Sublime

secrets to a long life during his interview with journalist Judit Kawaguchi. Some of his guidelines for living are: ● Don’t retire. And if you must, retire much later than 65. ● Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. ● Don’t be overweight. ● Take the stairs. ● Have fun. ● Having fun is the best way to forget about p

Soon this short verse sprang free from renga and began to articulate aesthetic qualities, such as a sense of beautiful aloneness (sabishisa) and restrained elegance (furyu).

When I taught in Japan, I learned how to say yasashikuyawarakaku, which encompasses “slowly, softly, and gently.”

The beauty of Basho’s prose, however, took the negative aspects of old age, loneliness, and death and imbued them with a serene sense of beauty.

I have a tremendous love of frugality, I must admit. I don’t like a couch decked out ostentatiously; or clothes brought out from a chest or given a sheen by the forceful pressure of weights and a thousand mangles, but homely and inexpensive, and not hoarded to be donned with fuss and bother. I like food which is not prepared and watched over by the

While the shoguns and wealthy nobility often favored gold and other ostentatious colors, the Zen monks and the tea masters preferred the more mundane colors such as browns, greens, and grays.