Sen no Rikyu’s eye for aesthetic balance and his predilection for the simple and unadorned helped to change the focus of the tea ceremony from a display of culture and wealth to a communion of kindred spirits seeking purity and truth.

it is the almost mystical process of balancing different elements of a design in an aesthetic way that separates the proverbial men from the boys.

The Japanese love ambiguity, and in literature the writer will aim to maximize the potential meaning of his prose by deliberately leaving out subjects and objects, thus increasing the scope of interpretation. This is very well illustrated by three-line haiku poems, which open an idea for the reader to expand on as they wish.

As Albert Camus said, “Man is a creature who spends his entire life trying to convince himself that his existence is not absurd.”

The most famous of all Japanese gardens, Ryoanji, was constructed in 1450 under the guidance of the artist Soami, and it displays a completely different philosophical axis to the garden designs of Europe, such as those of Versailles.

The patina is absolutely critical for the final finish of the piece as it makes all the difference to the visual impact. The eye is very sensitive to these subtle variations, and for a piece to be really appealing every effort must be expended to develop a patina that captures the wood’s extended history.

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.

The meeting of the three religions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism was depicted in the famous picture of the vinegar tasters where Sakyamuni (the name given to the Buddha), Confucius, and Lao-tzu stood around a large vat of vinegar that symbolized life. Confucius found it sour, the Buddha found it bitter, but the Taoist Lao-tzu pronounced it

The idea that inanimate objects have kami—a spirit or god—is an unquestioned certainty for most Japanese, and objects such as special trees or rocks are often decorated with a white rope to draw attention to their special kami.