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Zen123
Artist: Yin Peet
Size: 45”Hx28″Wx14D”
Weight: 500 lb
Material: Granite
Year completed: 2015
Zen One Two Three by Yin Peet, inspired by a fourteenth-century painting by the Japanese Zen master Yaso, three simple forms—a square, a triangle, and a circle.
Yin recognizes these three shapes as three stages of Zen practice. The square represents discipline—rules, structures, practices that guide us. The triangle breakthrough—the moment when we challenge limitations and move beyond what we already know. The circle enlightenment—a state of freedom and completeness.
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In the sculpture, the three forms overlap, because these stages do not exist separately. Discipline creates the foundation, but one could not get to enlightenment from discipline without the breakthrough.
The human figure inside the sculpture represents Yin’s journey. The figure positioned inside the Void (an essential aesthetics in East Asian art), she is walking these three states—stepping over the square, pushing against the triangle, and carrying the circle forward. It captures a moment of transformation: not a final achievement, but the ongoing process of becoming.
For Yin, the most important word in this sculpture is not “enlightenment” but “movement.” Moving in the stream of Living.