Xu Xi [1020-1090] member of the Sung Dynasty's Imperial Academy for sixty years and regarded as one of China's greatest landscape artists.
Looking at this ink representation "was an act of meditation, bringing the viewer to a state closer to Buddha. The Chan sect of Buddhism, the largest at the time ... said that rituals and religious study were a waste of time. Buddha existed in everyone and could be reached by meditating. In the highest state of meditation you could see the 'Absolute Principle' of all life. Meditating on nature, or art that represented the unity of nature, was a way to do this."
