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Wabi-Sabi.

Posted by John on June 18th, 2007 at 2:07 pm · 5 Comments

I began this as a comment on Death II: Deal With It! on Letters from a Broad, but it quickly ballooned into post material.

Have you ever experienced the beauty of the sakura? They all but glow with pink-tinged light for a few days every spring, and then quickly fade to dark foliage until the next year. I have bittersweet memories of being transfixed by the sakura in full bloom; sweet because of otherworldly beauty of the blossoms, bitter because the memories are all I’ve got and I’m not sure when I can see them again.

The sakura are at the heart of the Japanese cultural aesthetic of wabi-sabi. It’s difficult to describe, but it touches on the beauty inherent in the transience of life, of this world and all that is in it. To me, it’s the smile and the ache that wells up behind it when I think of my deceased grampa or father-in-law, looking at the beauty of my children and realizing that they are changing too quickly, gazing at the stars and realizing that the universe, for all its wonder, is colder, older, and lonelier than I can imagine. It’s the petals of the sakura already floating down even as the tree has begun to bloom.

This aesthetic can be found in the West as well, but it is overshadowed by an emphasis on immortality and of the subservience of the forces of the universe to humanity. I blame our Christian-influenced culture for setting these powerful expectations.  Thankfully, alternatives can be found in many places, including within some expressions of Judaism, in modern European philosophy, and in the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi.

So when I lost my Mormon-inspired sense of eternal entitlement, I embraced my Japanese cultural heritage and immersed myself in this sense of sad beauty, this pairing of smiles and tears.  My tastes have changed over the years, and I find I like a little bitter mixed in with the sweet.

Here’s an excerpt from Do You Realize? by the Flaming Lips.  It’s one that CatGirl and I like to sing together.

Do you realize - that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die?

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes,
Let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

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Tags: Doubt

5 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Miko // Jun 18, 2007 at 4:04 pm

    When I first heard of wabi-sabi it was explained as “Japanese feng shui”, which I have since discovered it is extremely not. But I’ve admired the principle since before I could name it. My father-in-law and his wife live it very well, I believe; she has a saying, “it’s broken when you buy it” that I long to be able to apply to my own life.

    I really like the concept of seeing beauty in what we in the west see as imperfection. I’ve heard that ceramic objects that have cracked are filled with gold to both “fix” the crack so that the object is useful again & to draw attention to the imperfection. I have a ceramic kimono whose crack I’d love to have filled with gold if I could find a place here that would do it. Incidentally, Westerners have taken this practice and completely missed the point…

    I’ve never had a problem with my own mortality, it’s the mortality of the people and things around me that I have a problem with. I’ll never have to live without myself, so I won’t miss me when I’m gone. But I miss people I know who are gone (in many different ways). I guess I’ve dealt with it by believing that our souls are like our bodies: they’ll decay and won’t be recognizable as who we knew, but they won’t ever really disappear. Even the sakura blossoms, which bloom and then fall, have served their purpose and get transformed into other forms: memories, photographs, and compost.

  • 2 Jonathan // Jun 18, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    This is my favorite passage about the bittersweetness of the passage of life. I though it might be remotely appropriate because it doesn’t focus on the huge benefits of the afterlife, but on the quickness of this one. I apologize if the quote is offensive - it’s just immediately came to mind - some poetry about the beauty and sadness of life and death.

    Remember your Creator
    in the days of your youth,
    before the days of trouble come
    and the years approach when you will say,
    “I find no pleasure in them”-

    2 before the sun and the light
    and the moon and the stars grow dark,
    and the clouds return after the rain;

    3 when the keepers of the house tremble,
    and the strong men stoop,
    when the grinders cease because they are few,
    and those looking through the windows grow dim;

    4 when the doors to the street are closed
    and the sound of grinding fades;
    when men rise up at the sound of birds,
    but all their songs grow faint;

    5 when men are afraid of heights
    and of dangers in the streets;
    when the almond tree blossoms
    and the grasshopper drags himself along
    and desire no longer is stirred.
    Then man goes to his eternal home
    and mourners go about the streets.

    6 Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,or the golden bowl is broken;
    before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
    or the wheel broken at the well,

    7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

  • 3 C. L. Hanson // Jun 18, 2007 at 9:00 pm

    That’s beautiful. The first thing that came to mind when reading your post was the part in The Tale of Gengi where some of the characters are talking about the beauty of autumn versus the beauty of spring.

    It’s kind of unfortunate that I’ve been so wholly shaped by western culture. I can appreciate the poignant beauty of fleeting things, but in some ways I feel like my “soul” (if you want to call it that — I don’t mean it literally) has a deep-rooted “Pilgrim’s Progress” work-towards-a-goal-instead-of-smelling-the-flowers flavor to it…

  • 4 Bored in Vernal // Jun 19, 2007 at 4:40 pm

    I think I felt it when I read the poem by Hausman. ahhhh, it really got me.

  • 5 Zach A // Jun 29, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    That’s such a beautiful song — I recommend everyone go download it (the words don’t quite do it justice by themselves).

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