Read Giant Robot

You should be reading Giant Robot. An excellent blend of East & West.

Featured is an article about "Lolita" clothing. A blending of the Victoriana look and Asian culture.

FUKE a Revised Fusion Tradition

The traditional teachers rakusu in Japan is made from silk brocade.
FUKE as a revised fusion tradition calls for a new material, Hawaiian print.

Go Ahead and Take Those Vows

The image is a scan of my teaching rakusu. A rakusu is a traditional zen garment worn around your neck and over your clothes. In zen tradition it’s common to receive your rakusu during a ceremony after you have taken your Buddhist vows consisting of the The Ten Grave Precepts. Every dharma practice includes the taking of ethical vows. The garment is different with every dharma practice.

The Ten Grave Precepts are:

No killing

No stealing

No misusing sex

No lying

No misusing alcohol

No speaking about others faults of others

No praising of yourself or abusing others

No sparing of the dharma assets

No indulging in anger

No slandering of the Three Treasures

FUKE is an alliance of Dharma Artists. Participation in FUKE includes regular meditation practice and taking vows.

FUKE Art Might Look Like This

The Gary Buddha-
Jack Kerouac, Oil, 14"x 17"

FUKE Does Not Have To

Is That True ?

Every question is significant and every answer has merit.

Zen is a radical eastern system of inquiry for freedom from the beliefs that prevent you from seeing what is right in front of you. It’s our unsubstantiated beliefs that keep us living in the fantasy of the past or the future.

Simply ask yourself “is that true.”

The Socratic Method in the west is the parallel form of inquiry and debate.

Zen & the 1960s

Another Rick

Here is another example of Rick Griffin's work. It's a poster for the Human Be In from 1967.

I was recently asked what does the hippie psychedelic culture have to do with FUKE Zen & Buddhism?

Well look at the line up on Rick's poster: Richard Alpert, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Buddha.

Rick Griffin

Rick Griffin was the master of the psychedelic image. His "look" was influenced by his relationship with George Hunter. Again you can see the influence of Edwardian and Old West type.

Above is a reproduction of Rick's poster for the Jook Savage Art Show.

George Hunter

George Hunter was the first media artist of his generation to blend past arts to create an art of the present. George fused rock and roll, blues and jug band music with the Victorian arts, Edwardian arts, Art Nouveau and the art of the Old West.

FUKE blends cultures in order to create a new hybrid art.

Right Here Right Now

zen meditation provides a method to make conscious our unconscious understanding that we are thoroughly integrated with everything in this moment

FUKE supports the artistic method as a means to express that we are thoroughly integrated with everything in this moment

1853 Typeface

Above are some samples of typeface from 1853.

1853 was the year the U.S. and Japanese cultures began to blend. So we have a date to anchor FUKE.

From 1853 we can begin to look at styles of culture and see them start to fuse and hybridize East+West.

West meets East

Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sailed into Urga Harbor near Edo Japan on July 8, 1953 in the “Black Ships” of the U.S. Navy. Commodore Perry “compelled” the Japanese to trade by destroying several buildings in Urga Harbor with his Paixhan Guns.

Thus the fusion of U.S. and Japanese cultures began.

FUKE too is a fusion of East+West