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ZEN BUDDHISM allows the Zenist to become a monk, a poet or a knight, to acquire an enterprising and acceptant soul, because the secret of these different states is absolute detachment and intuitive originality. Zen is not the metaphysics of an exhausted mind; it is a vigorous activity of the soul.”1 And Sir George Sansom, in an oft-quoted passage, says, “The influence of the Zen School upon Japan has been so subtle and pervading that it has become the essence of her finest culture. To follow its ramifications in thought and sentiment, in art, letters and behaviour, would be to write exhaustively the most difficult and the most fascinating chapter of her spiritual history. ...2
The secret of it all is that indefinable virtue which is known as wabi or sabi. Wabi is described as “poverty", or "aloofness”, a state of mind which is satisfied with few possessions, and is untied to worldly affairs. This state, needless to say, is compatible with the actual possession of chattels, or the holding of office. It is a chastity of heart unstained by the circumstance in which it moves, in which it finds experience. Sabi (Sanskrit: Santi) may, I think, be described as the application of wabi to art. Much has been written by experts on the spirit of Japanese art. It is impersonal in the highest sense; it is of the people in its range of sensuous appeal, yet never for one moment sensual; it is purposeless, like nature in her myriad manifestations, and leads to, as it is the outcome of, a love of nature which is one of the noblest products of Japan. The artist strives to achieve results with the minimum display, be it number of brush strokes in a picture, rocks in a garden or flowers in a vase. In the same way a
1 The Buddhist Sects of Japan, p. 138. 2 Japan, p. 338.
