Bonsai Philosophy and the Karate Kid

(Guess the end of the world was postponed...)

I didn't know when I first saw a bonsai but I have been fascinated by the miniature trees since I was a child. I thought that there was something mysterious about the art but, thanks to the internet, I found out that it was quite easy to do. Of course, the difficult part is finding bonsai materials..

I have been doing bonsai for almost a year now and I got acquainted with a few people who also engage in the art. Unfortunately for them, bonsai is simply a business. They have none or very little knowledge about the history and the philosophy of bonsai, but they are quite knowledgeable in the process of miniaturization and the training of the trees, and they knew local species suitable for bonsai.

After some googling, I found varied methods of making bonsai which are scientific and surgical and is quite "artificial" compared to the methods used by the Chinese and the Japanese.

If you have seen the movie Karate Kid (Ralph Machio and Pat Morita), Sensei Miyagi used bonsai to teach Daniel the art of meditation. 

Sensei Miyagi teaching Daniel how to clip a bonsai. Sensi Miyagi: "Close your eyes, concentrate. Think only tree..."

The joy of bonsai hunting.  Sensei Miyagi with Daniel hanging on a cliff collecting a bonsai tree. I saw the new Karate kid and I was disappointed to see that the bonsai was replaced by a car. I mean...it's all about inner nature and what could be an apt symbol of the self but a tree., but a car being assembled and disassembled...too mechanical for me. Jackie Chan is too physical for my taste, too.

In the movie, Sensei Miyagi takes Daniel bonsai hunting on a ledge of cliff. For the Japanese, bonsai is a highly philosophical and mystical art. The Japanese hunt for unique trees miniaturized by nature hidden among the giant trees and in the crevices of rocks, and the discovery of beauty is the beginning of the lifelong journey of training and the shaping. So, the search for these unique plants takes on a mystical journey of self discovery, a symbolic search for the inner self and the survival against the elements and the training and forming of the tree as the shaping of the self and destiny.

Of course today and in the west, bonsai has become a hobby which is more concerned with the perfection of the tree. It has become a science that involved a lot of surgical like procedures like grafting and air layering the use of stuffs like enzymes and fertilizers and growth hormones. The gist of the art which is patience and waiting, meditation and self discovery, battle with the inner nature is compromised by the obsession with speeding growth and perfecting form

It is worth recalling that the art of bonsai originated with Buddhist monks in China, who gave the growing of trees in trays an almost religious significance.For them it is a way of establishing link between God, creator of  the universe and nature in all its forms including mankind, striving to follow the divine path by controlling the process of growth and form in trees, though on a human scale.(Pessy)