The World of Wabi-Sabi: Material Poverty, Spiritual Richness

-


Trust the Japanese to bring us this beautiful concept of Wabi-Sabi, which is so closely aligned to their way of life and living. It is a view of aesthetics that finds beauty in imperfection. It is accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It is simple, slow, and uncluttered and it reveres authenticity above all.  It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind.

Through Wabi-Sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, tarnish and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent. It connotes a natural progression and the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled. It's the understanding that beauty is fleeting. To discover Wabi-Sabi is to see the singular beauty in something that may first look decrepit and ugly.

Wabi-Sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a richly mellow beauty that's striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time – a Doris Day versus Marilyn Monroe.

Rough textures, minimally processed goods, natural materials, and subtle hues are all Wabi-Sabi. The aching poetry of the patina draws us with a power that the shine of the new doesn’t possess. Our universal longing for wisdom, for genuineness, for shared history manifests in these things.

You might appreciate Wabi-Sabi by observing a chipped vase, a faded piece of cloth. Look deeply for the minute details that give it character; explore it with your hands. You don’t have to understand why you’re drawn to it, but you do have to accept it as it is. It takes a mind quiet enough to appreciate muted beauty, courage not to fear bareness, willingness to accept things as they are—without ornamentation. It depends on the ability to slow down, to shift the balance from doing to being, to appreciating rather than perfecting.

Things Wabi-Sabi are unpretentious and unstudied. They do not demand attention. They are understated and unassuming, yet not without presence or quiet authority. They are invisible to vulgar eyes. They have no need for validation, documentation or provenance. Things Wabi-Sabi easily coexist with complete synchronicity with the rest of their environment. Wabi-Sabi is a state of mind, a way of being. It’s the subtle art of being at peace with yourself and your surroundings.

"Material poverty, spiritual richness" are Wabi-Sabi bywords. In other words, it  tells us to stop our preoccupation with success — wealth, status, power and luxury — and enjoy the unencumbered life. Broadly, Wabi-Sabi is everything that today’s sleek, mass-produced, technology-saturated culture isn’t. It’s flea markets, not shopping malls; aged wood, not swank floor coverings; one single morning glory, not a dozen red roses. It is the "the joy of the little monk in his wind-torn robe."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Weekend Musings: What One Life Taught Me About Peace

-
Image
  Remembering Albert Schweitzer For reasons I cannot fully explain, Albert Schweitzer came back to me recently. My first encounter with him was in childhood, when I was barely ten or twelve. I remember a book — blue in colour — far beyond my reading ability at that age. I remember his photograph inside. I remember that it spoke of peace and of service to humanity. I understood neither in any meaningful way, yet something stayed. Perhaps children recognise sincerity before they understand ideas. Life moved on. Over five decades, his name would surface now and then — in passing references, in conversations, in lists of Nobel Peace Prize winners — but I never found the time, or perhaps the inner readiness, to go deeper. And yet, the impression never faded. Today, that unfinished encounter seems to ask for closure. Albert Schweitzer was many things: theologian, philosopher, musician, doctor. But what sets him apart is not achievement; it is choice. At a time when intellectual recognit...
Read more

Weekend Musings: The Leap of the Frog — A Moment in Haiku

-
Image
 An old silent pond— a frog jumps into the pond, splash! Silence again. This weekend’s Musings arose from an invitation to reflect on these lines by Matsuo Bashō. What began as an invitation soon turned into a gentle challenge, as it became clear that the poem invites many ways of seeing. It can even invite silence, as we honour the stillness of the pond. The image is simple, almost bare. A still pond. A sudden leap. A brief splash. And then silence again. Nothing is explained, nothing is concluded. What is offered is a moment, complete in itself. Yet, being a Musing, I must still arrive at my own reading. In these lines, Bashō draws us into a world where there is no past or future — both constructs of the mind, or the ego. He lives entirely moment to moment, in full awareness of it. The past becomes nothing more than memory, a storehouse of conditioning, biases, and habits. The future is merely the drama projected from that past. In such a state of awareness, action is no longer ...
Read more

Election Day Musing: My Keemti Vote

-
Image
Having just completed my duty, or shall we say my right, by casting my vote, a few observations and thoughts came to mind. The walk to the polling booth is something I take almost every few days, so I was not expecting anything eventful to happen. But I was in for a surprise. Unknown people were greeting me and smiling. One particular person, whom I had neither met nor seen before, actually called out my name and said, “Mahimkar saheb, 4 number lakshat theva.” I noticed regular shopkeepers and party workers standing in groups, and it was not difficult to guess their affiliations. Another thing I noticed was a white band across the road with “200 meters” written on it. Closer to the center, it read “100 meters”. When I had seen this a few days earlier, I had not known what it was for, but today it became clear. Strangely, I noticed one more thing—the streets were extra clean, as if one day’s clean roads would influence our decision! The center itself had standard security measures, and...
Read more