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A traditional home in Japan—a classical self—is all shifting panels and self-contained compartments. Even as the absence of locks and curtains keeps the individual aware at every moment that she’s part of a larger whole.
To make oneself up, in a deeper way, is a mark of courtesy.
The effect was not conceptual, but dazzlingly sensual; there was nothing to think about, only to feel.
“Take care of things,” as the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki said, “and things will take care of you.”
The smiles we see in Japan are, again, less an attempt to get something from us than an attempt to give something. Yet, if you come from a different kind of society, you assume that elegant design hides designs of a deeper kind, projecting your own complexity upon Japan’s blank screen.
Zen is what remains when words and ideas run out.
What we see and smell and hear is real, it reminds us; what we think about that
Words only separate what silence brings together.
The person sitting still doesn’t say, “I’m awake.” She says, “The world is illuminated!”
Lacking space has naturally made the Japanese masters of making space—in a crowded rush-hour train, in a poem or a painting.
A Japanese psychiatrist asked every prospective patient to keep a daily journal. He consented to see each one only after all her sentences were devoted to the world outside her.
“Nothing sets you (or at least me) free creatively,” says the untamed film director and Monty Pythonite, Terry Gilliam, “like having a set of limitations to explore.”
