Wabi Sabi: The Wisdom in Imperfection by Nobuo Suzuki (Notes)
Ambiguity is beautiful because it always leaves the door open to possibilities.
With the passing of time, the meaning of the term gradually transformed and today wabi expresses tranquility, rustic simplicity and beautiful imperfections.
There is something inside me that tends to look for a certainty to cling to. Sometimes I even think I cannot be happy or feel safe without it. I secretly wish for the day to come when everything in my life is stable and perfect.
On the other hand, I also know that this paradisiacal state will never come, since the only constant in life is change, the eternal flux of all that exists. There is nothing to cling to, no terra firma to reach, however much our heart longs for it.
For that reason, the only way to be happy is to accept the fact that everything flows relentlessly.
Buddhism’s three keys to life
They are:
1.The impermanence of all living things (in Pāli, aniccā; in Japanese, mujō 無常).
shogyō mujō 諸行無常, which means: all there is in the world is forever changing, constantly; nothing in the universe is stationary. Our emotions, thoughts and identity are also always flowing in the time continuum.
One of the fundamental truths of Heraclitus’ school of thought is: panta rei (Everything flows).
When applied to our day-to-day life, impermanence is an invitation to flow each day and to enjoy the here and now without letting ourselves be weighed down by the past or frightened by the uncertainty of the future.
2.Suffering or impossibility of satisfying all our desires (in Pāli, dukkha).
Dukkha, dissatisfaction, is the distance that comes between us and that “something more” we are always wishing for. It is as though we are condemned to want something we cannot have, and to never be fully satisfied. This frustration, to a greater or lesser degree, is converted into an emptiness inside us that makes us seek out our next objective.
The narrower the gap between our current reality and what we hope to achieve or have, the less dukkha or dissatisfaction we will feel, and by extension, the happier we will feel.
To put that into a formula, happiness is the reality we live in minus what we desire or hope to achieve.
Happiness equation: Happiness = Reality – Desires.
3.Emptiness or nothingness. Absence of the self, of the ego.
ku 空 to refer to emptiness, both in the literal sense of the word and in the metaphorical sense that is used in Buddhism. But I prefer to use the original word, which in Sanskrit is śūnyatā, because its meaning goes further than the Japanese term and is more powerful.
Śūnyatā is a fundamental component of reality and of the cosmos itself, which is largely empty. But it is also an emotional state in which a person no longer feels trapped by worldly desires.
According to some doctrines, śūnyatā is everything, since all that exists is empty.
The ego always tends to come between us and reality, leaving no room for śūnyatā.
Let us say we are creating a sculpture. To have a śūnyatā nature, it must fit gracefully into its surroundings, as if it formed part of the whole. The sculpture should not stand apart as though it had its own identity. It will be finished when there is nothing else to add to or take away from it.
The opposite would be a sculpture whose sole purpose is to attract people’s attention, or to be spectacular, as though the artist’s ego had taken over the work.
Wabi sabi art is the complete opposite. The creator is not to be found in the work—the work is in śūnyatā with the universe. It is both art and the universe at one and the same time.
When it comes to our lives, in order to lead a wabi sabi lifestyle, do not add nor eliminate more than is necessary.
For wabi sabi, emptiness, not adding, or nothingness, is just as important as everything else. This is something we can apply equally to creating art and to our lives.
Filling oneself with emptiness
Śūnyatā is not only a spiritual or architectural concept, but also a source of inspiration for our life. Put aside days in your calendar with no firm plans and during this time:
•Do whatever you feel like as the day progresses.
•Walk around someplace that has a lot of greenery with someone you love (it may be yourself).
•Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing for five solid minutes.
Create a śūnyatā room in your house:
•Completely empty a room, Put down a carpet and two cushions where you can sit and meditate or read.
•An unwritten rule of this special room is: no electronic device can enter.
•You may buy a thick paintbrush and some ink and sketch a large ensō circle on a white parchment (more on the ensō in Part II) Hang it in the room next to the two cushions.
The most important lesson that emptiness teaches us is that you do not need anything to be happy, other than a little food, water or tea, sleep and the air that you breathe.
A MEDITATION
My body and mind grow old and change over time.
At the age of ten, I had nothing but curiosity for the world.
At twenty, I wished for action, adventure and passion.
At thirty, for stability and for life to have meaning.
And at forty, I gained wisdom through misadventures.
Having reached fifty,
I now know life is a mystery
and that is precisely what makes it interesting.
More decades will come, or at least I hope so,
since I wish to know what my outlook will be
in each one of them.
“None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.” —ICHIRO KISHIMI
Japanese culture is well known for its work ethic, summed up by the expression ganbarimasu 頑張ります, which translates as “doing it the best you can.” If we analyze the term, 頑 means “stubbornness” and could mean “stretch,” so the expression may literally be understood to mean “stretch your stubbornness as far as possible.”
This key principle of life is especially useful for students and athletes, whom we encourage before an exam or competition with a “Ganbatte kudasai,” which means something along the lines of “strive to do it the best you can.”
While it’s a good concept for maintaining focus and effort, “ganbarimasu” can turn against us if we distort it or live too strictly by it in our daily lives, since life is not a race and it is impossible for us to even aspire to perfection, as wabi sabi philosophy reminds us.
No two people think or react alike, because each person is at a different point on their journey. It is impossible to be in anyone else’s shoes because each person has their own place from where they observe the universe.
To make use of that simile, it is as though each person lives on a planet in a different galaxy. All of us are surrounded by the same firmament of stars but the configurations change depending on where the observer happens to be.
The galaxy we inhabit is made up of our innate character, the family into which we were born and our experiences throughout life. This combination of things conditions our outlook and places each of us in a corner of the world where we alone dwell.
How are others supposed to react according to our wishes, which are often not even verbalized, if they live in a different galaxy with another sky chart?
This is just what happens—with more serious consequences-when one half of a couple wishes to mold the other for their benefit. Frictions multiply and may lead to a breakup. Each person’s character is molded in its own way and is a unique piece with its own cracks and irregularities. If they were to disappear, the person would cease to be themselves.
The wabi sabi of love implies loving those characteristics that make that person unique and only altering – by mutual consent—what jeopardizes the bond.
Be the best imperfect person you can be
If each person has their own truth and we cannot even be certain of the reality we believe ourselves to be living in, what sense is there in having certainties about how things are or how they should be?
Maybe it would be more sensible to rediscover the wisdom of the old Greek masters and recognize that the wisest person is the one who knows they know nothing, since in that principle of ignorance lies the seed of all future growth.
By approaching life from the wabi sabi perspective, we embrace the utter uncertainty of existence, along with the mystery of our own abilities.
That is the magic of humankind, which is imperfect but at the same time has the potential for everything.
On that subject, Doctor Shoma Morita, a contemporary of Freud and the creator of a life goal-based therapy, influenced by Zen Buddhism, stated the following:
Give up on yourself. Begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect, or a procrastinator, or unhealthy, or lazy, or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself. Go ahead and be the best imperfect person you can be and get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die.
A MEDITATION
the branches of the keyaki in my garden
sway in the dawn breeze
I want to be like that tree:
to have deep roots
but to bend my branches
when my life is battered
by the storm
nature is the great master of wabi sabi philosophy, because it is the inspiration for the beauty of that which is imperfect, incomplete and perishable.
Nothing is completely geometrical or symmetrical—that is a human obsession—but nature finds its own beauty in that which is irregular.
Nothing is finished, nor will it ever be, since the idea of “a finished work” is a human obsession. Nature is an endless work in progress, like the life of a human being while they journey through this life.
Nothing is everlasting—the cycle of births and deaths is all that is eternal. Life endlessly renews itself and us with it, inside and out.
Nature is a great master but we humans have distanced ourselves from her so much that we have forgotten her humble lessons. We shall rediscover them through the diaries of different hermits.
Among the Japanese texts that best reflect the spirit of wabi sabi are the so-called Essays in Idleness that the monk Yoshida Kenkō wrote between 1330 and 1332. He wrote them on pieces of paper he would stick to the walls of his secluded cabin.
Tsurezuregusa, as these essays are known in Japanese, speak of the fleeting nature of all things. Kenkō’s writings also put across the simplicity, humility and naturalness that are characteristic of Zen. They urge the reader to take advantage of every waking breath through contemplation of nature and of their own mind.
“In all things, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete… gives one the feeling that through this imperfection the life of living things is extended.”
Leaving something incomplete makes life interesting. It is said that even when building the imperial palace, some corner is always left unfinished. And in the writings of the old spiritual masters, there are always chapters and parts missing.
Non-completion and disorder is also present in our everyday life, where we never know what might happen, but Yoshida Kenkō sees this as a value: “Life’s most precious gift is uncertainty.”
This component of poverty and parsimony, which is ever present in wabi sabi, is a hallmark of Essays in Idleness, where the poet points out that none of the sages of antiquity had possessions, and he gives the extreme example of the Chinese hermit Xu You:
He had not a single possession in the world. He would even scoop up water with his hands, until a friend gave him a hollowed-out pumpkin. But one day after hanging it from a branch, he heard the wind make it rattle. As the noise bothered him, he cast the pumpkin away and carried on drinking by cupping his hands. How pure and free was that man’s heart!
Essays in Idleness is a classic of the zuihitsu genre, a spontaneous way of writing made popular in the eleventh century by Sei Shonagon, the author of The Pillow Book, which recounts her everyday experiences at the empress’s court.
Another well-known diary is Hōjōki, sometimes translated as Hymn to Life from a Hut. Written in 1212 by the hermit poet Kamo no Chōmei, it explains his life in a ten-foot square shack, from where he observed nature and life.
The beginning of this short essay is renowned in Japanese literature. This is how it talks of the passing of time and the temporariness of life:
The current of the flowing river does not cease, and yet the water is not the same water as before. The foam that floats on stagnant pools is illusionary; now vanishing, now forming, it never stays the same for long.
The account shows Kamo no Chōmei knew how to live in the purest wabi sabi spirit:
Now I dwell in my quiet home. It is merely a ten-foot square cabin, but I love it. When I go to the capital for something, I may feel ashamed of my beggar’s appearance, but upon returning I feel pity for the people I see there, so absorbed by a life of worry about wealth and honor, so busy. If you doubt what I say, think about the fish and the birds: the fish are always in the water and yet they do not grow tired of it. Although if you are not a fish, you probably won’t understand that; as for the birds, they pine for the forest. Although if you are not a bird, you probably won’t understand their reasons either. My feelings toward my quiet home imply the same thing. Who can understand it if they have never tried it?
My life, just like the waning moon, is about to end. The remaining days are few in number.
Wabi Sabi - Nobuo Suzuki (Highlight: 165; Note: 0)
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◆ Foreword by Héctor García
▪ Wabi sabi is about learning to be ok with whatever it is that we are and with what we have in this moment. It doesn’t take away our responsibility to strive to be better, more fully alive people. It means that once we realize that we are ok with the present moment, we move ahead every day, step by step, aiming not toward perfection, but toward our best selves—to discover the essence of who we really are, our ikigai. This idea of freeing ourselves of unrealistic expectations in order to move forward, to become better, is one of the many lovely takeaways you’ll find in the pages of this book
◆ Prologue: The Magic of Imperfection
▪ In Japan, however, the most highly-prized cup—and the most expensive—tends to be the one that contains flaws, because that makes it unique
▪ It may have dents, sandstone stuck to it or even be cracked or mended through the art of kintsugi, which we shall talk about later on in this book
▪ wabi sabi, which regards things that resemble nature as beautiful, and which may be summed up with the following three principles:
1. Nothing is perfect
2. Nothing is finished.
3. Nothing lasts forever
▪ Accepting our own imperfection and each person’s unique nature does not mean resignation. On the contrary, it shows us the path to follow to evolve as human beings
▪ Anyone who believes they have achieved excellence is both wrong—there is always room for improvement—and lacking in flexibility. Secure in their absolute and subjective truth, they have no margin for growth. Such a person is rigid and fossilized and does not exude life.
▪ Taking a wabi sabi approach to life means, once you have recognized your own imperfection, embracing continuous learning and assuming that everything is still to be done, and therefore, that everything is still to be lived
▪ The third principle of wabi sabi is understanding the fleeting nature of all that exists, a concept that takes us back to Zen. To come back to the Buddha once again, he pointed out, when talking about suffering, that one of its causes is that humans wish that things that by nature are transitory are permanent.
Youth flies and becomes maturity and then old age.
▪ Rather than saddening us, accepting that nothing lasts forever inspires us to value the beauty of the moment, which is the only thing we can capture here and now. It is an invitation to give our everything to whatever we may be doing
▪ wabi sabi, which inspires our life offering us a new horizon of sensitivity, growth and self-fulfillment
◆ The Three Dimensions of Wabi Sabi
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:13 AM ] Farrah Mae: You’re so Zen… You’ll never change.”
“Why accrue more than I need? I want to live true to my nature—wabi sabi is my guide.”
▪ Wabi sabi philosophy tells us that everything is impermanent. Even rocks that have been forming a mountain for millions of years will one day disappear.
Everything is in a continual state of flux and if we go against the flow, we will suffer. The only way to be happy is to accept it. Sometimes we will feel melancholy and nostalgia, but these are feelings we can enjoy.
Why should we worry about the future or the present if nothing will be the same tomorrow as it was yesterday?
◆ Lessons from Nature
▪ The Western equivalent of these essays on austere life, the result of life in a cabin, came in the modern era, with the experience of Henry David Thoreau
▪ This American philosopher, the father of civil disobedience, abandoned the hustle and bustle of city life so as not to be like “the mass of men who live lives of quiet desperation.”
He considered that urban idleness had cut him off from the heart of life, preventing him from writing authentically. In his own words: “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
▪ One is for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
▪ Water lilies, rising from murky depths, are proof that there’s great beauty to be found in mud.

▪ Hokusai’s “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa
▪ Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji. And
▪ Hanami
▪ Experience the beauty of each season while it lasts—the season is here and gone, and when it returns, its beauty will be different from what it was the year before. Above, a detail from Chiyoda Ooku Ohanami by Toyohara Chikanobu (1838-1912) gives a taste of the sort of salute and celebration that continues to this day.
▪ The Tale of Genji, written in the eleventh century by Murasaki Shikibu
▪ As we know from our enjoyment of novels past and present, it is the character’s mixture of light and shade that gives the novel its resonance. It is his flaws, quirks, pleasures and failures that secure our sympathy. Our understanding and enjoyment of the imperfect extends not only to the natural world, but to the human one as well. And although he is undeniably a flawed character, Genji has a gift for living in the moment. In this detail from an 1860 print by Kunisada, Genji enjoys the sight of fall foliage while a young maid serves him sake.
▪ Tea Ceremony Periwinkle by Toshikata Mizuno (1866-1908
▪ Wabi sabi is present not only in the simplicity and neatness of the setting, and the imperfections in the tea bowls. It is in the act of making, giving and receiving tea with a full and pure heart. It is in the feeling of serenity with one’s self and the other participants. In a ceremony well performed and attended, the participants feel the wabi—the serene melancholy in the beauty and transience of the present moment.

▪ The Kotoin Temple in Kyoto
▪ Katsura Imperial Villa i
▪ In wabi sabi, that which is worth having appreciates rather than depreciates over time, not because it is well-preserved, but because age, wear and long use have increased its beauty and meaning
▪ Kintsugi (gold joinery) is a slow and mindful process, involving many steps and a lot of waiting before moving from one step to the next. The gold highlights and celebrates the break that leads to the repair, as well as the repair itself. The repair, performed with love and care, creates something new out of what which was broken, something even more precious than the original.
▪ raku potter
▪ raku pottery.
▪ Shisendo Temple in Kyoto
▪ Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto
◆ II Wabi Sabi in Art
▪ A MEDITATION
The crows perch on the maple tree branches,
their cawing echoing around the hillside.
When the evening sun
is reflected in the pond, I wonder:
What is more beautiful?
The echo or the original sound?
The sun or the reflected sunbeams?
◆ Principles of Wabi Sabi in the Japanese Arts
▪ “As imperfect humans
we are allergic to what is perfect.
If something is perfect from start to finish
there is no suggestion of the infinite.”
—YANAGI SŌETSU
▪ Wabi sabi rebels against the modernity that seeks in vain to create perfectly flat surfaces and symmetrical shapes, elements which aid mass production. Unlike the latter, raku objects are unique – no one can copy or even imitate Honami Kōetsu’s “Mount Fuji.
▪ Organic texture: yūki tekusucha 有機テクスチャ
▪ There is nothing that attracts the human eye more than flaws, and nothing that is duller than monotony
▪ We can feel whatever changes or is dynamic more intensely. Organic textures are the true expression of continuous change
▪ Simplicity: kanso 簡素
▪ Eliminate all that which is unimportant or superfluous to leave space for what is essential.
Do not add anything that is not strictly necessary.
We can only attain kanso by excluding everything that is not essential, like a beautiful sculpture that has thrown off the rock that enclosed it, like a stone cocoon.
▪ Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Oscar Wilde said that “simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex,” and there is certainly a clear link between simplicity and sophistication.
Young poets, for instance, often write lengthy verses to express quite simple ideas. Due to their inexperience, they get bogged down in unnecessary complexity.
The elderly poetry master, on the other hand, is capable of expressing something extraordinarily complex, such as the meaning of life, with three simple haiku phrases.
▪ Asymmetry and flaws: fukinsei 不均整
The meaning of fukinsei encompasses both asymmetry and irregularity in general. An oft-used example of this characteristic of wabi sabi art is the ensō circle.
This circle, which is practiced by calligraphy masters, is never symmetrical. On the contrary, the spontaneity of the brushstroke must be visible. Nor is the circle closed, since the ensō symbolizes the incompleteness of all that exists, the pure spirit of wabi sabi.
Well-executed, naturally flowing asymmetry, is beautiful, since only through calmness is the artist able to find the balance within chaos – that is the essence of fukinsei.
▪ Naturalness: shizen 自然
For a Japanese, everything is more beautiful when it bears the marks of the passing of time. In fact, wounds or flaws distinguish what is unique from what is commonplace. This is equally applicable to the wrinkles or scars of a person and to the rust on a saucepan or kettle.
What is natural and unpretentious is wabi sabi.
An old man or woman with deep wrinkles and a still-adolescent smile is the pinnacle of wabi sabi beauty
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:14 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ Western art Seeking perfection Wabi sabi art Accepting imperfection
Symmetry Asymmetry
Search for perfection Imperfections are embraced
Proportions following Greco-Roman ideals Proportions are unimportant
Refinement Roughness
Complexity Simplicity
There is an attempt to impress the onlooker more than is strictly necessary Only those elements that are necessary are kept
Artificiality Appreciation of what is natural
Imposing and spectacular Intimate
Intellectual and rational Intuitive
Magnificent Austere
Sublime Modest
Static Dynamic
Limits itself to representing something finite Evokes the infinite
Regular Irregular and random
Brilliant and pristine Used, rusty
▪ mingei philosophy of my compatriot Yanagi Muneyoshi, what any person creates, without any need for them to be an artist, is in principle beyond beauty and ugliness
▪ mingei philosophy. Yanagi Muneyoshi’s rules are:
– It must be handmade.
– It must be made with inexpensive materials.
– Anybody should be able to appreciate or use it.
– It must be representative in some way of the region where it was created.
▪ the principles of wabi sabi: simplicity (kanso), naturalness (shizen), asymmetry (fukinsei) and organic texture (yūki tekusucha
▪ A MEDITATION
I walk along the roji to the teahouse.
The path narrows as I draw closer
to the door where the ceremony awaits me.
As I go on, something changes inside of me.
I remain in this world but at the same time
I feel I am traveling to a place
that is faraway but very close to my heart.
When I finally arrive and take off my shoes,
I am no longer the same person
who began to walk along the roji.
◆ The Beauty of Melancholy
▪ Kamo no Chōmei, the Japanese poet and hermit, who died in 1216, explained the meaning of wabi way back in his time, and did so in the following terms:
“Wabi is the feeling the sky gives us on a fall afternoon, the melancholy of color, when all sounds have been silenced. Those moments in which for some reason the mind cannot explain, tears begin to fall uncontrollably.”
Perhaps what the mind cannot explain is the certainty of the impermanence of life, like the scene I have just narrated, which in turn includes our own impermanence. Knowing we are birds of passage brings us this melancholic perception of beauty and of life.
▪ In moments like this, we feel that the happiness that comes to us through perception and our personal experiences is a loan, something that sooner rather than later will be snatched away from us. We realize that it will never be entirely ours and that is what increases its worth.
▪ The word sabi is used to describe the austere beauty of ancient Japanese poetry, of the haiku that with just three brushstrokes captures the sparrow looking for food among the fallen autumnal leaves
▪ Every loss carries an inherent gain: the valuing of what we have left even more than we did before. When someone gets over a difficult illness, perhaps their strength has lessened, but they acquire a greater appreciation of life. Especially if they have been at death’s door, they now know the value of each and every moment and are eager to enjoy every single one.
▪ The same happens to us when leaving a funeral. As we are reminded of the transitory nature of life, we determine to live it in a nobler way, so as not to exit this world leaving our bill with happiness outstanding.
That is one of the benefits of melancholy. As we become aware of the transient nature of things, we confer greater importance on them. At the same time, it brings us a more profound outlook on reality, which also happens with art.
▪ piece of music full of subtle melancholy is more profound than an upbeat military march, in the same way that it would be hard to write a good novel about a couple whose love for one another is unhindered or about a perfectly happy family
▪ Perspectives on Psychological Science (vol. 2, no. 4, December 1, 2007) showed that people who are overly satisfied with their life lack self-criticism and desire for self-improvement, which limits their chances of success.
▪ an excessively high degree of satisfaction can fog our vision of reality and our self-help tools can get rusty through lack of use. If everything is already fantastic, there is no need to make any effort at all to improve.
The French novelist Gustave Flaubert went even further, going so far as to state that “to be chronically happy, one must also be absolutely idiotic.”
▪ Provocative in nature as that phrase might be, a complete human spirit—and a complex one—certainly needs to embrace both joy and sadness
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:15 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ wisdom—wabi sabi melancholy has other benefits for our personal life.
•It is a path to self-knowledge, since sadness is a mirror that allows us to see into the depths within ourselves which are normally beyond our reach. The melancholic reflection of wabi sabi not only brings us a greater understanding of the world but also allows us to contemplate our own soul—a reflection of what we observe—with greater clarity.
•It increases our empathy toward others. Becoming aware of the fleeting and changing nature of life, happiness and pain, allows us to better understand and help people who are suffering, as well as to share moments of celebration with greater passion and awareness.
•It makes us more artistic. Delving into the wabi sabi facet of reality brings us new ideas, widens the scope of our sensitivity and feeds our desire to create beauty. It also makes us more sophisticated, to the point of aspiring to converting our life into a work of art, since we know how impermanent it is.
▪ Fernando Pessoa, expressed his thoughts, feelings and passions through four different alter-egos, or heteronyms: himself, Ricardo Reis, Alberto Caeiro and Alvaro de Campos, who signed the poem “Tabacaria” (“The Tobacconist’s”).
I’m nothing.
I won’t ever be anything.
I can’t wish to be anything.
Besides that, I’ve got in me all the dreams of the world.
▪ Hermann Hesse shortly before he died. The German Nobel laureate had a longtime fascination with the East, with Japanese aesthetics, Zen and the verses of its traditional poets.
In “Creaking of a Broken Branch” (“Knarren Eines Geknickten Astes”)Hesse evokes a powerful bare image of the fragility and temporariness of life, but at the same time its heroic resistance to perishing.
Chipped broken branch
dangling year after year,
its cracking sings dryly to the wind,
leafless, bereft of bark,
abraded, yellowed, for a long life,
for a long weary death.
Its stubborn song sounds harsh,
sounds willful, sounds secretly browbeaten.
Still one more summer,
one more winter yet.
▪ A MEDITATION
If perfection is your objective,
it will color all aspects of your life
and you will go blind while getting lost
in the gloomy bamboo forest.
Imperfection should be what you aspire to
in order to see the forest in all its splendor.
◆ From Inflexibility to Spontaneity
▪ Relax and be kind,
you don’t need to prove anything.”
—JACK KEROUAC
▪ vital lesson of wabi sabi is that things are what they are, not what we would like them to be. In fact, they do not even exist in an absolute way; rather, they are constantly changing
▪ a sure-fire source of human suffering is to wish for that which is by nature transitory to be permanent
▪ Theophrastus, who directed the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years, said of him that he never managed to finish his works because of his constant melancholy.
Among the maxims that have been passed down to us, we often erroneously cite: “One cannot enter the same river twice.” In reality, the original preserved fragment says: “In the same rivers we enter and do not enter, since we are and are not the same.”
▪ panta rei, “everything flows
▪ Be like water
There are some people whose life is like a classical music score, requiring a particular kind of interpretation, following a predetermined rhythm, with the exact precise notes. Others are like a jazz jam session, going where inspiration leads them: they play it by ear, depending on what is happening both out there in the world and inside themselves.
The latter would enjoy the river described by Heraclitus, because they themselves are a river and merge with it at each and every moment.
In the mythical final interview held with Bruce Lee in 1971, shortly before his death, this genius of martial arts movies reflects on the absolute value of flexibility:
Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless—like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
▪ Applied to a wabi sabi life, “being like water” implies:
• Breaking down prejudices and preconceived ideas, not making any assumptions.
• Being transparent, without the need to pretend or try to be something we are not.
• Following one’s intuition, like a leaf that lets itself be swept along by the river’s undercurrents.
• Believing in one’s abilities, in the beauty of each and every moment, in the wisdom of life.
• Not fearing life’s mishaps, even though at times they may be vexing; trusting in the process more than in the objectives.
• Challenging yourself, doing things you would normally not do.
• Dissolving the ego, merging with what you are doing.
Calligraphy experts drawing the ensō circle do so from a stance of absolute spontaneity, letting their body accompany an outline that draws itself. This is the highest graphic expression of flowing with life
▪ Master, I need you to answer a question that has been tormenting me ever since I began this journey: how can I reach the Truth?”
While continuing to apply small brushstrokes of black ink to his canvas, the monk said to him:
“If you are truly searching for the Truth, there is something you will have to do before anything else.”
This answer raised the pilgrim’s spirits, who with renewed hope began to say:
“I know! I must practice more, is that not so? Devote more hours to meditating, walk for longer stretches on my pilgrimage, fast and…”
The monk softly shook his head, as his face broke into a smile. He waited for the anxious pilgrim to be quiet before finally saying:
“What you always need to do, above all else, is to recognize that you might be wrong.”

▪ A MEDITATION
I know I have been the same person since I was born,
inside the same body and the same mind.
My thoughts are also always with me,
but if what I think and feel
flows every second of my life…
Am I still me?
And if not, then who am I?
◆ Wabi Sabi and Creativity
▪ Yukio Mishima
▪ Learn to cultivate the
trait of humility.
None of us are perfect.
We all make mistakes —
both in our personal lives
and our artistic creations.”
—KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI
▪ However, it is interesting to see how in Kafka’s private life —as shown in his diaries written between 1910 and 1923—the writer experienced solitude:
Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves (for the time being only superficially) and is ready to release what lies deeper. When I am willfully alone, a slight ordering of my interior begins to take place and I need nothing more.
▪ Japanese Way of the Artist, Sensei H. E. Davey
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:19 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ Beauty is not the opposite of ugliness. Rather, beauty lies in a state beyond and includes all opposites; beauty is thus found in naturalness.”
▪ Naturalness is one of the wabi sabi principles inspired by nature, where everything is imperfect, incomplete and momentary.
▪ The present is outside of time.”
This is one of the blessings of the creative act. When a paintbrush touches a canvas, or we place our fingers on the letters of a keyboard, the past becomes remnants of a dream and the future is perceived as an improbable oasis.
▪ Creation is always now, since it places us in a state of flow in which the creator merges with what is being created, in an exceptional revelatory experience of togetherness. Japanese arts seek this union of the individual and what he or she is doing, and not just in disciplines like calligraphy, watercolor painting, or poetry.
Just as Davey points out in The Japanese Way of the Artist, “In Japanese swordsmanship, it is not uncommon to speak of a unity of mind, body, and sword.”
▪ Forbidden Colors by the author who took his own life in 1970—following the seppuku ritual—when he was just forty-five years old: “Undertaking a journey produces a mysterious feeling. One believes oneself to be freed not only of the places left behind but also of the time left behind
▪ Art and a journey—external or internal—as a way of dissolving the ego is in the forefront of Joseph Campbell’s most emblematic work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
▪ The Odyssey to Star Wars
▪ Among the seventeen common stages of this journey, it is interesting to note how the first ones affect the hero in the same way that they affect an artist just starting out:
1.The call of adventure. Hearing of something new, the hero feels driven to abandon the known world and normality for the adventure that is calling them. / The artist feels something new bubbling away inside them, a creative force that demands that they venture into art.
2.Rejection of the call. The hero balks at leaving their comfort zone, perhaps out of the sense of duty they feel toward their loved ones or because the new adventure frightens them. / The artist, in their early stages, refuses to believe him or herself capable of beginning their work. They have to fight against their own fears and beliefs before getting the ball rolling.
3.The mentor or supernatural help. Someone they know who has greater knowledge than they do, or maybe even a magical assistant, convinces the hero to begin their adventure and gives them their first directions. / The artist either gets the support of a tutor or a flash of divine inspiration. They have no choice but to begin their creative adventure.
In the fourth stage of the monomyth, the passing of the threshold, the hero or artist has already thrown themselves into the adventure, leaving behind the known world and entering a new one where they know neither the rules nor their consequences. And then comes the crowning moment, the fifth stage, the belly of the whale, in which dissolution and rebirth take place.
▪ Each day write a list of whatever wabi sabi experiences you had. If you already keep a diary, keep on doing so. Simply add a small section at the end of each day. Analyze your day through the three dimensions of wabi sabi we saw at the start of the book.
–Philosophy dimension:
• What was the most wabi sabi thing about your day?
• And the least wabi sabi?
–Art dimension:
• Which wabi sabi objects, buildings, music or details did you come across during the day?
• What/how did they make you feel?
–Practice dimension:
• Did you live by the principles of wabi sabi?
• Did you take time out to do nothing or did you allow yourself to be ruled by haste?
• Did you react especially emotionally to any event?
• To round things off, write a haiku before closing the diary.
Exercise: how to write a haiku
1. It must be simple, with three short brushstroke-like lines.
2. It will contain few verbs (sometimes none at all).
3. The haiku should capture an instant, like a photograph.
4. Nature or the urban environment should be present.
5. There may be a reference to the time of year.
6. The artist’s feelings must infuse the text.
Close your eyes for a brief moment. Visualize something nice that may have happened to you or that you saw during the day. Open your eyes and write what you visualized without analyzing it or turning it over in your head—just write it.
Haiku examples from my own diary:
springtime blue,
I walk to Yoyogi,
the smell of ramen
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:19 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ walk quickly,
a monk on the corner

a cat visits a museum,
returns to its lair,
purr purr.

snowflakes build up on the veranda,
music by Bach plays,
someone rings the bell
eyes from another universe,
a sakura petal,
the wind leaves it disheveled

silence,
the air fills with piano notes
silence

the smell of coffee,
reading a novel,
end of the story

the sun warms the terrace,
Tama takes a nap,
suddenly a cloud hides the sun
◆ III Wabi Sabi as a Way of Life
▪ MEDITATION
the maple tree tinges the fall with ochre hues,
the deer looks up
sketching its yearning in the sky
the twilight clouds watch over us
drawing shadows in the meadows
swept away by the breeze,
while I write
◆ Imperfection as a Road to Excellence
▪ There is no excellent beauty that
hath not some strangeness in the
proportion.”
—FRANCIS BACON
▪ The enemy of the good
We can all identify with the broken bucket. Oftentimes we focus all our attention on defects and things that are not going quite so well as we would like them to.
However, as Voltaire said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” If we only see our defects, we will lose confidence in ourselves and lead sad lives like the broken bucket.
The demands of modern life, however, push us to try to be like the perfect bucket. We are expected to achieve success, make money and become popular on social networks, constantly improve following the advice of internet books and gurus….
And that is where the danger lies. If we become obsessed with perfecting our lives, we will end up like the full bucket, if we are lucky. Arrogant and heartless, without the space to learn the truly important things of life.

▪ Mono no aware is the Japanese term for an awareness of the transience of things. It is a sense of poignancy, but also of gratitude and joy at having experienced the many moments of fleeting beauty that make up the best part of our lives. Perhaps the life and strength in this green bamboo would mean less without the reminder of impermanence that surrounds it.
▪ “A Painting of Birds and Flowers” by Kitayama Kangan (1767–1801). Sumi-e (which means “black ink painting”) generally conveys themes from the natural world. Rather than seeking to replicate a thing’s appearance, sumi-e uses fluid brushstrokes, varying the brush’s pressure accordingly in order to capture the subject’s spirit, its essence.
In the arts of sumi-e (ink wash painting), and shodō (calligraphy), acceptance of imperfection is part of the practice. You cannot go back and bolden a weak line. You cannot go over your painting to correct or disguise imperfections. Rather, you acknowledge the imperfections in your work, and move on.
▪ An example of shodō by Musō Soseki 1275–1351, Japanese Zen master, garden designer and poet. The text 別無工夫 can be translated as “no further (spiritual) meaning.”
▪ Considered by many to be both sumi-e and shodō, the ensō is a Zen symbol and practice. It is completed in a single stroke, and arises out of the individual in a given moment, It can be wide open or nearly but never quite closed. However many ensō an individual can draw over the course of time, no two will be the same.
Closely connected with Zen, shodō is an act of meditation. The true art is not in the mastery of a technique, but in learning to empty one’s mind, and allowing the letters to flow out of this “no mind” (mushin) state. The spiritual (meaning) must take precedence over technique (execution).
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:20 AM ] Farrah Mae: Sen no Rikyū is widely acknowledged as the father of the tea ceremony and also as the father of wabi sabi
▪ In poetry, wabi might translate as the element in us that recognizes the beauty and profundity in nature—in the world as it is—and sabi might refer to the sense of solitude, perhaps of melancholy, that contemplates it. For the haiku master Bashō (opposite page), the aim of poetry is to bring the reader closer to this openness which, in turn, brings us closer to nature.

▪ In his Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), the fourteenth century monk Yoshida Kenkō wrote, “Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, at the moon only when it is cloudless?” All stages and conditions of nature, are beautiful and worthy of our attention, contemplation and affection. Indeed, Kenkō goes on to say, “Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration.”
▪ Perhaps the most distinguished feature of the wabi sabi home is the absence of clutter. A feature of living in a wabi sabi way is considering how much you really need, not just in your surroundings, but in all aspects of your life. Life is short, and material possessions are only the smallest part of that adventure. Our lives are more fully enjoyed when we travel lighter, and keep our sights on the things that truly matter.

▪ Reusing old things is another characteristic of a wabi sabi home.
▪ Using less, owning less, gravitating toward the personal and meaningful rather than toward the latest trends—these are part of a wabi sabi mindset
▪ minka houses—homes to the merchant, farmer and craftsman castes before the modern era,
▪ The traditional Japanese interior is almost austere, containing nothing more than is needed. A roof over the head, a comfortable place to sit, eat and sleep, something meaningful to contemplate (like a scroll), something beautiful to look at (like a flower in a vase). The home is built primarily of what nature gives— wood, stone, straw.

▪ Sashiko is a form of Japanese embroidery born of necessity, designed to reinforce hardworking fabrics or to quilt together multiple layers of worn fabric to make a new layer. On the vest above, sashiko was used to reinforce the portion of the vest that came in direct contact with the band on the sledges used to haul rice.
▪ sashiko is used at levels from the simplest to the most intricate, both for decorating fabric and to repair old favorites, like these jeans, adding artistry to the act of restoring rather than replacing. Old things become even more valuable when care, effort and affection have gone into their repair
▪ It’s hard enough just looking at it, isn’t it? And yet the clutter we surround ourselves with in our environment is not unlike the clutter we keep inside our heads and hearts—worry, competitiveness, insecurity, grudges, the list goes on. And yet how much “stuff” do we really need? What is truly valuable to us, and what is weighing us down? We need to clear the clutter, to make space both in our homes and in ourselves, remove all the things we trip over, the things that hide that which is really important from our view. That is a step toward really seeing the beauty around us, and the beauty in ourselves.
▪ We ourselves are impermanent. The stages of life fly by. We look up, and years have passed, loved ones have passed, and new people are entering our lives. We are happiest when we can let go of what’s past, and celebrate the stages of our lives as they come. Each has its beauty, and each has something to teach us.
▪ Slow fashion, slow food, mindful eating, mindful everything—“slow” and “mindful” have become everyday buzzwords. And why is this so? In an age that moves quickly and looks for expediency, quite simply, we need reminding. We need to consciously choose to conserve rather than to waste, to replenish ourselves with relish rather than to refuel thoughtlessly with fast food, to be present to the people we are with (even if we are alone with ourselves) rather than pore over the contents of our phones.
The act of mending a garment, preparing a meal—and sitting down to savor it— can be meditative acts. Giving our full attention, putting our entire being into what we are doing in the given moment, slowly brings us back to ourselves. Taking time, restoring ourselves to a state where we are aware and awake to what is around us, is part of wabi sabi.
▪ Wabi sabi in the outdoors is reflected in the beautiful collaboration of human ingenuity and the gifts nature has given us to use. A fallen tree becomes a place to sit and relax—sometimes, offering rest right in the spot where it was planted.
When your favorite boots have made their last hike, consider giving those old friends a new purpose.
▪ The gate of Sanzen-in Temple in Ohara, Kyoto (above) opens into a world of tranquility consisting of simple buildings and lush gardens. The water basin in its moss garden (left) has been taken over by nature, perpetually covered in soft greenery and regularly serving as a home to leaves in the fall and blossoms in the spring.
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:21 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ The practice of shinrin-yoku—forest bathing—is a wonderful way to reconnect with nature and ourselves. All you need is a forest, at whatever time of year you like best, and silence. Empty your mind, take in the forest atmosphere. Be aware of the stages of life going on, the surfaces of the trees, the scent of the air, the sound of birds and the rustling of leaves in the trees and underfoot. Leave busy thoughts behind. Breathe, and be.
▪ As the great songwriter-poet Leonard Cohen sang, there’s a crack in everything; it’s how light—and in this case, life—comes through. Imperfection is a gift that often brings us other gifts. Besides learning to appreciate imperfection, we must also take care to notice it, to keep our eyes open and actually see all the beautiful details that are spread before us.
▪ Śūnyatā—“that which is emptiness”—is a vital concept in all contexts of wabi sabi: in art, in the home, in daily life. When we are fully present in the world, in the moment, exactly as they are, we are experiencing śūnyatā. When we have filled our surroundings with nothing more or less than is needed, we have achieved śūnyatā. When a work of art is at one with its surroundings, contributing to those surroundings rather than standing out or reflecting an artist’s ego, that artwork is śūnyatā. With śūnyatā all things are of equal importance—or lack of importance. It gives us a sense of oneness with all things.
▪ Flux, fluidity, shapelessness, transparency, becoming one with the vessel, moving with the tide—“being like water” is a form of faith and trust in ourselves and in where life is taking us. The fundamental truth panta rei (everything flows) applies to all things and all beings. Therefore, we expect our lives and our selves to change. We strive to ensure that we change for the better.
▪ Consider that the sun that’s rising through the trees is like no other sunrise that’s ever been or ever will be. The sweep of light, the way the colors of the flowers appear, the smell of dew-drenched air—none of these will ever again be as they are in this moment.
The day before you, too, is like no other. The glory of the sunrise is momentary, and the day it heralds will seem to pass almost as quickly. What do you want to do with this moment, with this day?
Wisdom is to be found in knowing how to see life like the farmer.
▪ Like the crack in the bucket, each defect is at the same time a virtue, just as we gain something with each loss.
I now propose that you close your eyes to explore inside yourself. Look in your memory for phases of your life when something did not go as planned, but then either something unexpected happened, new opportunities arose, or you learned something valuable that you would otherwise not have learned.
Think of the path that led you to the successes of your life. Was it flat and perfect or did you find it full of potholes, detours and hills?
The best things in life are almost always far from perfect.
▪ Marcus Aurelius was already reminding us that “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” And there is no rush to achieve this change.
Katsushika Hokusai is a praiseworthy example of this wabi sabi attitude to life and its vicissitudes. A Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, he belonged to the so-called “pictures of the floating world” school and his own life was a never-ending voyage from one identity to another.
In fact, during the course of his career as an artist, he used a plethora of pseudonyms, such as Sori, Kako, Manji, Taito and many more.
▪ Known throughout the world for “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” the first work of his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the view he had of his art and of his own life could hardly be more wabi sabi:
I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six. I drew some pictures I thought fairly good when I was fifty, but really nothing I did before the age of seventy was of any value at all. At seventy-three I have at last caught every aspect of nature—birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, all. When I am eighty I shall have developed still further, and I will really master the secrets of art at ninety. When I reach a hundred my work will be truly sublime, and my final goal will be attained around the age of one hundred and ten, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life.
His beginner’s mentality stayed with him until the end. Hokusai never felt like someone who had gotten anywhere, but that as an artist and a man he was a work in progress, like his great wave, which has neither a beginning nor an end.
▪ A MEDITATION
“One step beyond there is darkness,”
goes a popular Japanese saying,
and this contains a great truth which connects all us humans.
We prefer the present to the future because
we have the false sense that, in the here and now,
everything is under control.
The future causes us fear and uncertainty,
because we do not know what it will be like;
it is outside our control.
But the future, at some point,
will become the present.
So in reality, both the present and the future
are outside our control.
And it is beautiful and thrilling that it should be so.
◆ Wabi Sabi and Resilience
▪ “All sorrows can be borne
if you put them into a story.”
—BORIS CYRULNIK
▪ Why play the piano if these days my tablet or smartphone can do it automatically better than me?”
He then showed me several apps that played music using scores. I explained to him:
“Your cell phone always plays that Debussy score in exactly the same way. You, on the other hand, with your emotions and flaws, will never play the score the same way twice. You will not play the same way on a sunny day when you have just fallen in love as on a cloudy day when a relative has just died. Music is not just a score—you too are part of the music. Art includes you in the experience; your human imperfections are also part of the work.”
In fact, I thought later, when the student had gone, the function of art is not to create something perfect; its mission is to unveil the inner harmony of nature.
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:21 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ Coda: the beauty of the end
Resilience is the art of navigating the streams of life, without letting past traumas condition your present and future. We all suffer life’s ups and downs but if we are resilient, we will have the tools to overcome adversity.
On that subject, a couple of years ago a documentary appeared that leaves no one who has seen it unmoved. I am referring to Coda, in which my countryman Ryuichi Sakamoto takes a look back at his career while showing the difficulties of his daily life with surprising honesty.
Anyone who has studied music knows that the coda is the final part of a piece, in which the best passages are often repeated. And that is just what Sakamoto does in the documentary, after being diagnosed with a throat cancer. The actor and composer reviews his life, while very bravely and transparently showing us his visits to the doctor, the cocktail of pills he takes every day and the difficulties and uncertainty this life-threatening illness plunges him into.
It is a melancholic and somewhat gloomy documentary, which develops with the customary slowness of old Japanese movies and pays great attention to detail and the nuances of daily life.
▪ His message is: not everything is lost; what is broken may be put back together and where there was pain, love and beauty may be created.
▪ Sakamoto’s rescued piano will always be imperfect, and the artist will never be able to fulfill his dream of restoring it, because of the extent of the damage and the finite nature of his own life, but even so, beauty remains the heartbeat of his motivation.
▪ Itzhak Perlman told by the writer and speaker Álex Rovira which is specially revealing in that regard.
▪ You know what? … There are times when the artist’s task is to know how much they can manage to do with what they have left.”
Álex Rovira reflects on this touching anecdote in this way:
This is the question that perhaps we should start to keep on asking ourselves in our lives: What can we do with what we have, with what we have left? If we consider that we will always lack something, that there will always be room for improvement, that oftentimes we will have to perform our pieces in life with one string missing from our violin… Right there, in this ability to devote ourselves heart and soul to life with what we have now, although we are incomplete and fragile, courage appears: What can we do with what we have left?
▪ kintsugi, which uses gold lacquer to mend broken pieces
▪ philosophy that may be applied to the human spirit:
• All objects have a story. By showing their wounds, we allow them to explain it to us and this makes them more valuable. Lesson 1 of kintsugi: scars are not to be hidden—they are part of our story.
• If the cup, vase or piece we have mended has had an accident, this makes it more interesting. In fact, this makes it more valuable than an immaculate object that has just come off the production line. Lesson 2 of kintsugi: what we have survived to get this far is our greatest treasure.
• The accident that does not make us give up, like Perlman with his violin, becomes a strength and a source of knowledge. As the great Persian poet Rumi said, “A wound is the entrance by which light penetrates you.” Lesson 3 of kintsugi: accidents are enlightening.
▪ When we have reached a certain age, in one way or another we are all broken vessels which have been mended and continue to harbor life. To a greater or lesser extent, everyone has suffered heartbreak, been let down by friends or relatives, or experienced disasters of varying magnitude professionally or where their health is concerned.
The big question, as the Israeli violinist said, is what to do with what we have left.
▪ In the face of the blows dealt by fate, we can basically take one of two existential stances:
1. Curse our ill luck or blame third parties, shifting responsibility away from ourselves, and do nothing to solve our problems.
2. Engage with our own fate, taking the steps needed to improve the present, mending what has broken so that we may keep moving forward.
This second way is a path that leads us to a profound transformation. After having suffered or failed, if we get back up, we will be better than before, because we will have acquired experience and resilience, which is the art of being reborn despite all of life’s accidents.
On this point, the American novelist Ernest Hemingway said: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
▪ In his poems there is a strong sense of resilience and kintsugi. The art of putting together what is broken. In his Nobel lecture he said:
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The glue that fits the pieces is the sealing of its original shape
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:22 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ Like the broken vase, we humans have the capacity to be healed when we are broken, and become not the same, but even better than before. When something is broken, the love we put in reassembling the fragments is more powerful than the love of the artisan who wanted to create a perfect object, or the love we felt for the object when it was new. Love grows better and stronger, not weaker, over time.
There’s a Jewish proverb that says that only a broken heart can heal another broken heart, because it knows deeply what suffering means. Because of this, each wound, each crack, makes us wiser, deeper and more sure-footed on the path of life.

▪ A MEDITATION
I watch the twinkling stars
and look down at my hands.
As I take a deep breath,
a brief pause emerges in eternity.
I am stardust
and at the same time mindfulness.
◆ Creating Space
▪ Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated.
—CONFUCIUS
▪ We only truly live on the days we have given and received love—the rest is time we shall forget just as we shall be forgotten
▪ Like the university professor, we must empty our lives of everything we do not need and free up space, before adding new knowledge, duties or commitments. That calls for discipline and will force us to change certain habits. It is all about having the right mindset.
▪ It’s no big deal if we are not productive every single minute of the day. It’s no big deal if we are not awake eighteen hours a day, pounding away at tasks on a to-do list. We can feel good doing nothing: taking a relaxing stroll with no set destination, sitting down and having a cup of tea while looking out the window…
It’s no big deal if we are imperfect.
If we want to achieve happiness and serenity, it is better to set aside things that sap us of energy than to add anything.
The problem is that we are often rushing around so much in life that we do not even know which things are harming us. The first step then, is to start by distinguishing the negative from the positive things in our life.
During my most stressful periods in Tokyo, I used this Two-Question Diary, which may be written in less than five minutes a day:
▪ When you have written your two-question diary for one or two weeks, reread all the results and choose three things that were repeated in the “What sapped my energy?” section.
Take action and look for solutions to avoid stepping on those mines in the future. The solution sometimes lies in getting rid of something; other times, it calls for a change in how you approach and conduct your daily routines.
▪ Whenever I feel I am too busy or losing control of my life, I use this simple yet effective two-question diary again. It is invaluable for identifying where I can start to empty my cup.
▪ Ten simple ideas for creating space in your life, starting today
I am not a fan of offering formulas, but these ten suggestions are ideas that might help you reduce the strain and noise in your daily life.
1– Tidy your closet.
2– Put aside a week in your calendar under the heading: “Personal vacations.”
3– Empty your email in-tray.
4– Devote two hours on Sunday afternoon to walking alone with your thoughts (Put your cell phone in airplane mode first).
5– Add nothing new to your to-do list until it is empty.
6– Write all your New Year resolutions in a way that simplifies your intentions, instead of making life more complicated. For example: instead of “I’m going to go on a diet,” write “I’m going to stop eating candies.”
7– Give away the electronic devices and kitchen utensils you have not used for years.
8– Create an analog corner in your home, or an entire room if you can. When you are resting there, you may only do things that do not require the use of electronic devices. Here you may read, meditate, draw or paint, chat with loved ones, play boardgames…
9– Free up time on your calendar. Put aside several hours each day or week under the heading: “Personal time.” When this time comes around, devote yourself to doing whatever you most feel like doing.
10 – Breathe in deeply three times, close your eyes and visualize your three best moments of the last week. Give thanks and smile!
▪ Space-creating tool – the wabi sabi cloud
If you feel overwhelmed by all the jobs you have to do, and stress is a faithful companion in your daily life, allow yourself to take a break. Prepare a cup of tea and settle down to writing in your diary or on a blank sheet of paper.
Use this wabi sabi cloud for inspiration. Start the first sentence with one of these words and let your imagination run free to express your worries, hopes and plans for the future.
▪ A MEDITATION
to wander through the temple,
to sit down on a bench in the garden
to walk along the beach,
to lean on a rock while contemplating the horizon,
to lie down on the ground,
the starry sky filling your pupils.
the caresses of a loved one,
shared laughs,
a sudden idea
simple pure moments
that cost nothing
◆ The School of Minimalism
▪ Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
—LEONARDO DA VINCI
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:26 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ All my purchases were wrong choices made on the basis of two beliefs:
If I have more and newer stuff, everything will be better.
If I have all this, others will value me more.
What have you bought lately led by one of those two beliefs?
▪ Wabi sabi is simplicity and minimalism.
In order to live in harmony with wabi sabi, we must possess only that which is truly essential for us. And to know if something is essential or not, we may ask ourselves these two questions:
1. Is it something I really need and desire with all my heart?
2. Might it be that my ego is what desires it because it feels it will be better at something that way or will please other people?
You do not need to get rid of everything non-essential right away. Start little by little, with as much as you feel comfortable with. Simply ask yourself those two questions on a routine basis and you will start to notice changes in your lifestyle.
Although I confess there is a third question I also ask myself: Is something so beautiful that seeing it every day will make my experience of life more fulfilling?
The architect and designer William Morris said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
▪ As within, so without
There are two reasons why we are reluctant to throw things out:
• You tell yourself it might be useful in the future, that you might be able to make use of it and save money that way.
• It has sentimental value for you—your mind connects it to moments of happiness.
The latter is a very common reason for us tending to hoard things, since this habit usually has an emotional component.
When the hoarding of objects mixes together dangerously with our emotions, that speaks to our mental state. A chaotic room crammed full of objects is an expression of the emotional situation of the person living in it.
▪ Hermes Trismegistus said: “As within, so without.” But the good news is that if the outer mess is an expression of the inner turmoil, by remedying it we shall be remedying our innermost chaos.
Unclutter your room and you will immediately feel better and be eager to do productive things. You may make a start with these simple measures:
• Throw out ten things you have not used for over a year.
• Choose a corner of your house and make it the most beautiful part of your home.
• Value and be grateful for what you have, without feeling the need to add anything else.
▪ Lao Tzu said:
“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
▪ minimalist life can lead you to that state. To help you to achieve it, and if you want to go further than a simple tidy up and want the wabi sabi path to lead your life to a more lighthearted emotional state, you may begin to introduce danshari to your life.
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:27 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ Danshari (断捨離): The art of getting rid of the non-essential
This is one of those impossible-to-translate Japanese words. It is written 断捨離 and its three characters mean: dan 断 “to reject,” sha 捨 “to throw” and ri 離 “to separate.”
Danshari is the philosophy that encourages us to get rid of the possessions we no longer need. Oftentimes, what we hoard becomes an albatross around our necks rather than a source of happiness or security. Because the more we have, the more we have to maintain, protect and take care of.
To adopt danshari 断捨離 in our daily life, we may follow the indications given to us by the three characters making up the word:
1)dan 断 reject: this is the first step of danshari and requires you to choose what you are prepared to reject from your life.
2)sha 捨 throw: the second step of danshari simply consists of throwing out, or giving away, donating or recycling what you chose in the first step.
3)ri 離: separate: this is the third step and is about the metaphorical separation of your emotions from the objects you withdrew from your life.
▪ Danshari does not impose a specific way or technique of getting rid of your things. It allows you the freedom to liberate yourself from what you no longer need at a pace that you find comfortable.
Marie Kondo suggests applying danshari abruptly. That is: devote one or two days to getting rid of absolutely everything you do not need. I prefer to take it step by step. One day I sort out a closet, the next a room, and so on.
Whether you follow Marie Kondo’s technique or prefer to take it more slowly, the important thing is to introduce danshari coherently.
▪ The first step, dan 断 reject, is the most difficult to apply.
▪ Living in accordance with wabi sabi does not mean having to get rid of absolutely everything. Keep whatever makes you feel happy and comfortable. Only throw out that which is of no use to you at all.
What is important is to eliminate unnecessary distractions so you may better see the beauty in the landscape of your life.
The American philosopher Henry David Thoreau said that: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
▪ Wabi sabi is the opposite of all of that. It means accepting what we are and have now, no more nor less, loving ourselves just as we are.
Wabi sabi encourages us to create empty space in our life instead of adding more and more. In that way, instead of pursuing objectives created artificially by the consumer society, this new empty space will gradually fill up only with what is beautiful and essential, instead of with noise and pressures that cause us stress.
But, how can we avoid surrendering to the rat race, and wanting ever more and better possessions?
For some time, what I have done is to create barriers. Instead of adding more to my life or leaving myself open to temptations, I take steps to protect myself, eliminating what is unnecessary.
If you rid yourself of the mountain of things that you do not need, maybe you will find a diamond in the center.
▪ Barriers to help you achieve digital minimalism
– Create an analog day of the week – for example, Sunday
– When you cannot use any digital devices.
– Disable all your smartphone notifications, except those that help you to keep in touch with your loved ones.
– Clear your smartphone of any never-ending applications it may have. What do I mean by “never-ending”? For instance, any social network application in which you can scroll down forever.
Barriers to help you achieve informational minimalism
– Eliminate news bulletins from your life or severely ration them. Just as we do not wish to eat food that makes us feel ill, so should we be careful with the information we feed our minds.
– Eliminate junk entertainment. Choose wisely the series, movies, and books you feed off. Do not overdo it with video games. What your mind consumes has the power to change you as a person.
Barriers to help you achieve minimalism in your diet
– Instead of feeling caught up in the infinite number of complicated rules a ‘modern’ diet has, eat a little of everything but in moderation. I follow the principle of hara hachi bu, which means when you are eighty percent full, stop eating.
– Practice intermittent fasting. For instance, you may begin by only eating between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. Outside these hours, nothing. Or if you are feeling brave, you may try with a limited eating window between 12 and 7 p.m., eating nothing at all before or after those times.
Barriers to help you achieve social minimalism
– Eliminate those relationships that are unhealthy. Hang around with people you trust a hundred percent—these are your true friends.
– Be aware that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” as Jim Rohn said. So through your relationships, you decide who you want to be.
– Speak less and listen more carefully to others.
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:27 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ Barriers to help you achieve minimalist exercise
– Choose five exercises to keep fit and repeat them one after the other for twenty minutes each day. Do not let yourself be confused by complicated routines, with dozens of different positions. The important thing is to be consistent on a daily basis.
– If you need a more structured program, you may try the Radio Taiso routine (available on YouTube) as used by millions of Japanese to tone their body each morning.
▪ Barriers to help you achieve minimalism in your calendar
– Set aside one or two weeks on your calendar right now. When those two weeks arrive, enjoy each day deciding freely what to do when you wake up each morning.
– While waiting for those vacations to arrive, put aside at least one hour a day for yourself, but without establishing specifically what you will devote yourself to during that hour.
Barriers to help you achieve minimalism on trips
– When the time comes to go on vacation, decide on a place and a date and restrict yourself to booking the ticket for the journey and the accommodation. Leave the rest up to your intuition depending on what you gradually discover in the area you are traveling around.
– Do not let a travel agency or tour tie you down to an even more stressful schedule than when you are working.
Barriers to help you achieve minimalism with objects
– Do not buy anything new at all for three months (apart from food, obviously).
– Devote two days to choosing all the objects in your house that you have not used for years. Put them in boxes and sell or donate them.
– Mend the things you like but have not been able to use for a while.
▪ Barriers to help you achieve minimalism in finances
– Do not allow yourself to be convinced by proposals from banks or other organizations that suggest hard-to-understand financial tools. Decide on a monthly amount you want to save and transfer it to a separate savings account.
– Limit your minor daily expenses because they have an enormous repercussion on your annual budget.
▪ A MEDITATION
I sit on a rock facing the sea.
The breeze caresses my cheeks
and talks to me in a secret language
that I understand without knowing how.
I breathe and know, finally,
that I need nothing more.
◆ Wabi Sabi Spirituality
▪ Happiness is your nature.
It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside
when it is inside.”
—SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI
▪ Accepting the beauty of what is imperfect in our day-to-day life has repercussions beyond changing our vision of art, creativity or even of our habits.
Understanding the essence of wabi sabi leads us to facing life in another way, both from without and from within. It is a philosophy and a way of understanding life that helps us to dissolve our ego at the same time as giving us a deeper outlook on the world and ourselves.
Embracing this spirituality that beats in nature means a spiritual transformation, the death of what we thought we knew so that we may be reborn in another state of consciousness.
▪ As It Is, the British journalist Tony Parsons
▪ spiritual freedom is not a gain, but a loss. Stop thinking you are in control, that you are something distinct from the life that surrounds you:
When it is seen that there is no separation, the sense of vulnerability and fear that attaches to the individual falls away and what left is the wonder of life just happening…. There is a sense of ease with whatever is the case and an end to grasping for what might be.
▪ modern Advaitas, fathoming the profound meaning of wabi sabi allows us to let go of our desire for perfection and control. We forsake any certainty about life, but in contrast to this philosophy of Hindu origin, there is still an observer. An observer that has three reasons for celebration:
▪ 1. The daily celebration of the imperfect
We abandon the idea that things should be a certain way. If everything in nature is curved, irregular and bent, so too is the human condition; that means neither complacency nor conformity but love for things as they are and development from that starting point.
Thanks to this approach, we may value that…
• Things do not work out the first time around, because that gives us the chance to learn and make progress.
• The beauty that makes us awake to the world is to be found in what is quirky, wrong and unique.
• As well as being a starting point for improvement, loving our own imperfections allows us to love other people’s.
• An irregular cup, or even a smashed one, has beautiful stories to tell—just like people with experience.
We are imperfect beings in an imperfect world but if we know how to appreciate the beauty in it, we will find value in every crack or unevenness in life.
2. The daily celebration of the incomplete
We are not incomplete because we are imperfect, but because we are always growing. It is said that no great novelist ever completes their work—they simply abandon it to begin another project that they will not finish either.
The ensō circle never closes and we have not come into the world to finish anything, but simply to live.
Thanks to the incompleteness of life we may value that…
• Life is a continuation. If we do not like what we have just experienced, if we feel let down by what we have done, right away we have another chance to do it differently or better.
• The final chapter is never written. In fact, given that life is always an unfinished work, everything is still to be done.
• We come into the world to “pass,” but the school of life never closes. Life is a continual apprenticeship and that is what makes it exciting and gives it meaning.
Knowing we are incomplete is a blessing since it makes us humble and at the same time shows us where we may make progress.
[ Friday, March 10, 2023 1:27 AM ] Farrah Mae: ▪ 3. The daily celebration of the fleeting
We have seen enough deaths to know that we are birds of passage but as Rabindranath Tagore said, “Perhaps I will not leave any trace of my wings in the air, but I am glad to have flown.” Thanks to the awareness of what is fleeting, we may value that…
• This moment might be our last, so we devote ourselves heart and soul to living it with as much intensity as possible.
• The people accompanying us will not always be there, just as we will not. So we should seize each moment as though it were unique. As the Ichigo-ichie adage goes: “None of what we are living will happen again.”
• Our time is the most precious thing we have. If, as the marketing law of supply and demand would have it, “scarcity creates value,” there is nothing scarcer or more valuable than a minute. If you waste it, you will never be able to get it back.
We are ephemeral, but if we learn to appreciate the moment, that moment can contain all of eternity.
◆ Epilogue: Be the Best Imperfect Person You Can Be
▪ Be the Best Imperfect Person You Can Be
▪ Through the window, the fall trees, which are slowly being stripped bare, make me think of my own existence. Of how fleeting and wonderful life is.
My latest haiku sits on the desk:
I take one step, then another step,
what will I find in the next stretch?
where is the end to be found?
Fortunately, we do not know. The good thing about uncertainty is that everything is possible. Once you accept that you control nothing and that the world changes and evolves following a mysterious script, you stop worrying. And you enjoy the adventure.
Accepting our imperfections is not an excuse for sliding into conformism and standing still. We must take a step forward each day to be the best imperfect person we can be.
▪ Seeing things through the prism of wabi sabi, knowing everything is fleeting, imperfect and incomplete, will help you to be happy by accepting the vagaries of life, and minimizing the pain when things do not turn out as expected.
You can only be sure of having three things in life: a body, a mind and a limited amount of time on planet Earth. With those ingredients, make the best formula you can for your life, which is unique and yours alone: no one else will be able to savor it—only you!
Dare to be happy amid uncertainty.
If you live your life flexibly following the mysterious rhythm of nature, and with no expectations, the best will always be still to come.
—NOBUO SU
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