The Art of LettingThings Happen

Cracks on the plate, a stain on the couch, a crooked room,

a wrinkle on the face- for most of us these things are to be avoided,

replaced or at least not desirable, we turn away from signs of imperfection,

damage, transience, we long for the ideals, the symmetrical and youthful,

the timeless and intact, the absolute and perfect

The Western tradition chooses reason and order as

weapons in the war against the universe, so-called laws and truths from battles..1 Above its mantle hang ideals burning in its hearth, but this fire needs constant nourishment, and it is always on the verge of burning out, collectively and individually for many of us it already has the hope that something can be discovered or obtained that will make the cold of the universe disappear, lost for others of us we may have been engulfed by the fire that burns ourselves with

Unrelenting desire for those who want to better deal with the heat and cold of existence, who may be struggling with impossible goals, or

Perfection, certainty and consistency - an idea that is enormously useful is the

In the 12th century, a Japanese Buddhist monk named Nonan founded the first independent Zen Buddhist school in Japan, formally incorporating the ideas and principles of Chan Buddhism into the

At the heart of Buddhism is the idea that suffering is an inevitable part of existence. More specifically, suffering arises from the tension between our desire and the nature of reality - we desire things like consistency

Perfection and certainty, but the universe of which we are inextricably a part is in constant flux and subject to a process of change impermanence and imperfection As a result of the introduction and development of Zen in Japan, this impermanent and imperfect state of reality soon came to be seen as an ally to meditate on and make peace with, rather than an enemy to be fought against

Point of view and became a central part of the

Esthetics and philosophy together are wabi-sabi although there is no direct English translation, wabi-sabi essentially describes the viewpoint or experiences in which

Beauty and virtue are found in the impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete. From an esthetic perspective, wabi-sabi values the visually incomplete, damaged, asymmetrical, or minimalist artwork, which as wabi-sabi often emphasizes the process as opposed to the end result, and furthermore, the end result is often retained and used beyond the point where it still appears fresh, new, or undamaged. Visual artist Richard Powell said that wabi-sabi promotes all things authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfectsabi follows is known as raku pottery. This type of pottery is often hand molded, fired at low temperatures and air cooled, creating porous, inconsistent and uniquely shaped vessels the repaired cracks are intentionally highlighted and seen as beautiful, improved parts of the piece. In both raku and kinsuki, the imperfect and damaged aspects of the pottery are seen as beautiful, positive representations of the natural experience of existence

from a more philosophical point of view reflecting his esthetic, Wabi-Sabi values simple living, peace in the impermanence of all things, and embracing what is flawed and incomplete in nature, life, and oneself, signs of these things and ways to live in harmony with them represent a more honest and useful notion of perfection

In the sixteenth century, the Japanese tea ceremony was popularly used by the ruling class of shoguns to show off their wealth by wearing extravagant ceramic clothing to drink tea in lavishly decorated rooms under the full moon. in 1488, however, the Zen monk Morata Shuko redefined the tea ceremony based on the principles of wabi-sabi, and soon it became common to perform the tea ceremony with simple

Tea ceremony with simple ceramics made by Japanese artisans

The Japanese tea ceremony became a reverence for the simple and imperfect. Tea was drunk in a minimalist setting under a partial moon or cloudy night sky

although there seem to be key characteristics of things that we find beautiful, there are also ways of thinking and seeing things that create beauty beauty is based not only on what we perceive but how we perceive things a phenomenon that depends on the mind if we want to see more beauty in life as it really is, so it is up to us to do so wabi-sabi provides a lens through which we can do this more easily a way to experience beauty more often and draw peace from the true conditions of reality !Beauty, writes artist Leonard Corin, 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 a sense, the condition of coming to terms with what you see as ugly Wabi-Sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else

Beauty can occur spontaneously at any moment given the right circumstances, context, or perspective Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace there is nothing inherently wrong with constantly striving for something closer to perfection, but in truth the distance between good and perfect is infinite !

Everything we try to do will fail in some way everything we finish will be incomplete in some way everything we know everything we value everything that works now will disintegrate and fade back into nothingness this is something we almost have to contend with we can fight it and resist it which we will naturally and inevitably do but we can also do our best, whenever possible to accept this reality to find the beauty and virtue in it and learn to accept things as they are, not as we want them to be in every crack on a plate lying on a couch, in every wrinkle in a face we can see the beauty, we can see the truth, we can see the oneness of nature that binds all things together as David Foster Wallace says. If you are automatically sure that you know what reality is and are working with your default setting, then you, like me, will probably not consider options that are not troublesome and unhappy, but if you really learn to pay attention, then you will know that there are other options

Sharing the mystical oneness of all things deep down - not that this mystical stuff is necessarily true - the only thing that is really true is that you get to decide how you try to see it- wabi-sabi may not be to everyone's taste, and furthermore, even for those for whom it is true, no one can probably ever be perfect

Embracing imperfection Impermanence or incompleteness, but perhaps in our own imperfect capacities, ever complete

Embracing imperfection, in a sense we nevertheless perfectly embody the idea of wabi-sabi