Talk:Wabi-sabi

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[edit] Critique

As any visitor to Japan will notice, the reigning aesthetic is anything but wabi-sabi. This is not a post-Western development. There has always been a tension between the tea-ceremony / Rikyu aesthetic and the Kinkakuji / Hideyoshi aesthetic. In fact some speculate that Rikyu was killed over this conflict. We shouldn't say unapologetically that wabi-sabi is THE Japanese aesthetic. It's just one of several.

[edit] Praise for this article

I am a long-time Zen practitioner and student of spirituality in general, and I must say, this is an excellent description of this concept! It truly captures this subtle, beautiful, deep and spiritual feeling quite well. Well done folks! Jan 16, 2006

I have known of this concept for the past five years or so and, through my personal lens, it has freed me for the cultural straight jacket of perfection that continues to bind and restrict true growth and acceptance of the human mind and spirit. By this I mean that Wabi Sabi has allowed me to see the imperfections in my life as the character of my life. The emotional, intellectual, interpersonal and for that matter the scratches and dents of everyday life, all mark time and bring the fallacy of perfection in true focus. I don't believe anyone of us would not marvel at the power of our wounds to heal, the way in which our most beloved objects have changed over time, have yellowed or torn in ways that only make them more valuabe. I now let the newest scratches in my life act as daily reminders of the journey and its cumulative value to the meaning and intent of my life. September 29, 2006 MEH

[edit] Plagarism deleted; contributions needed!

It appears the article in its previous form was a word-for-word copy of text in the unt.edu link under external links. I've deleted that text from the article and left it here. Sadly, I've labelled this article a stub now until more can be written under the GFDL. All I had time to contribute is an additional quoted definition and a couple of book references. --Ds13 05:44, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

removed, apparently plagarized, text... (from http://www.art.unt.edu/ntieva/artcurr/asian/wabisabi.html)
Wabi-sabi is the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
It is the beauty of things modest and humble.
It is the beauty of things unconventional.
The concepts of wabi-sabi correlate with the concepts of Zen, as the first Japanese involved with wabi-sabi were tea masters, priests, and monks who practiced Zen. Zen was first introduced from China around the 12th century. It emphasizes "direct, intuitive insight into transcendental truth beyond all intellectual conception." At the core of wabi-sabi is the importance of transcending ways of looking and thinking about things/existence.
  • All things are impermanent
  • All things are imperfect
  • All things are incomplete
Material characteristics of wabi-sabi:
  • suggestion of natural process
  • irregular
  • intimate
  • unpretentious
  • earthy
  • simple

Can someone check that the Kanji for Wabi-sabi in is correct ? I suspect that sabi should be the Kanji for rust, patina and not the one for sadness, loneliness. --82.249.64.130 20:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Windows 3.x emulator

Wabi, which redirects to this article was also the name to a Windows 3.x emulator by Sun Microsystems. -- Darklock 10:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Claim of origin?

The last line of the intro paragraph states: A concept derived from the Buddhist assertion of the first noble truth - Dukkha. This seems like a reasonable theory, but is there a citation or other evidence for this? --Ds13 09:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation for programming and wiki use

This may be a request for Lumos3, since I think he/she was last to add this information to the article. Can a verifiable source be given for the claim that during the 1990s [wabi-sabi] was borrowed by computer software developers and employed in Agile programming and Wiki wiki to describe acceptance of the state of ongoing imperfection that is the product of these methods. Thanks. --Ds13 23:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I heard it at a lecture on Agile I attended in London in 2004. I cannot yet find a text book source but it occurs fairly frequently in agile and wiki blogs and resources see -[1],[2],[3],[4]],[5],[6],[7],[8] Lumos3 23:34, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for trying to track something down. I looked at those references, and except for one user comment in an Extreme Programming wiki saying "I've lost a few key lines on wiki over time, but that is part of the wabi sabi of wikiwiki.", I don't see anything that would qualify as an encyclopedic source for claiming that Agile programmers and Wiki'ers employ wabi sabi. I do intuitively agree with the claim, but I don't that cuts it. The search continues... ;-) --Ds13 02:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
What about this quote from Ward Cunningham contained in http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WabiSabi - Of the book Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren ISBN 1880656124 , "The book inspired me to not worry about the possibility that things could be lost from Wiki. Impermanent indeed." – WardCunningham. There is much else on this page that links the thinking of early XP and Wiki designers to Wabi Sabi. Lumos3 09:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Nice sleuthing. I think that quote from Cunningham is a step in the right direction. Citing wabi sabi's influence on Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb application would be fairly strong now. Thanks! I don't know enough of XP's early designers to recognize similar names and citations though. The issue remains that if the claim is broad and the citations only cover specific examples, then the claim still risks being considered speculative or original research, which is obviously not a good idea. --Ds13 20:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
So far we have multiple citations of its casual use in XP/Wiki discusions, a quote from Ward Cunningham using it and a couple of XP sites which link it as a resource. For what is still recent history these count as original source material and support its inclusion. I havent yet checked in text books if thats the sort of reference you want but I'm sure it will be there. Lumos3 08:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
This has turned into more discussion than I intended... what a pain, eh?  ;-) Sorry for the hassle but I hope we end up with something so that future readers/editors don't come asking for sources again like I did. It comes down to 1) keeping claims specific, and 2) reliable sources to back them.
The article currently makes a claim about Wiki and a claim about Agile. The Cunningham quote supports a claim about his wabi sabi and his WikiWikiWeb application, so the claim should be narrowed, since that's all we can back up (as opposed to what was in the minds of subsequent Wiki developers).
I think the casual discussion references have to be disregarded, but that's my interpretation of policy, so feel free to disagree and use them. As long as the claim is kept specific and we can point to a primary or secondary source making the same claim before, then we're not violating Wikipedia's no original research policy. --Ds13 16:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Dukkha

Dukkha has little to do with impermanence, but rather it means pain, suffering, or hardship. I am not sure about the Japanese term, but as it stands it is incorrect to liken Dukkha to impermenance. Please edit the first paragraph accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.151.137.187 (talk • contribs)

First, please sign your comments. Thanks for the feedback. From the Dukkha article:
Although dukkha is often translated as "suffering", it has a deeper philosophical meaning. It also contains in addition deeper ideas such as "imperfection", "impermanence", "emptiness" and "insubstantiality". "Suffering" is too narrow a translation and it is best to leave dukkha untranslated [1] [2] [3] [4].
Several cites are given for this claim. I think it's a good idea to add "suffering" and several other words to the translation in the first paragraph. These things are fuzzy. --Ds13 23:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
The word for "mujo" (impermanence) is anitya (Sanskrit) or anicca (Pali). "Dukkha" is usually translated to "ku" (suffering). Impermanence and suffering are standard English terms used in Buddhism, and should be treated as such in this context. Also, as this article is on a Japanese notion, Buddhist notions may be better treated in the Japanese Buddhist way. Yuji 04:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)