Neither a sign, nor an image, nor a symbol

At first glance, ensō (円相) is nothing more than a circle drawn with a seemingly careless stroke of the brush. Nothing more. One movement of the wrist, one dip of the bristles into ink, one touch against paper. And yet this simple mark holds a special place in Japanese culture. It is not a sign that means something, nor an image of something. It is the trace of a moment—a situation in which hand, breath, and attention act together. When we look at an ensō, we see not so much a “circle,” but the record of a moment: where the brush grew heavier, where it trembled, where it slowed. We see a human being in time. A particular person in a very particular moment.

Today, this circle has become popular. It appears on tattoos, mugs, marketing materials, in guides on “how to find balance.” I am not saying this is necessarily all bad. Culture has the right to carry symbols wherever it sees fit, governed by its own logic. But it is worth remembering that ensō did not arise as a hallway decoration or a metaphor for well-being. For practitioners of Zen, it was a testimony of the “here and now.” It was not meant to “improve one’s life,” to “release tension,” to “relax,” to “reduce stress”—these are ailments and needs of our era, far younger than this old mark. Originally, ensō revealed what life looks like when we are not trying to fix it, explain it, or control it. And it is precisely in this simplicity that its strength lies. Its meaning cannot be separated from the gesture.

For me, ensō is above all a reminder that the calm, clarity, and sense I seek do not lie somewhere in a distant future, in some ideal, improved version of myself. No, ensō reminds me each time that all of this is exactly here and now, in the moment that is already passing. Whether we notice it depends on our readiness to be attentive, not on the right checklists of tasks to tick off (though I am by no means their enemy). Ensō teaches all of this in the manner proper to Zen: without words. One breath, one movement, one trace. That is all. And perhaps precisely because of this—though the world has changed beyond recognition—this circle can still stop the gaze. And time.

The Linguistic and Calligraphic Origin of Ensō

Let us begin with the word itself. “Ensō” is written as 円相. The first character, 円 (en), means “circle,” “roundness,” but also “wholeness” and “unity.” It is a character frequently encountered in Japanese visual culture: in family crests, in geometric emblematic mon, in temple architecture, and in poetry, where the circle often evokes the moon—a key motif in Heian aesthetics and later Zen tradition.

The second character, 相 (sō), is semantically more layered: it means “appearance,” “aspect,” “phenomenon,” “manifestation.” In Buddhist literature, “sō” often refers to the outward form of things, which does not necessarily reveal their true nature. Together, the two characters form a term that does not simply speak of a “drawn circle,” but of a “circle as manifestation”—a transient, momentary expression of a certain state of mind. Ensō is not so much a form as the moment of forming.

This leads us directly to practice. One does not draw ensō with a pencil that can be paused, erased, corrected. One paints ensō. A brush (fude) dipped in sumi ink is used, and everything is done on thin, slightly fibrous washi paper that absorbs the ink instantly. The tools are important because they compel a certain way of thinking and acting. Washi does not forgive—if the hand hesitates for even a fraction of a second, a blot, a thickening, a split line appears. If the brush is lifted too quickly—the circle will be “tearing apart,” nervous, jagged. If too slowly—the line will lose its breath. What Western art theory might call “technical skill” here becomes merely a byproduct, because the essence is presence.

Ensō is created in one stroke. One breath. One decision. One trace.

It is not corrected. It is not smoothed.

This is the principle known in tradition as ichibyō ichie (一秒一会) — “one moment, one encounter.” Each ensō is the record of a specific moment of the creator’s life, like a fingerprint of consciousness. Hence the radical phrase repeated in Zen schools:

“Show me your ensō, and I will tell you who you are in this moment.”

This gesture is possible only because ensō is not simply an image. In Japanese, it functions not as a noun referring to a “circle,” but as an action, an event. It is a sign-gesture, a form that exists only through its execution. Its meaning is not “assigned,” but occurred.

In this way, ensō transcends semantics. It does not represent anything in the sense of “this is a symbol of that.” It is the act of presentation itself—the showing of that which cannot fit into conceptual language. In Zen, one does not strive to describe truth with words, but to reveal it. Ensō is one of the purest ways to show it.

For this reason, one of the most frequently cited sayings in Zen tradition is:

月を指す指、指を月と思うなかれ。
(Tsuki o sasu yubi, yubi o tsuki to omou nakare.)

“The finger points at the moon — do not mistake the finger for the moon.”

Ensō does not point — it is the moon.

In the following sections, we will see why the empty interior of this circle is just as meaningful as the line itself, and how this line becomes a path between form and “formlessness,” between consciousness and its absence — between “what is” and “what could be.”

Zen Philosophy and the Empty Center

In Zen tradition, the notion of mu (無) does not mean “nothingness,” but the absence of a fixed, permanent essence. This is the fundamental understanding of reality in Mahayana Buddhism, known by the Sanskrit term śūnyatā. Things exist only in relation to other things; they have no separate, independent “core.” This way of thinking is not abstract metaphysics but a practical description of experience: what we feel, think, and who we are—changes from moment to moment.

Ensō expresses this idea visually. The outer line of the circle is form (shiki 色), and its center is emptiness (kū 空). These two elements are not opposites. In the Heart Sutra, one of the most important Buddhist texts, we read:

色即是空、空即是色
(shiki soku ze kū, kū soku ze shiki)

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”

This means that no shape is self-sufficient: form exists only because something does not fill it, and emptiness would not be perceptible without the boundary that surrounds it. Ensō shows this interdependence without the need for words.

The way of painting ensō is connected to the concept of mushin (無心), often translated as “a mind that is unbound” (literally, it could mean “without mind” or “mindlessness,” but this would be misleading to Western readers, where such words suggest something entirely different). It refers to a state in which thought arises, but we do not hold onto it or analyze it. The brushstroke is executed in a single movement, without corrections. If hesitation arises during the act, it will be visible. If the hand is tense — this, too, will be seen. Ensō does not evaluate technical skill; it records the state of mind at the moment of action. This is why painting ensō is often a daily practice for Zen monks — not to create art, but to observe oneself in action.

The circle also naturally corresponds to the Japanese understanding of time. The concept of mujo (無常) emphasizes impermanence as the defining characteristic of all phenomena. Life is not a line, but a continuous return and passing into subsequent phases. Ensō can be understood as a reminder of this dynamic: there is no beginning or end point, only movement and continuity.

Finally, the wabi-sabi aesthetic, present since the Muromachi period in tea bowls, architecture, and poetry, holds that what is simple, imperfect, and aging may have particular value. Ensō is one of its purest examples. Ensō circles are never perfectly symmetrical or “correct.” Each has its own dynamics, shaped by the moment, by the rhythm of breath, by the experience of the person who paints it. The aim is not for the circle to be “pretty,” but for it to be honest about the moment as it is.

In this way, ensō unites three fundamental threads of Japanese philosophy:

   -  emptiness as the absence of a fixed substance,

   -  action as the trace of consciousness,

   -  time as a process of continuous change.

The Aesthetics of Ensō — A Category That Exceeds Art

Although ensō is a drawing, its meaning does not fit within the category of “image.” In Zen tradition, it was not painted to decorate walls, but as a part of practice that shaped one’s way of seeing the world and being within it. Therefore, when we speak of the aesthetics of ensō, we do not describe only the appearance of a circle, but an entire stance toward reality. What in the West might be called “style” is, in Japan, more a collection of certain qualities: the way the hand moves, the character of breath, the relationship between what one intends to do and what simply happens.

In Japanese tradition, several aesthetic concepts help explain why such a simple circle can have such imaginative power. When monks spoke of fukinsei, they meant a gentle asymmetry — that slight unevenness reminding us that a human is not a device measuring angles. Kanso means simplicity: the renunciation of everything unnecessary — the brushstroke alone must suffice. Koko refers to the traces of time — in old scrolls the ink fades, the paper ripples, yet this “aging” is not a flaw but part of the image. Shizen is naturalness; the drawing does not seek to impress or assert itself. Yūgen adds subtle depth — ensō never speaks directly, but leaves space to be understood. Datsuzoku allows departure from rigid rules — the circle does not have to be even or “beautiful.” And finally seijaku: the quiet stillness that remains when we look at the image for longer than a few seconds.

It is also important whether the circle is closed or open. Zen tradition does not impose a single interpretation. A closed circle is often read as suggesting wholeness, unity, the completion of a process. An open circle points to the ongoing nature of the path, the fact that reality has no finished form. Some Zen masters deliberately left a gap to emphasize that one should not regard the present moment as final or “completed.” In this sense, an open ensō echoes the philosophy of mujo — everything is in motion, nothing is ultimate. But this is not a symbol of “imperfection” in the psychological sense — rather, a sober acceptance that life is a process.

The manner in which an ensō is painted matters as much as the final result. Differences in ink thickness, the speed of the stroke, the point where the line begins and ends, reflect the momentary state of body and mind. Monks say that ensō shows what is difficult to notice in daily behavior: tension, haste, uncertainty, but also clarity, trust, Wakefulness. It is not about “expressing emotions” — rather, about recording action without commentary. In this sense, ensō is similar to breath: one makes it every day, yet each day it looks slightly different.

Importantly, ensō also exists outside of art. It was used as the signature of Zen masters — instead of a name, which strengthens the ego and thus distances one from satori (awakening). It was sometimes drawn as a quick reminder of the meaning of practice: at the end of a letter, on the inside of a fan, on a piece of wood near the entrance to a teahouse. Sometimes it is drawn with a stick on sand and immediately brushed away, because its value does not lie in permanence.

Thus, one may say that ensō surpasses art. It is a gesture that orders consciousness, not a decoration. When looking at it, we do not ask about the “style” of the artist, but about what is happening in the very moment when the line arises. And perhaps for this reason, despite its simplicity, ensō remains one of the most enduring images in Japanese culture. It reminds us that things may be simple, yet not shallow.

Ensō in Psychology

Certain forms of practice are difficult to describe in language because they do not operate at the conceptual level. Ensō belongs to these. When a monk or artist takes up the brush, they do not prepare for long, do not sketch, and do not correct. They breathe, raise the hand, and perform one movement. That is all. In this gesture is contained the experience that contemporary psychology would call flow — a state in which action happens “by itself,” without division between “I who do” and “what is being done.” Zen calls this mushin (無心) — “without mind” in the sense of “without excess commentary.” The body remembers more than thought; the hand moves before you have time to name what it is doing.

In this understanding, ensō is not about the result, but about the moment. The drawing is not an illustration of something “inner” — it is the trace of what has just occurred. One can see in it the tension of the shoulders, the certainty of the wrist, the rhythm of breathing, or a slight restlessness. Some masters draw the circle with a clearly broken-off trace, others finish it with a heavy weight of ink. This is not an aesthetic “stylistic characteristic.” It is a record of the moment in which the artist was themselves without the shield of convention. Therefore, in Zen tradition, it is said that ensō does not show the “character” of a person in general, but the character of this specific moment of being. We are somewhat different in the morning, different in the evening, different after a conversation, different after a loss. Ensō does not search for a “true self” as essence — it shows the movement that is never the same.

In this sense, drawing ensō is a form of self-observation, but not introspection understood as analyzing oneself. It is observation through action. Not “who am I?” but “how am I acting in this moment?” The difference is subtle, yet fundamental. Analysis easily falls into the trap of narrative, of building stories about oneself. Ensō explains nothing. It leaves a trace. And you, looking at it — learn to see.

This perspective can be related to contemporary psychology, especially to Mihály Csikszentmihályi’s concept of flow: when attention narrows to the act itself, and the sense of time and “self” temporarily fades. But it is worth noting the difference: in Zen, flow is not meant to serve efficiency or increase productivity. Ensō is not a “technique” intended to improve results. It is the record of meeting oneself with a moment in which nothing needs to be achieved. Zen does not say: “do this to become better.” It says: “see what is, when you are not trying to improve anything.”

The social sphere is not excluded either. Ensō was sometimes used as a personal signature by Zen masters, but not in the sense of an “authorial” signature. Rather, as an invitation: “this is my breath, my moment; see whether you recognize in it something shared with your own.” In Japanese culture, there is the notion of en (縁) — bonds that do not arise from declarations or affiliations, but from circumstance, from being co-present. Ensō can be understood as a visual trace of such a bond: it says nothing about “the group” or “the individual,” but points to the fact that all of this — I, the image, the viewer, the situation — is happening together.

This is why ensō has never become the subject of “universal instructions.” It cannot be meaningfully copied. One cannot practice “how to do it right.” The only criterion is the authenticity of the moment — and that cannot be manufactured. Ensō teaches something very simple, yet difficult to accept: that growth does not consist in adding new techniques or theories, but in revealing what already works when we stop hindering ourselves with thoughts about ourselves.

The History of Ensō

Ensō did not arise in a vacuum. It is part of a long history of practices that joined meditation, calligraphy, and an understanding of the nature of mind. To grasp it well, one must go back to Tang China (7th–8th centuries), to the milieu of early Chan — to the place where the idea of spontaneous action and sudden insight (dùn wù — 頓悟) took shape. Tradition preserves the story of Huineng (慧能), the sixth patriarch of Chan, who could neither read nor write, and yet was recognized as a master of “pure seeing of the nature of mind.” In iconography he was sometimes depicted with a circle painted in a single stroke — not as a symbol, but as evidence that enlightenment requires no mediation by words. The early Chinese circles were not yet called ensō (or rather “yuánxiàng,” since that was the Chinese reading), but they were already almost the same gesture.

When Chan — by then Zen — penetrated Japan in the Kamakura period (12th–14th centuries), calligraphic practices began to play a role equal to seated meditation (zazen). In milieus associated with Rinzai, especially in the monasteries of Kyoto, drawing circles with a single stroke became a spiritual exercise. Masters such as Musō Soseki (夢窓疎石, 1275–1351), and later Hakuin Ekaku (白隠慧鶴, 1686–1769), treated ensō as part of their teaching — not as a record of “truth,” but as an invitation to see what is happening in the mind at the moment of action. Hakuin in particular developed a style that we now recognize as characteristic: thick, energetic lines, often left open, with a distinct trace of acceleration and the hand coming to rest. This trace of movement is crucial — it allows one almost to feel the author’s breath.

In later centuries, an enormous diversity of ensō styles arose. Some masters, like Bankei Yōtaku (17th century), drew circles barely touching the paper, as if the brush were gliding across the surface by itself — their circles are light, almost transparent. Others, like Torei Enji (a century later), used dense, saturated ink, bringing weight and solidity into the circle. In some, the line spreads and “breaks” toward the end, as if the brush could no longer hold its tension — this is not a technical flaw, but a testimony of the moment. The open circle says: practice continues, nothing is final. The closed circle — that this one moment was complete. Both are equally true, equally sincere, both — momentary.

Ensō was not an art “separate” from the rest of culture. In monasteries it appeared in the same context as shodō (書道 — the Way of writing), chadō (茶道 — the Way of tea), and kadō (華道 — the Way of flowers). In all these practices, the point is the same: action not calculated for outcome, but performed in full presence. In the tea ceremony, the master performs gestures with precision and silence — not because they are ritual, but because they are to be complete. In ikebana, flowers are not “arranged for effect,” but placed to show their moment of life: a stem bent after rain, a branch that grew toward the light. Ensō is the same — only more bare, even simpler.

Historically, ensō also served as a signature. Not in the sense of an artist’s autograph, but as a mark of presence — in place of a surname or seal. When a master added an ensō to a scroll, it was something like “I was fully here.” In some schools, one ensō was drawn each day — not to “improve” day by day, but to understand how the state from which action arises changes.

What in the West is often reduced to a “minimalist Zen symbol” in reality has deep, many-layered roots. Ensō is the story of the movement of mind through time — from Tang China, through the Japanese monasteries of the Edo period, to contemporary calligraphers who still take up the same question: who am I now, in this one moment?

So What, Then, Is Ensō Really?

In Japanese culture, “ensō” neither denotes a kanji that “names something,” nor is it a picture or symbol meant to point to a circle. A given, concrete ensō speaks of a given, concrete moment of a concrete person who created that ensō. This is an important distinction. In writing, we speak of moji 文字 (written characters) and e 絵 (image). Ensō stands between — it is not a letter, but it is also not an illustration of anything. It is an iconographic gesture that, in semiotic terms, is at once an icon (it looks like a circle) and an index (it is the direct trace of a bodily act in time). In the language of Charles Peirce (the father of semiotics): ensō combines resemblance (iconicity) with the imprint of an event (indexicality). This is why it functions simultaneously “like an image” and “like a signature.”

This “position in-between” corresponds well to the intuition of Japanese thinkers who described experience before the division into word and thing. Nishida Kitarō wrote about junsui keiken 純粋経験 (“pure experience”), in which knowing and acting are not yet separated: observation and phenomenon are the same. Ensō is the record of precisely such a moment — before narrative appears. Watsuji Tetsurō spoke of aidagara 間柄, the “between-relation,” in which the individual and the world form a context, not two separate substances; a circle that does not represent a thing but the event of brush meeting paper expresses this “in-between” logic well.

If we look more broadly, the circle belongs to the most elemental figures of human imagination. In East Asian languages we find en 円 (Japanese) and yuán 圓 / 圆 (Chinese) — fullness, unity, “a rounded thing.” In Japan, the word en is linked with another important concept: 縁 (en), meaning “connection, favorable circumstance, relational bond.” This is not a wordplay — it is a cultural clue: the circle as a figure of connection. Traditional round windows in temples (marumado 丸窓) frame the landscape not to “decorate” it, but to bind inside and outside into a single continuous contour. Ensō does the same: it links inner and outer through a gesture that does not divide “within” and “without,” but shows their interdependence.

In a historical-linguistic sense, ensō is an intriguing case of a sign as performance. Japanese writing lives at the junction of kanji (semantic-phonetic characters) and kana (phonograms), and calligraphy not only records language but materializes time — tempo, pressure, pause. The linguist Tokieda Motoki described language as gengo katei 言語過程 (“the linguistic process”), rather than a ready-made set of units. Calligraphy is, in a sense, a view into that process: we see how a sign comes into being. Ensō takes this one step further: it dispenses with the “word-sign” entirely and leaves only the pure form of the process. It does not convey lexical semantics, yet it is readable, because we read the trace of movement.

Phenomenologically, the most interesting moment is the contact. A brush soaked with sumi ink touches washi paper, which absorbs soot particles instantly and unevenly. Every millimeter of the line is the sum of micro-relations: the fibers of the paper, the density of the ink, the angle of the grip, the speed of the hand, even the rhythm of breathing. These relations are “irreducible” — they cannot be fully predicted or reproduced. Yuasa Yasuo, analyzing the “body of experience” in Eastern traditions, emphasized that cognition is embodied: the body is not the instrument of the mind, but the place where the world appears. Ensō is therefore not a sign of “what we think,” but a graph of how our body meets the world.

In the background there is another category central to Japanese aesthetics: 間 (ma). Dictionaries translate it as “space,” “interval,” “gap” — but in practice ma means the relational pause from which meaning arises. In music it is the silence between sounds, in Noh theater — the pause that intensifies the scene, in architecture — the empty space that structures the rhythm of a house. In calligraphy, ma is not just the blank of the page; it is the duration of the gesture and all the “breaths” that keep the line alive. Ensō can be understood as a frame for ma: the circle does not “fill” the center, but draws out its significance. In this sense, the interior is not “nothing”; it is an active space without which the line would have no function. That is why we read calm (seijaku 静寂) in ensō — not because it “symbolizes” something, but because it opens ma and allows meaning to “arrive” in the interval.

Finally, the question of the “open” and “closed” circle has a semiotic dimension. Closure creates a sense of wholeness — semantically it behaves like a complete sign (the frame of an image, a seal). Opening introduces direction — it functions like an indication: here movement begins, here it flows outward. When we look at the point where the line “fades,” we read more than shape: speed, sudden decision, change of pressure. That is why two ensō by the same master, drawn one after another, can speak differently — not of “character” in general, but of the character of the moment. This is close to Dōgen’s intuition, who in Uji (有時) wrote that “time is the very things, and things are the very time.” Ensō is therefore both thing and time in a single gesture.

If we add the psychological perspective, the conclusions converge: the state of focused activity (what psychology calls “flow”) is not “detachment from the world,” but precise attunement of body, attention, and task. From a semiotic point of view, this attunement gives the sign its credibility: the line is “true” when its indexical dimension (traces of pressure, rhythm, micro-vibrations) matches its iconic dimension (the circle as circle). Then ensō does not “pretend” to be a circle — it is one.

To summarize: ensō does not expand the lexicon of kanji with a new sign. It expands the scope of what we recognize as language — showing that meaning arises not only in words, but also in pauses (ma), in movement, in the trace of presence. And therefore it surpasses art: it is simultaneously an exercise in perception, a record of time, and a very simple reminder that what matters most in communication often happens in the in-between.

Contemporary Resonances

Today, ensō can be found on mugs, tattoos, book covers about productivity, and wellness company logos. In itself this is neither good nor bad — culture always carries symbols wherever it currently needs them. The problem begins when the sign becomes detached from the experience that produced it. If the circle becomes merely a “pretty motif,” what is essential disappears: the moment of concentration, breath, the decision with no return.

Contemporary psychology often recognizes in drawing ensō a resemblance to the flow state — immersion in action where attention and movement merge. This association is not wrong, but one must be careful not to turn the practice into a “mood-improvement technique.” For Zen masters, ensō was neither tool nor method — it was the testimony of a moment, the trace of mind in time. It was not meant to “help” in life. It showed how to live already now.

If ensō is to have meaning today, it must remain something that is done, not merely looked at. Not as a test of “whether it turns out nicely,” but as a brief return to what is before evaluation: to the hand holding the brush, to the ink soaking into the paper, to the breath guiding the movement. A circle drawn with full presence can still be what it was centuries ago: a small reminder that what we seek — calm, clarity, meaning — is not somewhere further ahead, in some improved version of ourselves.

It is exactly here, in the moment that is already passing.

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"Strong Japanese Women"

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    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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