Chapter 8 Simplicity and Silence

Simplicity and Silence (wabi sabi)

Autumn sun on stone poems –

simple letters carved on the back,

graceful script on the face.

Wabi can be simply translated as frugal, simple or plain in appearance. Sabi means quietness, stillness, silence. But when we say wabi sabi there is the implication of a deeper meaning. Some masters of tea ceremony say wabi sabi can be expressed as being quiet and serene but it is much more than just that. It is the whole attitude toward life which derives from that state of mind.

Practicing shodō both develops and requires wabi sabi. Every step fosters deep silence. First you make the ink. You put a little water in the well of the mortar. It has to be just the right amount. If you put too much, the ink will be too thin and will run, and if you do not put enough, it will be too thick and will not flow properly on the paper. Next you take the ink stick and pull a little water up onto the grinding area and begin rubbing in a circular motion. It takes a long time to make ink of the right consistency. You cannot rush this step. If you are patient, the sound and sensation of the ink stick rubbing against smooth stone and water is very soothing. Once you have made your ink for that session, you take a piece of practice paper and fold it like a fan to make columns. You place the poem or sutra you wish to copy nearby. Then you dip your brush into the ink. If you get too much ink, your strokes will be too wide or will soak into the paper too much. With too little ink, you will not make a smooth, continuous stroke. You have to judge the size of your strokes so that the poem will fit the paper without looking cramped or too spaced out. You practice writing the poem until you feel ready to make a copy on nice paper. It is important to practice enough but it is also important to create a finished piece, even if it has “mistakes.” The finished piece is a record of where you are at that moment, including the perfect and the imperfect.

Shodō is like Zen. One time I went to China as an international guest, representing Japan at a calligraphy competition. The Chinese lady next to me was writing big characters with a big brush on a big piece of paper. I was very nervous because I write small pieces. When I sat down, I blanked out and when I came to, my piece was written and it was perfect. I did not know what I was doing until I finished. There is a Buddhist saying, “Out of nothing comes creation, out of creation comes nothing.”

In the past, all these arts were connected: ikebana, shodō and sadō. People would put a scroll on the wall, written in calligraphy by a priest. In front they would have a flower arrangement, and they would drink tea.

The traditional Japanese room for sadō was originally a very large room, for example, in a war lord’s castle. Sadō was practiced only by the wealthy. They would burn incense on the tokanoma, a special raised platform with a seasonal scroll and ikebana. Then four hundred years ago, Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) said you did not need luxurious things. Rikyu made everything simple in sadō. He had a strong reverence for each simple object. In that way, he taught people to know the real value of things. He trained at Daitoku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple, and was given the name Rikyu, which comes from a Buddhist saying, “One does not need fame or profit.” Sen no Rikyu was very open minded because he grew up in a commercial area, Sakai, famous for trading many different kinds of foreign goods. He made tea ceremony frugal, characterized by wabi cha, simple tea. He distinguished the tea ceremony as sadō, flower arranging became kadō, calligraphy, shodō, and burning incense, kodō. Rikyu wrote a famous poem: “Though many people drink tea, if you do not know the Way of Tea, tea will drink you up.”

Even if you are in a very small room, you can feel at one with the universe. When you enter a small room with a low door, you have to bow down. You enter with humility through a small opening into a small space. Depending on the emotional attitude, that small space will be become a big universe. You do not need all the luxurious equipment. It can be very simple and you can create a vast universe in a tiny room. That is the heart of sadō. When you drink the tea you become calm and you experience harmony.

The four principles of sadō are: wa (harmony), kei (respect), sei (purity), and jaku (tranquility or enlightenment). When you are in that calm environment, you can reach enlightenment. Some people who practice tea today just want to show off their expensive bowls and rich kimono. They are missing the point. The true spirit along with the prescribed form of etiquette of sadō can help people in everyday life. Offering hospitality and giving respect to others, behaving in a natural and polite manner, being frugal, simple, clean, careful and orderly, attending to details and discovering beauty in commonplace things, all of these fundamentals are cultivated through the practice of sadō.

Wabi sabi is also the basis of poetry. For many years I have been writing poetry, both haiku and waka. Haiku season ( from haiku no ku, literally “not serious verse”) is a form of poetry with 17 syllables in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables, often describing nature or a season. Waka (from wa “circle” + ka “song”), now called tanka, (from tan “short” + ka “song”) is a form of poetry with 31 syllables in five lines, the first and third lines having five syllables each and the other lines having seven syllables each.

Poetry is like Zen. It is from the heart. The meaning is really deep. In the old days people used to write more about nature. Four of the main themes were flowers, birds, the wind and the moon. These days people write about anything. Perhaps shinjinrui, the new breed of people, need more stimulation. I think they do not appreciate the subtleties of nature the way kyujinrui, the old breed of people, used to. The old style of using nature for poetic inspiration does not seem to suit young people. The emperor still reads poetry once a year to the public. He retains that old dignified style, drawing from nature. That is one of the few instances you will find traditional poetry in modern times. Now people speak more directly. There used to be a more beautiful way of saying things. Traditional haiku looked like nothing but had such a deep meaning. Now you read poetry and you quickly understand. It seems that people today do not know how to think deeply, so they have to write in a more obvious way. I feel the modern way is not interesting.

Like the poet Bashō, I wrote a number of poems on my walk from Kyōto to Tōkyō, included in my Diary of the White Bush Clover. In telling my memoirs, we translated these poems into English, with my added commentary. It was very hard to do this because it is difficult to convey the meaning of a poem in another language. One expression in Japanese, such as momijiba no aki, might take eight words to explain in English: “beautiful changing color of maple leaves in autumn.” Many words are used only in poetry, especially words that refer to the season, such as aki, which literally means autumn, but has the connotation of a sentimental season. Japanese people understand the allusions underlying these words but it is not so apparent to someone else. Also, some of the words I used are so old they are not even found in modern Japanese dictionaries. It often took us half a day to translate just one three-line poem. Every word required a lot of thought. For instance, referring to one ripe persimmon still hanging on the tree, we finally settled on translating akashi as “deep orange.”