According to Japanese legend, a young man named Sen no Rikyu sought to learn the elaborate set of customs known as the Way of Tea. He went to tea-master Takeeno Joo, who tested the younger man by asking him to tend the garden.
Rikyu cleaned up debris and raked the ground until it was perfect, then scrutinized the immaculate garden. Before presenting his work to the master, he shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers to spill randomly onto the ground.
Wabi-Sabi is quite simply the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud.
For the Japanese, it's the difference between kirei-merely "pretty"-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful.
From a personal and spiritual standpoint, this way of looking at life has inspired me. As I strive to live consciously, it has helped me to continue in that direction.
I am a perfectionist. I have learnt to become so aware of faults around me that to look at those flaws and think they are beautiful is a whole paradigm shift.
It also reminds me of this verse from the Bible.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Even as I climb to the pinnacle of many things in my life, I’ve started to accept that it is about the journey, not the destination itself. Some things seem more beautiful than ever, and other things that I thought had significant meaning in my life have turned out to be one-page chapters that don’t even warrant remembrance.
As a concept, this is so hard to translate into a perspective that all of us can relate to, I thought I would share the overall idea instead.
Have a blessed day.
Sources: What Is Wabi-Sabi?
Rikyu cleaned up debris and raked the ground until it was perfect, then scrutinized the immaculate garden. Before presenting his work to the master, he shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers to spill randomly onto the ground.
Wabi-Sabi is quite simply the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud.
For the Japanese, it's the difference between kirei-merely "pretty"-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful.
From a personal and spiritual standpoint, this way of looking at life has inspired me. As I strive to live consciously, it has helped me to continue in that direction.
I am a perfectionist. I have learnt to become so aware of faults around me that to look at those flaws and think they are beautiful is a whole paradigm shift.
It also reminds me of this verse from the Bible.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Even as I climb to the pinnacle of many things in my life, I’ve started to accept that it is about the journey, not the destination itself. Some things seem more beautiful than ever, and other things that I thought had significant meaning in my life have turned out to be one-page chapters that don’t even warrant remembrance.
As a concept, this is so hard to translate into a perspective that all of us can relate to, I thought I would share the overall idea instead.
Have a blessed day.
Sources: What Is Wabi-Sabi?