It seems to me that everything I have ever been interested in comes together in this concept of wabi sabi. It's very exciting.
'The Tao that cannot be told is not the eternal Tao' is the first line in the translation from the chinese of the Tao Te Ching. I suspect that the japanese wabi sabi has something of this mystery and paradox about it. That it cannot be easily put into words, but in our western way we will try anyway...
A willingness to accept that there will be mystery seem to be more prevalent in eastern philosophy, and I'm looking again at A C Grayling's book The Mystery of Things. He says in the introduction:
'Human genius has done much, and promises much, in the way of removing the mystery from many things in our world; at the same time it recognises and honours the mystery in things too.'
Ah, maybe I am a philosopher at heart!
The Tao Te Ching by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, 1974, is a beautiful book. I've just bought the last new copy from Amazon (mine got dropped in the bath) but there are used copies from £2.96.
'The Tao that cannot be told is not the eternal Tao' is the first line in the translation from the chinese of the Tao Te Ching. I suspect that the japanese wabi sabi has something of this mystery and paradox about it. That it cannot be easily put into words, but in our western way we will try anyway...
A willingness to accept that there will be mystery seem to be more prevalent in eastern philosophy, and I'm looking again at A C Grayling's book The Mystery of Things. He says in the introduction:
'Human genius has done much, and promises much, in the way of removing the mystery from many things in our world; at the same time it recognises and honours the mystery in things too.'
Ah, maybe I am a philosopher at heart!
The Tao Te Ching by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, 1974, is a beautiful book. I've just bought the last new copy from Amazon (mine got dropped in the bath) but there are used copies from £2.96.
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