM. Ito, 80, was born in Kyoto, Japan, but has lived in Los Gatos for 46 years.
A reception for the show will be held July 15, 6-8 p.m., in council chamber. While still living in Japan, Ito trained in a Buddhist monastery and worked as a priest in Buddhist temples. Today he teaches Zen classes at Hakone Gardens. Zen Buddhism is considered a spiritual quest, rather than a religion. The process is described as a delving into one’s own nature to discover enlightenment.
Bradbury is excited about uncovering a Los Gatos treasure. “I personally find this discovery a gentle mind-blower,” she says. The show promises to be a merging of East and West—the technology of the West integrated with the spiritual philosophy of the East, all reflected in the art of one exceptional individual.
Some weeks after 9-11, Rev Ito went to New York to ground zero and convinced security guards to let him sit in prayer for the suffering of the 3,000 people who perished there. His goal was to pursue Zen Buddhism beliefs about death. The Zen philosophy on the postcard for the show can be translated as “Meet by chance, treasure every meeting, for it will never recur.”
Source: Mercury news
