To enjoy good taste we only have to decide for ourselves what good sense is.

-- Jean de la Bruyere as paraphrased by Donald Richie

The struggle: Do you teach students what they need to know with the foresight that [it] will blossom into a romantic awareness? Or do you teach the romantic viewpoint and hope that a love of the idea of the subject evolves into a fascination with the parts that make it operate? -- S. Johnson

The best [pathways] always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker… the main skill is to keep from getting lost.

-- R. Pirsig

Searching is often nonlinear and iterative

Learners:

• exhibit mental flexibility and creativity• are persistent • suspend judgment on value until the larger

context is better understood• are adaptable, flexible, and recognize

ambiguity is beneficial • synthesize ideas

Instruction is imperfect…

Students are imperfect…

Assignments are imperfect…

Japanese aesthetics is…

a net of associations composed of listings or jottings, connected intuitively, that fills in a background and renders the subject visible.

-- D. Richie

We should not strive for logical conclusions. Rather, we ought to define those perceptions and variances…through a style that conveys something of the very uncertainty of their description.

-- D. Richie

Follow the brush, allow it to lead.

It is the dismissal of linear structure, the neglect of logical method that allows this progression.

-- D.Richie

Be more concerned with process than with product…

with the actual construction of a self than with self-expression.

-- D. Richie

Things as they are, or Nature itself.

Nature should be our model, we are to regard it, to learn from it.

-- D. Richie

Sabi is an aesthetic term rooted in a given concern – it is concerned with chronology with time and its effects, with product.

Wabi is a more philosophical concept, a quality not attached merely to a given object. It is concerned with manner, with process, with direction.

Wabi Sabi (侘寂 )finds beauty and harmony in what is simple, imperfect, natural, modest, and mysterious.It can be a little dark, but it is also warm and comfortable. It may best be understood as a feeling, rather than as an idea. -- M. Reibstein

Four Basic Tenets of Wabi Sabi

• Everything is in flux• To embody and suggest

impermanence• Peaceful contemplation of

transience• Appreciation brings holistic

perspective

– A. Juniper

Yūgen (幽玄 )

An awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words.

– H. Rheingold

An acceptance of the natural order of things.

Learners understand: “yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s useful and this is beautiful in and of itself.”