Devon

“We must know the whole play in order to properly act our parts; the conception of totality must never be lost in that of the individual.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“A master has always something to offer, while we go hungry solely because of our own lack of appreciation.”
― Okakura Kakuzo, The Book Of Tea

“The Taoist and Zen conception of perfection... the dynamic nature of their philosophy laid more stress upon the process through which perfection was sought than upon perfection itself. True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally completed the incomplete. The virility of life and art lay in its possibilities for growth.”
― Okakura Kakuzo, The Book Of Tea

“Much has been said of the aesthetic values of chanoyu- the love of the subdued and austere- most commonly characterized by the term, wabi. Wabi originally suggested an atmosphere of desolation, both in the sense of solitariness and in the sense of the poverty of things. In the long history of various Japanese arts, the sense of wabi gradually came to take on a positive meaning to be recognized for its profound religious sense. ...the related term, sabi,... It was mid-winter, and the water's surface was covered with the withered leaves of the of the lotuses. Suddenly I realized that the flowers had not simply dried up, but that they embodied, in their decomposition, the fullness of life that would emerge again in their natural beauty.”
― Okakura Kakuzo, The Book Of Tea