An Aesthetic of Acceptance

Posted on November 7, 2011 by
In my daily life I am able to identify a particular aesthetic understanding which had developed in me during several years living in Japan. This way of interacting with the world is closely aligned to Zen and Wabi-Sabi both of which share many core theoretical tenets. Wabi-Sabi is an appreciation of the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete; of that which is modest, humble and unconventional; of things as they are in this moment.

According to Koren (1998) the material qualities of the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-Sabi are “the suggestion of natural process; Irregular; Intimate; Unpretentious; Earthy; Murky; Simple” (Koren, p.41). The values of Wabi-Sabi are: ‘All things are impermanent; All things are imperfect; All things are incomplete; ‘Greatness’ exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details; and beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness.’ (Koren, p. 46-51).

Several years ago I attended an exhibition of the art of 19th Century Zen nun, Rengetsu. The art works in the exhibition are simple ceramic containers with poems inscribed on them in fine, cursive calligraphy. The poems and the simple containers speak to the ephemeral nature of life. In the exhibition there was a set of tea cups of which one had been broken and had been mended with gold. Instead of discarding or attempting to invisibly mend the broken cup, gold had been laid upon the crack so that the ‘visible mending’ became accentuated. The imperfection was celebrated as an accidental addition worth appreciation.

They are an embodiment of Wabi-Sabi : finding beauty in imperfection, profundity in nature; and accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. This approach to art and life is simple, slow, and uncluttered. It reveres authenticity above all. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all transient beings on this planet – that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through Wabi-Sabi, we learn to embrace transience and the ephemeral nature of everything.

Koren, L. (1998). Wabi-Sabi for artists, designers, poets & philosophers. Berkeley, CA: Stonebridge Press.
Posted in Japanese Aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi, Zen | 1 Comment

Embracing opposites

Posted on October 12, 2011 by
I am very drawn to the idea of what is ‘enough’ in the following quote by the Zen teacher Taisen Deshimaru.

‘Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen, neither intention, analysis, specific effort, nor imagination takes place. It’s enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance: embracing all opposites.’

I am intrigued at how and to what extent Deshimaru sensei embraced all opposites and overcame hypocrisy and dogmatism  when, as a young man in the Second World War, he was assigned to the island of Bangka. Apparently, Deshimaru opposed the ruthless way in which the Japanese occupiers treated the inhabitants of Bangka and tried to protect the westerners, Chinese, and Indonesians living there. For this he was imprisoned as a traitor by the Japanese but was unexpectedly released and sent to Belitung, another Indonesian island. At the end of the war he became a prisoner of the Americans before being repatriated. I have been unable to find out whether Deshimaru was in Bangka in 1942 when 22 Australian nurses were ordered to walk into the sea and mown down by Japanese machine gun fire. Only one, Vivian Bullwinkel, survived and gave evidence at the war crime trials in Tokyo.  In 1967 Deshimaru moved to Paris where he taught Zen and became head of Japanese Soto Zen for Europe.

As an Australian who has a deep connection to Japan, the Japanese, and the philosophy of Zen, I struggle to embrace the opposites that are present in this story. Were the opposites present on the day of the Bangka massacre those of innocence on the part of the nurses and brutality on the part of the Japanese? Or were they fear and hatred? Emotions, in all likelihood, felt by both the nurses and their slayers?

What feelings of fear and hatred can I identify in myself? How do I embrace both my fear and my hatred? Will that be ‘enough’?
Posted in Australia Japan relations, Enough, Zen | Leave a comment