Sublime
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TRULY, I love this life of seclusion. Carrying my staff, I walk toward a friend’s cottage. The trees in his garden, soaked by the evening rain, Reflect the cool, clear autumnal sky. The owner’s dog comes to greet me; Chrysanthemums bloom along the fence. These people have the same spirit as the ancients; An earthen wall marks their separation from
... See moreJohn Stevens • One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan
Rikyu took the baton of artlessness from his predecessor, Ikkyu, when he introduced Korean craft pottery into his tea ceremony. The Korean potters, who might have made a hundred similar pots in a day, were probably totally devoid of any thought of artistic aspirations as they worked, and it was just this lack of intellect that proved so attractive
... See moreAndrew Juniper • Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence
In medieval Japan, under the patronage of the Zen monasteries and the Kamakura shogunate, the prevailing preference for simplicity and modesty were slowly introduced into the styles of the ceramics produced.
Andrew Juniper • Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence
Then she stood and lifted the stool carefully off Benny, who continued to sit there, looking somewhat wobbly and exposed, like Jell-O taken too soon from the mold.
Ruth Ozeki • The Book of Form and Emptiness: A Novel
Rinzai Roku (a celebrated Zen text of the T’ang dynasty) and the teachings of Bankei, the seventeenth-century Japanese master who, for me, represents Zen at its best.
Alan Watts • In My Own Way: An Autobiography
I had never had wife and children, so there were no close ties that were difficult to break. I had no rank and salary to forgo. What was there to hold me to the world? I made my bed among the clouds of Ōhara’s mountains,35 and there I passed five fruitless years.