Zen Art Followed Me


"Zen Paintings & Calligraphy"
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
(Nov. 5-Dec. 20, 1970)
"Zenga and Nanga"
Worcester Art Museum
(Sept. 20-Nov. 13, 1977)
"Paths to Enlightenment"
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
(Nov. 25, 1987-March 27, 1988)



Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks says archways
follow her wherever she moves. Likewise,
"Zen art" trailed me over the years.

Left Cornell for Cambridge, Mass,
as postdoc at Brandeis Biochemistry
Department in Professor Fasman's Lab.

Went to Boston's Museum of Fine Art,
Lo and behold— "Zen Paintings
and Calligraphy" welcomed me

as Zen Master Kakuan Shien declared
the last stage of Zen is not Emptiness
but sage shares wisdom in the marketplace.

When Worcester Polytechnic Institute
hired me to teach chemistry, right down
the block is Worcester Art Museum

with their new exhibition
"Zenga and Nanga" that greeted me
with Taiga's drawing of the Taoist

sage Chuang Tzu dreaming that he
was a butterfly, or perhaps he was the
butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu.

Coming to the West Coast to care for
my parents, found myself in San Francisco
Asian Art Museum surrounded by Saints.

"When a student is ripe, the guru appears"
the old edict says— How true as
Anthony shares with me Paul Brunton.

My body has moved from Ithaca
to Boston to Worcester to Palo Alto,
but my mind stayed with enlightenment.

— Peter Y. Chou
     Mountain View, 12-1-2022
Oxherd Drawing #8
The Void of Emptiness


Zen Master Kakuan Shien
"Return to Marketplace"
Sage shares wisdom with all


"Chuang Tzu Dreams of Butterfly"
by Ikeno Taiga (1722-1776)
"Zenga and Nanga" (pp. 104-105)


Mahasiddha Virupa
(7th century)


Anthony Damiani
(1922-1984)


Paul Brunton
(1898-1981)