Myo

D.T. Suzuki describes the Japanese word myo (for which there is no single-word equivalent in English) as a "certain artistic quality perceivable not only in works of arc but in anything in Nature or life. The sword in the hands of the swordsman attains this quality when it is not a mere display of technical skill patiently learned under the tutorship of a good master...The hands may move according to the technique given out to every student, but there is a certain spontaneity and personal creativity when the technique, conceptualized, and universalized, is handled by the master hand. Myo may also be applied to the intelligence and the instinctive activities of various animals, for example the beaver building its nest, the spider spinning its web, the wasp or ant constructing its castles under the eaves or beneath the ground. They are the wonders of Nature. In face, the whole universe is a miraculous exhibition of a master mind, and we humans who are one of its wonderful achievements have been straining our intellectual efforts ever since the awakening of consciousness and are daily being overwhelmed by Nature's demonstrations of its unfathomable and inexhaustible myo. The awakening of consciousness has been the greatest cosmological event in the course of evolution. We have been able by its practical application co probe into the secrets of nature and make use of chem to serve our way of living, but at the same time we seem to be losing the many things we have otherwise been enjoying which Nature has been liberal enough to grant us. The function of human consciousness, as I see it, is to dive deeper and deeper into its source, the unconscious."

- D.T. Suzuki (1870 - 1966) 
Zen and Japanese Culture