We should develop the softness of clouds and the fluidity of water. It is through conscious writing, by engaging body and mind, that we can re-write ourselves. Re-writing ourselves allows us to change those of our characteristics that prevent us from being in harmony with people and things. The ancient Greeks spoke of kallos graphein, or “beautiful writing.” To write is, above all, to express our true Nature: that of images, signs and codes that people used long before language.
To express oneself via the gestures of writing obliges us to enter into the silence of thoughts because, at the very moment when we write, the past and the future no longer exist. The temporal domain of wandering and diffuse thoughts has disappeared. Time is a thought, with a “before” – the “past“ - and an “after” - the “future.” Here, with each stroke of a pen, time is constantly renewed.
Renewing oneself allows one to come out of a repetitive and draining memory. In this sense, writing is equivalent to the Sitting of the Buddha. The attitude of the body-mind must be correct, body and mind totally engaged to the point that the writing enters us and we re-write ourselves. By rewriting ourselves, we get to know ourselves. It’s like standing in front of a mirror to contemplate ourselves. Through writing, we can correct ourselves, observe all aspects of our mind.
When writing, you do not try to be a good calligrapher or to succeed in “beautiful writing.” What is important is giving letters their true character and our spirit its true space of peace and happiness. The writing will become beautiful by itself once our disruptive obstacles are transformed into cloud and water.
This style was borrowed from the American Spencerian and Zanerian styles, which themselves are based on the English copperplate and the French ornamental style.
"Clouds and water" is the nature of our being in this world, since all things in nature are empty and flow by without leaving any trace.