Saturday, 22 August 2026
Art Gallery of NSW
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Thank you, Sam^[1] and Aya.^[2]

As is my tradition, I begin by greeting you in the language of the Gadigal – Traditional Custodians of these lands and waters.

Bujari Gamarruwa

Diyn Babana, Gamarada, Gadigal Ngura

In doing so, I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders past, present, and emerging, as well as to the Elders of all parts of our State from which you travel.

Nestled amongst the towering buildings of modern Kyōto is the Buddhist temple Chōhō-ji, better known as Rokkaku-dō.^[3]

Legend has it the temple was founded by Prince Shōtoku in the 6th century… The story goes that, while walking in the forests, he came upon a pond. Deciding to bathe, he hung his amulet of the Goddess of Mercy^[4] he carried with him always, in the branches of a tree.

When he’d finished, he came to retrieve his amulet, but it had become too heavy to lift. Then in a dream, Buddha spoke to him, ‘build a six-sided temple here’ he was told, ‘and enshrine in it your amulet, so that many may come and be healed’.^[5]

And so, the Prince built Rokkaku-dō – literally ‘six-sided hall’ – using wood from a sacred cedar tree.^[6] Beside the pond he’d bathed in, a hut was built for the Temple priests… And so, they became known as Ikenobō – ike being the Japanese word for ‘pond’ and bo for ‘small hut’.^[7] Over time, the head priests took this as their name.^[8]

It is said Ono no Imoko introduced and popularised, the tradition of offering fresh flowers – kuge – as well as prayers, at Rokkaku-dō’s altar.^[9]

Plants and flowers were already, of course, important spiritually in Japan – for instance, the Shintō practice of placing branches of evergreen trees in pots as a welcome to the gods.^[10]

Over the centuries, the priests at Rokkaku-dō refined their ku-ge tradition, including the practice of tate-hana – of placing flowers upright in bronze vases and held in place with straw, their verticality seen as connecting the earth with the sky and representing, thereby, prayers that link human and heavenly spheres.^[11]

By the 15th century, the priests were arranging flowers for use outside the Temple, and, indeed, in 1462, it is recorded that Senkei Ikenobō created arrangements for a local warrior that won widespread fame.^[12]

Soon after, one of Senkai’s successors, Senno Ikenobō compiled the Temple’s theories – until then passed down priest-to-priest – in the treatise Senno Kuden.

In the introduction to that manuscript, proper flower arranging is defined as…  “expressing the essence (onozukara naru sugata) of nature as a whole (noyama mizube) on a table, arranging flowers and leaves, based on their good images (yoroshiki omokage).”^[13]

It is here, then, with this, that ikebana – literally ‘giving life to flowers’ – and its oldest school, Ikenobō – can thought to have properly begun and given its spiritual heart.

For, ikebana is not merely the creation or appreciation of beauty… It is a contemplative and meditative act – often performed in silence – in which the practitioner engages with the materials before them to give full expression to the essence of nature as a whole.^[14]

It is refined and elegant, never symmetrical, with the spaces between – ma or ‘meaningful emptiness’^[15], those breathing voids – as vital to the composition as the branches, leaves, and petals that outline them.^[16]

Each arrangement honours the transient nature of life… each an exercise in impermanence – mujō – designed to be appreciated precisely because it will not last.^[17]

It is not a representation of the surface of things, but of the forces, the deep living spirit, that animates everything.^[18]

In doing so… in seeking these goals, in the words of Senno Ikenobō “[in] arranging flowers with reverence, one refines oneself.”^[19]

This is the true spirit of ikebana.

Today, we are privileged to be joined by Mrs Senko Ikenobō, whose father Mr Sen’ei Ikenobō is Head Priest at Rokkaku-dō and Headmaster at Ikenobō Headquarters next door. As Headmaster Designate, Mrs Senko Ikenobō is, thus, continuation of an extraordinary 46-generation lineage of tradition.^[20]

It is said Ono no Imoko was first in this line.^[21]

And so… what a privilege it is to be here celebrating 30 years of Ikenobō Sydney Chapter and Ikenobo Ikebana that it has helped bring, and teach, to our shores…

It is also an opportunity to celebrate the warm connections between Japan and Australia… and I acknowledge here His Excellency Mr Kazuhiro Suzuki, Ambassador, and Mr Osamu Yamanaka, Consul-General.

Today’s opportunity to experience these extraordinary works of reverence, from expert practitioners from Ikenobō’s very heart in Japan, as well as from New Zealand and here in Australia, is a true joy.

And so… it is with the greatest of pleasure, that I declare the Ikenobō Sydney Chapter 30th Anniversary Commemorative Ikebana Exhibition open!