Wabi Sabi Quotes

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Pare down to the essence, but don't remove the poetry.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
But when does something's destiny finally come to fruition? Is the plant complete when it flowers? When it goes to seed? When the seeds sprout? When everything turns into compost?
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.
Alan W. Watts
Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
The notion is called wabi-sabi life, like the cherry blossom, it is beautiful because of its impermanence, not in spite of it, more exquisite for the inevitability of loss.
Peggy Orenstein (Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother)
Put simply, wabi sabi gives you permission to be yourself. It encourages you to do your best but not make yourself ill in pursuit of an unattainable goal of perfection. It gently motions you to relax, slow down and enjoy your life. And it shows you that beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places, making every day a doorway to delight.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Wabi sabi is an intuitive response to beauty that reflects the true nature of life. Wabi sabi is an acceptance and appreciation of the impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete nature of everything.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
The Japanese think it strange we paint our old wooden houses when it takes so long to find the wabi in them. They prefer the bonsai tree after the valiant blossoming is over, the leaves fallen. When bareness reveals a merit born in the vegetable struggling.
Jack Gilbert (Collected Poems)
The only cure for love, is love.
T. Scott McLeod
The antifragile perfects being imperfect.
Roger Spitz (The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty)
Things wabi-sabi have no need for the reassurance of status or the validation of market culture. They have no need for documentation of provenance. Wabi-sabi-ness in no way depends on knowledge of the creator's background or personality. In fact, it is best if the creator is no distinction, invisible, or anonymous.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it's not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up.
Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project)
Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
Much has been said of the aesthetic values of chanoyu- the love of the subdued and austere- most commonly characterized by the term, wabi. Wabi originally suggested an atmosphere of desolation, both in the sense of solitariness and in the sense of the poverty of things. In the long history of various Japanese arts, the sense of wabi gradually came to take on a positive meaning to be recognized for its profound religious sense. ...the related term, sabi,... It was mid-winter, and the water's surface was covered with the withered leaves of the of the lotuses. Suddenly I realized that the flowers had not simply dried up, but that they embodied, in their decomposition, the fullness of life that would emerge again in their natural beauty.
Kakuzō Okakura (The Book Of Tea)
In japanese culture, there's a belief that only imperfect objects, like a cracked teacup, can truly be beautiful. This is called wabi sabi. Try to let go of the quest for perfection, and instead accept the beauty that lies in all of life's imperfections. The result will be extra energy, less stress and a longer life.
Blinkist
Wabi is about finding beauty in simplicity, and a spiritual richness and serenity in detaching from the material world. Sabi is more concerned with the passage of time, with the way that all things grow and decay and how ageing alters the visual nature of those things. It’s less about what we see, and more about how we see.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Get rid of all that is unnecessary. Wabi-sabi means treading lightly on the planet and knowing how to appreciate whatever is encountered, no matter how trifling, whenever it is encountered. [...] In other words, wabi-sabi tells us to stop our preoccupation with success--wealth, status, power, and luxury--and enjoy the unencumbered life. Obviously, leading the simple wabi-sabi life requires some effort and will and also some tough decisions. Wabi-sabi acknowledges that just as it is important to know when to make choices, it is also important to know when not to make choices: to let things be. Even at the most austere level of material existence, we still live in a world of things. Wabi-sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from freedom of things.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
If my home is indeed a sanctuary, I want to treat everything I bring into it as sacred.
Robyn Griggs Lawrence (The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty)
Wabi sabi teaches us to be content with less in a way that feels like more. Less stuff, more soul. Less hustle, more ease. Less chaos, more calm. Less mass consumption and more unique creation. Less complexity, more clarity. Less judgment, more forgiveness. Less resistence, more resilience. Less bravado, more truth. Less control, more surrender. Less head, more heart.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
The closer things get to nonexistence, the more exquisite and evocative they become. Consequently to experience wabi-wabi means you have to slow way down, be patient, and look very closely.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
...in repairing the object you really ended up loving it more, because you now knew its eagerness to be reassembled, and in running a fingertip over its surface you alone could feel its many cracks - a bond stronger than mere possession.
Nicholson Baker (Room Temperature)
There is an expression in Japanese that says that someone who makes things of poor quality is in fact worse than a thief because he doesn't make things that will last or provide true satisfaction. A thief at least redistributes the wealth of a society.
Andrew Juniper (Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence - Understanding the Zen Philosophy of Beauty in Simplicity)
Heart-Mind, left to its natural state, is vast as a panorama of Nature.
Frank LaRue Owen (The School of Soft Attention)
Incense fills the air. It smells like the color purple, in a way I cannot explain.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
When the Japanese mend broken objects, they fill the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.—Barbara Bloom
Arielle Ford (Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships)
That is the way of Wabi Sabi. It is not lack of capability or effort but a choice to accept things as they are, with all the imperfections.
Himanshu Goel (The Thirteen Year Old Monk)
Later in my room, I lift up my dress and twist to see the rainbow splotch of lotus on my side. And it occurs to me, what if I stopped hating it? What if the tattoo and the scar and this summer's freckles are my patina? Wabi-Sabi says rust and faded paint hold beauty. So what if I let these marks be passport stamps from where I've been - one's that don't determine a damn thing about where I'm going next?
Emery Lord (When We Collided)
My creative muse is wabi-sabi, a practice where inessentials are trimmed away or eliminated. The intersection where wabi (minimal) and sabi (functional) meet is the platform for my creativity: space and quiet solitude, simplicity.
Laurie Buchanan
In the realm of aesthetics, reason is always subordinate to perception.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
The tides of time should be able to imprint the passing of the years on an object. The physical decay or natural wear and tear of the materials used does not in the least detract from the visual appeal, rather it adds to it. It is the changes of texture and colour that provide the space for the imagination to enter and become more involved with the devolution of the piece. Whereas modern design often uses inorganic materials to defy the natural ageing effects of time, wabi sabi embraces them and seeks to use this transformation as an integral part of the whole. This is not limited to the process of decay, but can also be found at the moment of inception, when life is taking its first fragile steps toward becoming.
Andrew Juniper (Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence - Understanding the Zen Philosophy of Beauty in Simplicity)
Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness. As dusk approaches in the hinterlands, a traveler ponders shelter for the night. He notices tall rushes growing everywhere, so he bundles an armful together as they stand in the field, and knots them at the top. Presto, a living grass hut. The next morning, before embarking on another day's journey, he unknots the rushes and presto, the hut de-constructs, disappears, and becomes a virtually indistinguishable part of the larger field of rushes once again. The original wilderness seems to be restored, but minute traces of the shelter remain. A slight twist or bend in a reed here and there. There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler — and in the mind of the reader reading this description. Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealized form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the borders of nothingness.
Leonard Koren (Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)
Try to go a whole seven days without having to control everything, without stressing when things don't work out as you thought they would or should. As you do this, any time you feel the need to take charge, try to relax out of it, just to see what happens. Look for the good that happened precisely because things didn't work out the way you thought they would or should. And take your time. There really is no desperate hurry. When we constantly pursue perfection, our life speeds up. We make hasty decisions and snap judgments. Wabi sabi offers an opportunity to pause, reflect, check in with yourself and move from there. You'll likely feel relived, and make better choices.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Ada luka sumbing serupa gempil bibir poci di hati semua orang. Cacat yang berusaha keras mereka sembunyikan dari dunia. Tapi tak semestinya kita mengenakan topeng hanya demi menutup secebis luka. Tak semua hal mesti kita cerna dengan tatapan mata curiga serupa itu. Maka dari itu, coba dengarkan apa kata Bundamu ini, Nak. Manusia tak perlu harus jadi sempurna agar ia dihargai. Sebagaimana keindahan bisa muncul dari hal kecil dan sederhana. Termasuk apa yang tampak pada selembar kain batik yang lusuh atau cangkir teh yang somplak ujungnya. Kita bisa belajar dari kintsugi, menjadi bijak tanpa harus bergegas menjadi tua; bagaimana menorehkan pernis emas pada sebuah cawan tembikar yang terlanjur retak. Betapa sesungguhnya, sebuah guci porselen yang jatuh, pecah dan bahkan rusak tak berarti kehilangan semua nilai yang dimilikinya. Ketidaksempurnaan tidak akan mengecilkan arti dirimu. Sebab hanya ketangguhanmu melewati bukit penderitaanlah yang akan membuatmu menemukan cahaya kebahagiaan yang sesungguhnya. Bagaimana kamu bisa belajar menghargai kekurangan pada diri sendiri. Bagaimana kamu bisa menerima kesalahan dan bahkan kegagalan. Sebagaimana alam memaknai wabi sabi, ketidak sempurnaan bukan sesuatu yang harus ditolak atau disangkal. Ia mesti disambut sebagai air telaga yang jernih, kesegaran embun di pagi hari, atau aroma petrichor di musim penghujan. Setiap kali engkau jatuh dan menjadi rapuh, engkau bisa merangkaikan kembali serpihan serpihan hatimu. Tak akan pernah kehilangan tujuan yang engkau perjuangkan. Sebab setiap bekas luka seperti juga keringat dan airmata, adalah permata yang lahir dari segenap jerih payahmu. Ia terlalu berharga untuk kamu sia siakan. Manik manik gemerlap yang dapat engkau rangkai menjadi perhiasan unik nan cantik yang akan selamanya jadi milikmu. Jangan pernah takut terantuk batu. Jangan sekalinya jeri dicerca burung. Jangan merasa ngeri terempas badai. Sebab saat nanti engkau sampai ke puncak, kau akan bisa melihat dunia sebagai miniatur lanskap yang permai dan elok untuk dikenang. Karena demikianlah semestinya hidup, ia adalah keindahan yang tercipta dari kekurangan dan ketidaksempurnaan diri kita.
Titon Rahmawan
We are living in a time of brain-hacking algorithms, pop-up propaganda and information everywhere. From the moment we wake up, to the time we stumble into bed, we are fed messages about what we should look like, wear, eat and buy, how much we should be earning, who we should love and how we should parent.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
[Donald] Keene observed [in a book entitled The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, 1988] that the Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, added Keene, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation. Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. 'Culture' is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to.
Alain de Botton (The Architecture of Happiness)
(...) shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is . . . how does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that.” Nicholai’s imagination was galvanized by the concept of shibumi. No other ideal had ever touched him so. “How does one achieve this shibumi, sir?” “One does not achieve it, one . . . discovers it. And only a few men of infinite refinement ever do that. Men like my friend Otake-san.” “Meaning that one must learn a great deal to arrive at shibumi?” “Meaning, rather, that one must pass through knowledge and arrive at simplicity.
Trevanian (Shibumi)
In 1998 Gordon Hempton, a sound recordist attempting to build a library of natural sounds, toured fifteen states west of the Mississippi and found only two areas--in the mountains of Colorado and the Boundary Waters of Minnesota--that were free of motors, aircraft, industrial clamor, or gunfire for more than fifteen minutes during daylight.
Robyn Griggs Lawrence (The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty)
A wabi sabi inspired world view opens up a space for love. Just as we're not perfect, neither is anyone else. What difference would it make if you saw others with your heart instead of seeing and judging with your eyes and mind? If you let go of the judgement and frustration and accepted who they are, without trying to change them, if you don't like what you find, that's useful information and you can choose what to do next. But just maybe that acceptance will give you a perspective and remind you of what really matters.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Life is pure imperfection, as the philosophy of wabi-sabi teaches us, and the passage of time shows us that everything is fleeting, but if you have a clear sense of your ikigai, each moment will hold so many possibilities that it will seem almost like an eternity.
Héctor García (Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Lykke / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living)
We have to stop telling ourselves that everyone is watching, waiting for us to fail. They really aren’t.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Wabi Sabi.
Julie Caplin (The Little Teashop in Tokyo (Romantic Escapes, #6))
The fact is, there is no universal definition of wabi sabi in the Japanese language. Any attempt to express it will only ever be from the perspective of the person explaining it.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Bathing is not just about a quick rinse. Taking care of your whole self is essential in maintaining balance and contentment. And rituals around bathing play their part - they provide time in the day when you can focus on yourself, and clear your mind and body.
Erin Niimi Longhurst (Japonisme: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi and more)
As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming.
Trevanian (Shibumi)
The term wabi sabi suggests such qualities as impermanence, humility, asymmetry, and imperfection. These underlying principles are diametrically opposed to those of their Western counterparts, whose values are rooted in a Hellenic worldview that values permanence, grandeur, symmetry, and perfection.
Andrew Juniper (Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence)
Perhaps as writers, we too should embrace the concept of wabi-sabi:
J.A. Pak
Should we look at the spring blossoms only in full flower, or the moon only when cloudless and clear?
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Ring the bells that still can ring; forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.
Arielle Ford (Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships)
I decided to visit people instead of places.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
...am I a tiny part of this imperfect garden? or is the garden part of me, of my universe?
Nobuo Suzuki (Wabi Sabi: The Wisdom in Imperfection)
The flowers keep on blooming, wheter or not you make mistakes.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
This book is an invitation to relax into the beauty of your life in any given moment, and to strip away all that is unnecessary, to discover what lies within.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Heart-Mind, left to its natural state, is vast as a panorama of Nature. - from The School of Soft-Attention: Poems
Hawk of the Pines (Frank LaRue Owen)
If a man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.
Erin Niimi Longhurst (A Little Book of Japanese Contentments: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi, and More)
taking inspiration from other cultures and interpreting it in the context of our own lives that we excavate the wisdom we most need.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
And therein lies a crucial observation: Japanese beauty is discovered in the experiencing, not just the seeing.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
On the surface of Japanese beauty there is taste (the visual); beneath it is flavor (the experience).
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
The tides of time should be able to imprint the passing of the years on an object. They physical decay or natural wear and tear of the materials used does not in the least detract from the visual appeal, rather it adds to it. It is the changes of texture and colour that provide the space for the imagination to enter and become more involved with the devolution of the piece. Whereas modern design often uses inorganic materials to defy the natural ageing effects of time, wabi sabi embraces them and seeks to use this transformation as an integral part of the whole. This is not limited to the process of decay, but can also be found at the moment of inception, when life is taking its first fragile steps toward becoming.
Andrew Juniper (Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence - Understanding the Zen Philosophy of Beauty in Simplicity)
Each tile is curved and has an attractive rough texture. The colour varies from bright vermilion to dull Venetian red. They have the patina of almost two centuries of English sunshine and rain and are patterned with mosses in a wide range of emerald, apple and viridian greens. Any one of them, tastefully framed and hung in a London art gallery, would get rave notices from the critics.
Norman Thelwell (A Plank Bridge by a Pool)
You can see change happening right there. The bamboo is growing all the time, and is also sensitive to its dynamic environment. It’s firmly rooted but flexible. When the wind blows, the bamboo doesn’t resist; it lets go and moves with it. And still the forest grows. Think of the buildings in this earthquake-prone country. The ones that survive the shaking are those that can move when the trembling begins.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
WABI-SABI: As a single idea, wabi-sabi fuses two moods seamlessly: a sigh of slightly bittersweet contentment, awareness of the transience of earthly things, and a resigned pleasure in simple things that bear the marks of that transience.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life: A Memoir)
It bears repeating: there is no single way to live your life; there is no single career path; there is no perfect way to build your career. There is only evolving it, and it’s up to you if you choose to do that in a way that brings you delight.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Should we look at the spring blossoms only in full flower or the moon when cloudless and clear? Beauty is not only evident in the joyous, the loud, or the obvious. Wabi implies a stillness with an air of rising above the mundane. It's an acceptance of reality and an insight that comes with that. It allows us to realize that whatever our situation, there is beauty hiding somewhere... The feeling generated by recognizing the beauty found in simplicity... A sense of quiet contentment found away from the trappings of a materialistic world.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
There's a beauty to imperfection. This is the essence of the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi values character and uniqueness over a shiny facade. It teaches that cracks and scratches in things should be embraced. It's also about simplicity. You strip things down and then use what you have.
Jason Fried (Rework)
shibui (Japanese) Beauty of aging. [adjective] Shibui (shin-BOO-ee), like wabi, sabi, and aware, connotes a certain kind of beauty. Like sabi, and unlike aware, shibui refers to a kind of beauty that only time can reveal. One of the reasons language has such immense emotional power is the way people use symbols to link together several sensory sym-bols to make an emotionally evocative image. Shibui can be used to describe the taste of a certain kind of tea, scenery of a gray, brown, or moss-green color, or the impression a person gets from looking at the face of a certain kind of older person.
Howard Rheingold (They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases)
Just like the beautiful tea bowls that Japanese artisans purposefully nick or chip at the bottom as a quiet reminder that there is no such thing as perfection, so was Robuchon flawed with his frustration and his temper. His food was divine, but the chef was a man with all of the nicks and chips that make us human.
Eric Ripert (32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line)
Thoreau admonished, “Our life is frittered away by detail.… Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” This longing for simplicity is so powerful and complex that it needs its own term, much like nostalgie de la boue (yearning for the mud) or wabi sabi (the beauty of the imperfect and impermanent). When I asked on my blog if anyone knew a term to capture this idea, one reader coined the wonderful word “Waldenlust.” This longing takes several forms: fantasies of the freedom that dispossession would bring; nostalgia for earlier, supposedly simpler times; and reverence for the primitive, which is assumed to be more authentic and closer to nature. I
Gretchen Rubin (Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life)
There are similar concepts to hygge in a few other countries: Wabi-sabi from Japan is the idea of finding the beauty in things that are imperfect. Friluftsliv from Norway translates to “open-air life.” This is about living a life of enjoying nature. Gemütlichkeit from Germany is akin to hygge. Gezelligheid from Holland is also much like hygge.
Pia Edberg (The Cozy Life: Rediscover the Joy of the Simple Things Through the Danish Concept of Hygge)
I carried with me the question “What is culture?” Food culture, fashion culture, Japanese culture . . . I wanted to understand this idea more. When people use the term “culture” they refer to a certain lifestyle followed by a number of people over a period of time—something we create by the way we live. So I decided to visit people instead of places.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Finding contentment and happiness in your surroundings is a massive contributor to your overall happiness. One who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger. Japanese proverb Kaachu fuugetsu most commonly translates as learning about yourself through experiencing the beauty of nature. The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. Japanese proverb
Erin Niimi Longhurst (A Little Book of Japanese Contentments: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi, and More)
In Zen philosophy there are seven aesthetic principles for achieving wabi-sabi that we can easily learn to incorporate into our Western pagan idealism: • Fukinsei: asymmetry, irregularity; • Kanso: simplicity; • Koko: basic, weathered; • Shizen: without pretence, natural; • Yugen: subtly profound grace, not obvious; • Datsuzoku: unbounded by convention, free; • Seijaku: tranquillity.
Melusine Draco (Western Animism: Zen & The Art Of Positive Paganism (Pagan Portals))
The Japanese see the seasons as signposts, visible reminders of our own natural rhytms. In modern life, these often get disrupted, as we extend our days with strong artificial light, interrupt our sensitive biorhytms with blue lights from our electronic devices and push ourselves to be highly productive just because it's another weekday. We push on, regardless of whether our body is trying to tell us it's time to hibernate, or get outside for some summer sunshine - and then we wonder why we get sick.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Another element of his design philosophy is one he adopted from the ancient Japanese theory wabi-sabi, which is an “acceptance of the world as an intransient entity,” or in layman’s terms, it’s finding beauty in all that is imperfect, incomplete, and impermanent within nature. From wabi comes wa: the goal of total unity or harmony which is the ideal realization of the maxim “less is more,” humble by choice, not materialistic and peaceful. All our lives—as was Carolyn’s—should aim to be wabi-sabi, an acceptance of our imperfections which ultimately leads to perfection. Mr. Yamamoto compares the thought to reading a book—if you are a good interpreter, you can read between the spaces and lines, understanding more than the words themselves.
Sunita Kamir Nair (CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion)
Resistance to the possibility of failure In my work helping people transition between careers, between lifestyles, and between life stages, I constantly come across resistance to being a beginner, due to an overwhelming fear of failure. If you start something new, it’s highly likely you will get things wrong along the way. There’s no doubt this is hard on the spirit as well as on the ego. It’s easy to see why so many people spend years on a track that is making them miserable now, to avoid the possibility of a mistake making them miserable in the future. This is particularly the case with people wanting to shift into a more creative way of living or earning their income from a creative profession. The risk is too high, the fear of failure too great, the ghosts of art teachers and other critics from the past too loud in their ears. But there is something they don’t realize: failing your way forward is progress. Each time you do it, you build up your store of inner wisdom, to draw on next time you need it. The “failure” does not have to be the end of the story. It can be the beginning of the next chapter, but only if you accept the imperfection, show yourself compassion, and choose to move forward.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
After taking my city for granted, complaining about its pace, its smells, its noise, its people, its anonymous buildings blocking the sky, it's romancing me. I pass the dog walkers, the bridges, the kayakers and houseboats on the Hudson, the wabi-sabi streets and stoops, and am thankful that in less than twenty-three square miles the city provides both profound solitude - and also the very best people with whom to break it.
Stephanie Rosenbloom (Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude)
Simplicity isn't about being a cold, hard minimalist. A different way of looking at simplicity is to take note of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi. It is difficult to translate it directly into a Western sensibility but it is a way of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature.
Amanda Talbot (Rethink: The Way You Live)
E wabi‑sabi, frumusețea lucrurilor trecătoare, a spus Sensei. Florile de cireș sunt frumoase, dar în același timp sunt trecătoare. Suntem fericiți că le vedem, dar în același timp e o fericire puțin tristă pentru că suntem conștienți că ele vor dispărea în curând.
Andrada Coos (Frumusețea lucrurilor trecătoare)
In modern psychological terms, a child is said to become ego-centric when he has learned to distinguish himself from the world he perceives. It is just this learned idea that we are separate from our environment that Zen says we need to unlearn.
Andrew Juniper (Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence)
Querido abuelo, no te has ido, estás dentro de mí, en mi alma. Recuerdo los paseos, los baños, los cuidados al huerto y al bonsái. Recuerdo tu mirada sabia, tu mano en mi mano y tu sonrisa sencilla. Querido abuelo, venimos de y vamos a. Y eso, no es bueno ni es malo, tan solo es natural y necesario.
Tomás Navarro (wabi sabi: aprender a aceptar la imperfección)
wabi~sabi
Sen no Rikyū
wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay and death.
Robyn Griggs Lawrence (Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House)
10 Tips para practicar la filosofía wabi sabi en la vida diaria: Vive cada momento y saboréalo Coloca pasión en cada cosa que hagas Aprovecha las situaciones adversas que se te presenten para aprender de ello y hacerte más fuerte y determinado Aprende a disfrutar de la naturaleza y recárgate de energía Olvídate de los patrones de belleza y perfección impuestos por la sociedad Entrena tus sentimientos y desarrolla inteligencia emocional que te permita tomar mejores decisiones Si algo no te hace feliz, no te adaptes a ello Céntrate en ocuparte y no en preocuparte Mira más allá, observa cada detalle y encontrarás la belleza oculta de las personas y de las cosas Tu felicidad solo depende de ti, trabaja en ella y evita los pensamientos negativos.
Andrea Rodríguez (9 hábitos japoneses que cambiarán tu vida)
Wabi-sabi es un término que representa los estragos del tiempo. Simboliza la forma en que los japoneses ven la belleza. Si sabi representa la belleza exterior, wabi es la belleza interior.
Andrea Rodríguez (9 hábitos japoneses que cambiarán tu vida)
People don't know they should be looking for 3000 degrees Kelvin, or what we call warm light. Look at the color rendering index ( CRI ) of a bulb. Choosing bulbs with a CRI close to 100 will keep you and your spaces looking bright and colorful. If we want more wildness in our lives, we have to be willing to let go of some control. Harmony offers visible evidence that someone cares enough about a place to invest energy in it. Disorder has the opposite effect. Disorderly environments have been linked to feelings of powerlessness, fear, anxiety and depression and they exert a subtle, negative influence on people's behavior. Joy is the brain's natural reward for staying alert to correlations and connections in our surroundings. This principle helps explain why collections feel so joyful. Even if the individual items don't have much value, our eyes read a collection as more than the sum of its parts. Surprise has a vital purpose: to quickly redirect our attention. In stable, predictable situations, the parts of the brain that attend to our environment slip into a kind of background mode. Situations rich in ambiguity tend to spur magical thinking. When we witness something mysterious, it disrupts our sense of certainty about the world and our place in it.
Ingrid Fetell Lee (Joyful The Surprising Power Of Ordinary Things, Wabi Sabi 2 Books Collection Set)
Progress comes from maintaining high standards, not eliminating every flaw. Practice wabi sabi, the art of honoring beauty in imperfection, by identifying some shortcomings that you can accept. Consider where you truly need the best and where you can settle for good enough. Mark your growth with Eric Best’s questions: Did you make yourself better today? Did you make someone else better today?
Adam M. Grant (Hidden Potential)
The forest does not care what your hair looks like. The mountains don’t move for any job title. The rivers keep running regardless of your social media following, your salary or your popularity. The flowers keep on blooming, whether or not you make mistakes. Nature just is, and welcomes you, just as you are.
Beth Kempton (Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life)
Have you ever heard of Wabi-sabi?" "Nope ," Angela admitted. Nicola sat up a little to better see Angela's face. "It's a Japanese point of view. The Sabi bit refers to something's beauty that comes from its imperfections, or damage it's suffered through its life." Nicola bent her head and gave the side of Angela's face a soft kiss, then pulled back up, enough for their eyes to meet. "Nothing is perfect if you look close enough, and nothing is forever. Despite what people think they want, we all in fact find things that appear perfect to be rather disturbing." She pointed to a chicken pox scar above her own right eye. "We seek out, and find comfort in wear and tear, flaws of any sort. Contrary to what our society believes, it's the imperfections which draw us to something and they can make us love it even more.
Helen E. Barrow (Northern Heights)
Wabi-sabi” is a Japanese expression for the beauty of impermanence,
Susan Moon (This is Getting Old)
Wabi Sabi", named after a Japanese notion of appreciating the perfection in imperfection.
Anonymous
Allo stesso tempo in giapponese ci sono due parole, wabi e sabi, che messe insieme significano bellezza effimera e fluttuante; estetica della decadenza, dei dettagli asimmetrici e dei colori naturali; gusto per il non finito, il transeunte, l'imperfetto. Per spiegare cosa significano queste quattro sillabe giapponesi nelle nostre lingue bisogna scrivere dei mini trattati.
Will Ferguson (Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan)
There’s a beauty to imperfection. This is the essence of the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi.
Jason Fried (Rework)
This legend traces back to the sixteenth century, when the Japanese tea ceremony underwent a seismic shift. Immaculate dishes were replaced with chipped bowls. People drank from pottery that was worn and weathered. They called this practice wabi sabi. Wabi sabi is the art of honoring the beauty in imperfection. It’s not about creating intentional imperfections. It’s about accepting that flaws are inevitable—and recognizing that they don’t stop something from becoming sublime. That’s been a dominant theme in Tadao Ando’s architecture and his life. He’s an imperfectionist: he’s selective about what he decides to do well.
Adam M. Grant (Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things)
Wabi Sabi,' murmured Haruka. 'It is part of Japanese culture. It is an appreciation of things that aren't perfect or finished, and that is their attraction. It's accepting the value of things - an old pot, an old person - and understanding that those things have wisdom, that they have seen things. They have value in being.
Julie Caplin (The Little Teashop in Tokyo (Romantic Escapes, #6))
The repair was obvious, outlined in a vein of gold which highlighted the defect rather than hiding it. ....'We value the old, so we repair things, but we embrace the repair. This is kintsugi; it celebrates the imperfection. The blemish is celebrated, made in gold because beauty is found in the uniqueness of its imperfection. An old face is lined with years of happiness, sorrow and achievement but those lines have been earned. Wabi Sabi is to value the imperfections because they are a reflection of our reality.
Julie Caplin (The Little Teashop in Tokyo (Romantic Escapes, #6))
The tea ceremony is considered a means of achieving enlightenment and peace of mind through the simple, everyday preparation of tea. The focus is on sharing a quiet moment with friends in an atmosphere of mutual respect, in an environment that reflects the quiet beauty of nature. The tea hosts and her guests reflect on the importance of appreciating each moment as it passes, within the greater flow of our brief and often chaotic lives. Life, therefore, becomes art; Wabi and Sabi are manifestations of both.
Diane Durston (Wabi Sabi: The Art of Everyday Life)
It's for casting out the inner fascist creep. Hopefully you'll never need it. NoPassaran I am alright in the essenceless stream of becoming I apprehend myself actually dancing with amazing terror while driving the shy and alone animal body itself imagining the breathing maze of dreaming mirrors it dreams itself lost in No one could be expected to do this properly your body in its wabi sabi suchness momentarily in paradise dreaming up all this agonic psychic carnivalia all over again "as the words rain down" like the feathers of birds of paradise that heartbreaking in their naked individuality and that incalculably fine, impossibly necessary to some really friendly abyss you never expected when you were that person sentenced to the holographic futures bad moods passing through subjugated you to endless hotel hallways the room numbers in no order realizing you will never find yours again and that you must never stop searching laughing like an infant in a bathtub to enjoy the evanescent cartoon pandemonium of awareness while having kinds of relationships We do fine with our sentience for the most part. Thanks anyway. Void yet appearing overthinking sometimes.
Rich Cronshey
Có thể nói rằng, một điều hết sức quan trọng là đừng quay lưng với bất cứ ai, vì bạn không bao giờ biết được những gì họ đang phải trốn tránh thế giới bên ngoài.
Ryo Takemasa (Japonisme: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi and more)
En ocasiones el contexto en el que nos encontramos no nos proporciona estimulación o no nos ofrece alternativas que nos encajen, pero como bien dice Hitoshi: no tenemos raíces sino pies. Así que si tu contexto te limita o no te ofrece alternativas , ha llegado el momento de comenzar tu año inquisitivo. De cerrar puertas y abrir nuevas ventanas.
Tomás Navarro (wabi sabi: aprender a aceptar la imperfección)
A lo largo de mi experiencia he podido observar que el destino dispone nuestras cartas, pero nosotros decidimos cómo jugarlas. Esa jugada maestra de nuestras cartas depende sin duda alguna de nuestra actitud.
Tomás Navarro (wabi sabi: aprender a aceptar la imperfección)
A lo largo de mi experiencia en consulta he podido observar que el destino dispone nuestras cartas, pero nosotros decidimos cómo jugarlas. Esa jugada maestra de nuestras cartas depende sin duda alguna de nuestra actitud
Tomás Navarro (wabi sabi: aprender a aceptar la imperfección)