Tuesday 29 July 2014

W A B I - S A B I


Represents a comprehensive worldview or aesthetic centred on the acceptance of transience and acceptance.

Imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.

Emptiness and absence of self-nature

Asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, austerity, intimacy.

Ingenuous integrity of natural objects of processes. 

Etymology; ‘Wabi’- Seen in texts from as early as the fourteenth century, inferring the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society.  ‘Sabi’ meaning ‘chill’, lean or withered.  In current uses, the combination of both words has seen a shift towards more positive and warmer connotations.

Understanding emptiness and imperfection was honoured as the first step the achieving satori (enlightenment in the Zen sect of Buddhism).

‘Wisdom in natural simplicity’

From the Mahayna Buddhism view of the universe, liberation from the material world leads to transcendence to a simpler life.

‘Genuine understanding cannot be achieved through words or language, so non-verbal acceptance is key.’  It has been noted that to study it is to live life through the senses and better engage with life as it happens, rather than getting caught upon thoughts.


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