Wabi-sabi (part two)

In part one, we looked at the original definition of wabi-sabi, which can perhaps be summed up by William Morris’ statement: ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’

In part two, we’ll explore how wabi-sabi can be applied to the rest of your life and how it relates to the ethos of Inner Simplicity.

Wabi-sabi is non-materialist and anti-consumerist

Daisetz T. Suzuki, one of the first scholars to interpret Japanese culture for Westerners, described wabi-sabi as an ‘active aesthetical appreciation of poverty’. In other words, it’s about removing the huge weight of material concerns from our lives and and instead living a simple and modest lifestyle, free from greed and its companions, envy and anger.

Losing your pre-occupation with the trappings of material success – wealth, status, power and luxury – will bring you a joyous freedom which fills your heart and soul. As the Japanese hermits and monks discovered, opting for material poverty can result in a life of spiritual richness and a deep serenity. When you are no longer desperately pursuing superficial goals, you will find yourself able to step out of the rat-race and live your life at a slower pace, resulting in a peaceful and more balanced way of being for both you and for those around you.

By living wabi-sabi and slowing your life down, you will also be able to re-establish your relationship with nature, taking the time to appreciate its many beauties and learning to tread more lightly on the planet. Being content with very little means that you learn to treat the Earth’s resources with respect and no longer squander them for the sake of temporarily fulfilling your ego.

Wabi-sabi means acceptance – of yourself, of others and of the way things are

One of the definitions of wabi-sabi which I found was this:  nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect.

Isn’t that a wonderfully liberating concept? Accepting these notions means that we can simply let go and let be.

For instance, when we accept that nothing is perfect, we can let go of our pursuit of perfection and appreciate the simple, unaffected beauty of things as they are – including ourselves. We are beautiful simply because we exist, and we learn to appreciate the beauty of our quirks and flaws – our scars, our stretchmarks and the signs of aging – rather than buying into our culture’s worship of ‘flawless’ (i.e. airbrushed and cosmetically enhanced) youth.

As well as ceasing to beating ourselves up for not achieving that unreachable goal of perfection, we also stop berating others for not being what we expect or demand them to be. We can let go of the fear which triggers our need to control everything and everyone and instead allow people and things to be as they are and love them for their ‘perfect imperfections’.

Accepting that nothing lasts also makes accepting our aging process easier and allows us to focus instead on enjoying the freedom which comes from the wisdom of age. This concept also helps us understand that adapting to the inevitable changes in our lives is a far healthier approach than fighting them. Flexibility is key to the wabi-sabi lifestyle.

Finally, when we accept that nothing is finished, we learn to live in the moment (the well-known concept of ‘living in the now’), rather than constantly regretting the past and hankering after an elusive future, resulting in us wasting our present by wallowing in ‘if onlys’ – ‘If only I had that car/body/partner, then my life would be complete’.

Wabi-sabi means being true to you

Living wabi-sabi allows us to discover our authentic self – the real person who exists beneath our desperate attempts to conform to society’s ideals, and who exists beneath all of the insecurities we’ve amassed due to our failure to live up to that ‘ideal’.

Being true to yourself and being happy with who you are helps you connect with that place within you where peace, serenity and harmony reside. By living within, rather than living without, you learn to trust your intuition and follow the promptings of your inner voice, and in doing so, you begin to express your deeper feelings and live, love and work in alignment with your true values.

And so you take the time to enjoy what is most important to you in life. A wabi-sabi life does not need to be constantly filled with stimulation and activities which sap your inner self – rather, it gives you the space to indulge your natural talents and abilities. Being creative is all part of wabi-sabi, which allows you the freedom to make mistakes and see it as part of the process, and to celebrate the imperfections of your unique creations. Or as Leonard Cohen said in his song Anthem :

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There’s a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

 

Wabi-sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets and Designers by Leonard Koren

Practical Wabi Sabiby Simon G Brown
Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanenceby Andrew Juniper

Wabi-sabi (part one)

I’m sure most of you will have experienced the phenomenon of being followed around by a particular word or phrase. For example, I remember a couple of years ago the phrase ‘cut of his jib’ leaping out at me from a newspaper – and from that point on it seemed to be everywhere I looked for weeks. More recently I found myself being stalked by the word ‘labyrinth’, prompting me to buy a book on the spiritual practice of ‘walking the labyrinth’ in a bid to establish if it had any particular significance for me, as yet to no avail. (I’ll keep you posted.)

Even more recently, however, I’ve found myself being shadowed by an unusual pairing of words – the Japanese phrase ‘wabi-sabi’. Glimpses of wabi-sabi seemed to creep up on me in both written and spoken word, from a number of sources including the internet, books, newspapers and magazines so with my curiosity piqued, I decided to explore what this strange expression meant. And this time there was no doubting the significance of the words for me, as followers of my blog will soon see…

So what is wabi-sabi?

It’s a Japanese term which is said to be difficult to explain adequately to Westerners, and in my research I found a few differing stories about the origins of the expression – in particular there seemed to be confusion around dates – but here are some definitions and a description of the main principles of the concept as I understand it.

Wabi originally meant sad, desolate and lonely – ‘the misery of living alone in nature away from society – a cheerless emotional state’. However, towards the middle of the last millennium, wabi had evolved to mean simple, non-materialistic, ‘humble by choice’ and in tune with nature.  It also meant ‘the aesthetic of the people’, referring to the simple lifestyle of the ordinary samurai who lacked material comforts, as opposed to the warlord rulers who lived an ostentatious consumerist lifestyle. Another possibility is that this more positive definition evolved because the Japanese held the spiritual asceticism of the monks and hermits in high esteem.

Sabi also originally meant ‘to be desolate’ but its definition evolved to mean ‘to grow old’, and by the middle of the last millennium, it was regarded as meaning ‘the beauty of the natural progression of time’ or ‘the bloom of time’. Sabi is about taking pleasure in the beauty of an object which has aged or weathered, and about carrying the burden of years with dignity and grace.

The expression Wabi-sabi finally came into being in the 16^th century, thanks to the style and beliefs of the Tea Master Sen no Rikyu. Rikyu rejected the formal practice of tea ceremonies which he felt had become too ostentatious, exclusive and complex, allowing only a privileged few to participate. He decided it was time to bring the ceremonies to the masses so he built tea rooms like farmers’ huts with rough mud walls, thatched roofs and misshapen exposed-wood structural elements. He also made it an art to use handmade cups, pots and tea bowls, and utensils hewn from unlacquered bamboo.

Aesthetically, then, wabi-sabi offers an alternative to the poor designs, mass production  and disposable extravagance of our commercial world and instead embraces the simple, the well-used, the earthy and the unpretentious. Wabi-sabi is ‘perfect imperfection’, appreciating the beauty of things modest and humble or unconventional and finding perfection in the flaws. It’s about treasuring the old and well-loved objects you already possess rather than discarding them for new bland ones. It’s about keeping only the items which are necessary to us for their utility and/or beauty. It’s about working with natural products and celebrating the handmade – objects made by humans rather than by machine – and the soulful – music and art which comes from the soul rather than slick corporate soulless stuff. And it’s about warmth and comfort and creating a cosy welcoming sanctuary – spending time with loved ones in a quaint rural tearoom instead of an anodyne Starbucks; relaxing at home in a battered old armchair instead of an Ikea special; and snuggling up in a well-worn cardigan instead of the latest throwaway fashion from Primark.

And once again, the definition of wabi-sabi has evolved and now embraces the personal – our lifestyle – as well as objects and environments.  In part two, I’ll share with you the key principles for living a wabi-sabi lifestyle.