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Wabi-Sabi: Further Thoughts
A useful complement to for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers , the seminal volume on the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. An insightful book for thoughtful creators. . . .
96 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
July 10, 2018
Sort of a hipster creation of a Japanese aesthetic, but still intriguing. It does capture the slant of Japanese thought thus allowing for a different take on the world and the objects we interact with.
February 3, 2022
a perfect way to take a break from the noise and stress that we are surrounded by in our everyday lives. a deeper dive into wabi-sabi. fascinating, inspiring!
August 18, 2019
در واقع دنبال اون یکی کتابش بودم که عنوانش هست وابیسابی برای هنرمندان، طراحان، شاعران و فیلسوفان!
کتابفروشی نداشت دیگه گفتم با همین شروع کنم.
تاریخچهی وابیسابی رو گفته بود، خیلی کتاب مختصریه و نزدیک دو دهه بعد از اون کتاب اصلی چاپ شده تا یه سری نکات رو به اون اضافه کنه.
باید اون کتاب رو هم بخونم.
کتابفروشی نداشت دیگه گفتم با همین شروع کنم.
تاریخچهی وابیسابی رو گفته بود، خیلی کتاب مختصریه و نزدیک دو دهه بعد از اون کتاب اصلی چاپ شده تا یه سری نکات رو به اون اضافه کنه.
باید اون کتاب رو هم بخونم.
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July 23, 2018A satisfying follow-up to Koren's initial text on wabi-sabi, albeit a bit more of a hodgepodge this time around. I would've loved more on wabi-sabi in the digital age, as he makes some stark and interesting claims that, in my opinion, would benefit from a deeper discussion.
January 28, 2021
Appropriation at its finest? Or historical exploration?
This book illuminates that wabi sabi may not be a time honored Japanese construct but instead something that a Western man reinvented, packaged, marketed and profited from. This academic essay of a book is a second attempt at the topic, where Koren comes clean about wabi sabi’s true history, and his ‘invention’ of wabi sabi in the framework he describes in his first book. Its not ironic that wabi sabi had only ever been mentioned in written format about 4 times prior —only two of those by Japanese authors. It was never actually called wabi-sabi as Koren describes it. Having become a huge fan of the methodology post reading the first book, I was truly disappointed after reading Further Thoughts.
The book really begs the question —- “Was wabi-sabi ever developed in this way and followed by Japanese people OR is it another concept that has been westernized, diluted and misinterpreted by foreigners?
This book illuminates that wabi sabi may not be a time honored Japanese construct but instead something that a Western man reinvented, packaged, marketed and profited from. This academic essay of a book is a second attempt at the topic, where Koren comes clean about wabi sabi’s true history, and his ‘invention’ of wabi sabi in the framework he describes in his first book. Its not ironic that wabi sabi had only ever been mentioned in written format about 4 times prior —only two of those by Japanese authors. It was never actually called wabi-sabi as Koren describes it. Having become a huge fan of the methodology post reading the first book, I was truly disappointed after reading Further Thoughts.
The book really begs the question —- “Was wabi-sabi ever developed in this way and followed by Japanese people OR is it another concept that has been westernized, diluted and misinterpreted by foreigners?
March 15, 2015
I’ve looked forward to this book since I learned of its impending publication April 2014. I greatly enjoyed WABI-SABI because it helped me understand object traits that I have appreciated since childhood.
This new book primarily deals with four topics. The largest part of the text looks at the history and context of the words wabi and sabi, naturally focusing on the tea ceremony and its paraphernalia. Because the first book also includes a brief history, there is a certain amount of repetition in this section. After that Leonard Koren discusses his reasons for writing the first book and further defines wabi-sabi. To finish the text, he answers two questions: can the maker intentionally create a wabi-sabi object and can the electronic world ever be described as having wabi-sabi traits? For me, this last section is the most important one.
This new book primarily deals with four topics. The largest part of the text looks at the history and context of the words wabi and sabi, naturally focusing on the tea ceremony and its paraphernalia. Because the first book also includes a brief history, there is a certain amount of repetition in this section. After that Leonard Koren discusses his reasons for writing the first book and further defines wabi-sabi. To finish the text, he answers two questions: can the maker intentionally create a wabi-sabi object and can the electronic world ever be described as having wabi-sabi traits? For me, this last section is the most important one.
January 3, 2016
Worthwhile complement to the original. I appreciated the additional context in the form of history and bibliography, and thoughts on modern implications; ruminating on the co-opting of the concept, and the problem of its very concept-ness.
The brief ending on co-existence with "the digital world" was a concise and lucid, yet somehow superficial rejection. I suspect the perceived divide between natural/physical and virtual/symbolic may be a worthy meditation for a third book that explores the metaphysical boundaries of each notion, not equating them, but still connecting them within a larger whole.
The brief ending on co-existence with "the digital world" was a concise and lucid, yet somehow superficial rejection. I suspect the perceived divide between natural/physical and virtual/symbolic may be a worthy meditation for a third book that explores the metaphysical boundaries of each notion, not equating them, but still connecting them within a larger whole.
April 13, 2020
این کتاب در ادامهی کتاب «وابی-سابی برای هنرمندان، طراحان، شاعران و فیلسوفان» نوشته شده. وقتی آدمای زیادی بعد از خوندن اون کتاب روی اوردن سمت ساختن اشیائی که روحیهی وابی-سابی داشته باشن و نویسنده میخواد تلاش کنه نشون بده که مسئله ساختن این اشیاء نیست، کشف کردنشونه.
May 12, 2024
A continuation of his previous book on the matter, Leonard Koren now offers some background on the history of the concept. One wishes Koren would stick to historical information and further academic or artistic information on the topic, rather than offering his own thoughts, which are often not explicitly founded in Japanese Zen Buddhist theory or wabi-cha practice.
Through some of the footnotes, it becomes clear that Koren has an overview of fundamental sources and debates. At other times, his speculations come across as baseless or appropriative in nature. With the first book serving as a broad introduction, which he at points admits has to be flawed in nature, there can be some leniency towards academic rigorousness. However, with these 'further thoughts', his interpretations, applications and judgements ask for more prudent writing.
Perhaps I am misjudging the author, but he does not offer enough sources and overview of debates to convince me of most of his interpretations or speculations. Although beautifully designed, one can stick with the first book.
Through some of the footnotes, it becomes clear that Koren has an overview of fundamental sources and debates. At other times, his speculations come across as baseless or appropriative in nature. With the first book serving as a broad introduction, which he at points admits has to be flawed in nature, there can be some leniency towards academic rigorousness. However, with these 'further thoughts', his interpretations, applications and judgements ask for more prudent writing.
Perhaps I am misjudging the author, but he does not offer enough sources and overview of debates to convince me of most of his interpretations or speculations. Although beautifully designed, one can stick with the first book.
June 16, 2023
Îmi place ideea de a descoperi diverse sisteme estetice din alte culturi, regăsite și în cultura noastră. Alăturarea termenilor wabi-sabi s-a făcut treptat, fiind o sinteză a mai multor idei. Mi-a rămas în minte următorul fragment: „Frumusețea wabi-sabi este un eveniment perceptiv; nu e o proprietate inerentă a lucrurilor. Wabi-sabi „se întâmplă“când se dau la o parte modurile condiționate și învățate de a privi, când lucrurile se defamiliarizează.“
September 19, 2025
Podría decir que el primer libro (Wabi-Sabi para artistas, diseñadores, poetas y filósofos) es un manifiesto estético, mientras que esta continuación es casi un diario de contemplación.
August 25, 2019
I really appreciated Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. I found it to be unique in it’s kind compared to other books that I have read. Leonard Koren starts Wabi-Sabi Further Thoughts with how this book is meant to clarify certain points missed in the first book.
To me, the first one opened my understanding of what Wabi-Sabi is and when it loses it’s uniqueness, the second book is the later. Leonard Koren took something unique, made a duplicate. Wabi-Sabi is lost.
I still own this book and put it on display! 4 stars.
To me, the first one opened my understanding of what Wabi-Sabi is and when it loses it’s uniqueness, the second book is the later. Leonard Koren took something unique, made a duplicate. Wabi-Sabi is lost.
I still own this book and put it on display! 4 stars.
September 9, 2024
Origins of the term
By the 13th century Sabi had become an important term of Japanese poetry which meant “to be desolate”. The word soon migrated into other forms of Japanese art, such as literature, painting.
The meaning of Sabi morphed to “taking pleasure in that which is old, faded and lonely”. Beauty in things worn, incomplete, imperfect, obscure and muted.
In the late 15th century, the term Wabi emerged to describe the Sabi saturated emotional tone and the materiality of a new form of Japanese tea-ceremony practice (wabi-cha).
Wabi, like Sabi, was an old word. It comes from a linguistic root meaning “to apologise deeply”, but over the centuries Wabi assumed a poetically positive connotation.
During the wabi-tea era, the meanings of Wabi and Sabi often overlapped, they were used interchangeably and were, therefore, almost indistinguishable.
Wabi-tea
Wabi-tea was conceived and developed in Japan during an era of intense social and political upheaval. This period is known as the Sengoku era.
The Sengoku era was a difficult period marked by conflict, war, and strife. While there were pockets of economic prosperity and cultural development, the overall landscape was dominated by political instability and continuous warfare.
Wabi tea room
The apotheosis of Wabi-tea invention was the tea room. Wabi tea rooms were of intimate physical scale and relatively rustic.
Tea masters were involved in the design, fabrication and procurement of tea ceremony, utensils, and environments.
The tea huts (chashitsu) often featured thatched roofs similar to those of farmers’ huts. The thatched-straw roofs of farmers’ huts not only provided practical benefits but also deeply influenced the cultural and aesthetic values of the wabi-cha tea ceremony, fostering a profound appreciation for simplicity, nature, and the beauty of imperfection.
Main influences of wabi-tea
The economy and precision of the tea masters’ ritual performance was inspired, to a degree, by the mannered body movements of Noh theatre. Zen also heavily influenced the design of the tea room itself, especially the tendencies toward radical simplification the avoidance of artifice and the image of modesty, humility and voluntary poverty.
Humility
At the beginning of the wabi tea era ceremony participants entered the tea room standing up, by the end they crawled in the tea room through a small opening submissively on their hands and knees. This entrance scheme temporarily equalised social status.
The tea room was a place where aristocrats, clergy, artisans could mix freely in the pursuit of their artistic passions.
During the era of wabi-cha, either the term wabi or sabi was used in poetry or literature. It was only in the 20th century that we start seeing the two words wabi and sabi more often combined as one single term.
The importance of beauty
Beauty is an involuntary response to a high order pattern recognition. Beauty is a kind of enlightenment that reveals something fundamental about the way in which the world appeared to us.
Wabi-Sabi as the heir of wabi-tea
Wabi-Sabi historically was not an established or formal term, not used in written works or scholarly context. It would seem that Wabi-Sabi is the present-day conceptual heir to Wabi-tea.
Conceptualising wabi Sabi
• Aesthetic that appears as a contrast and differentiation from the dominant aesthetic convention that, at the inception of the Wabi tea era, was the Chinese taste for smooth and symmetrical perfection.
• The beauty of wabi-sabi Involves perceiving something extraordinary in something that might otherwise be regarded as quite ordinary.
• Wabi-Sabi emerges out of the infinite potentiality of nothingness.
• It refers to a poverty in the sense of non-attachment not holding onto fixed ideas or material things
• Imperfection: Wabi is often represented by the entropic processes of nature made visible.
• Irregularity rather than imperfection is probably a better term to describe Wabi
Words can give names to things, but they cannot embody the essence of things.
The nature of wabi-sabi materiality
When producing things that are often described as Wabi, some creators deliberately intentionally age, partially destroy, rust, fade, tear or scratch the object. Is this against the true nature of wabi?
From a Japanese point of view, in the creation process things spontaneously appear beyond the technical intervention of artists of designers. This is an “egoless” point of view. When reviewing the artefacts used in wabi-tea, we can see a reluctance to intentionally create wabi-ness.
It was never up to the creator to decide whether the items were truly wabi. This was ultimately determined by the individual beholder (as wabi is a subjective feeling, and will be different from person to person)
Reconciling matter and spirit
From a materialistic point of view the specialness of an object derives from the fame and notoriety of the creator and the collectors that own the object. This is what affects the commercial value of the object.
The opposing narrative, a post-materialistic point of view, says that all objects have equal intrinsic value; objects come alive and reveal their true utility and worth only when attention is focused on them.
By the 13th century Sabi had become an important term of Japanese poetry which meant “to be desolate”. The word soon migrated into other forms of Japanese art, such as literature, painting.
The meaning of Sabi morphed to “taking pleasure in that which is old, faded and lonely”. Beauty in things worn, incomplete, imperfect, obscure and muted.
In the late 15th century, the term Wabi emerged to describe the Sabi saturated emotional tone and the materiality of a new form of Japanese tea-ceremony practice (wabi-cha).
Wabi, like Sabi, was an old word. It comes from a linguistic root meaning “to apologise deeply”, but over the centuries Wabi assumed a poetically positive connotation.
During the wabi-tea era, the meanings of Wabi and Sabi often overlapped, they were used interchangeably and were, therefore, almost indistinguishable.
Wabi-tea
Wabi-tea was conceived and developed in Japan during an era of intense social and political upheaval. This period is known as the Sengoku era.
The Sengoku era was a difficult period marked by conflict, war, and strife. While there were pockets of economic prosperity and cultural development, the overall landscape was dominated by political instability and continuous warfare.
Wabi tea room
The apotheosis of Wabi-tea invention was the tea room. Wabi tea rooms were of intimate physical scale and relatively rustic.
Tea masters were involved in the design, fabrication and procurement of tea ceremony, utensils, and environments.
The tea huts (chashitsu) often featured thatched roofs similar to those of farmers’ huts. The thatched-straw roofs of farmers’ huts not only provided practical benefits but also deeply influenced the cultural and aesthetic values of the wabi-cha tea ceremony, fostering a profound appreciation for simplicity, nature, and the beauty of imperfection.
Main influences of wabi-tea
The economy and precision of the tea masters’ ritual performance was inspired, to a degree, by the mannered body movements of Noh theatre. Zen also heavily influenced the design of the tea room itself, especially the tendencies toward radical simplification the avoidance of artifice and the image of modesty, humility and voluntary poverty.
Humility
At the beginning of the wabi tea era ceremony participants entered the tea room standing up, by the end they crawled in the tea room through a small opening submissively on their hands and knees. This entrance scheme temporarily equalised social status.
The tea room was a place where aristocrats, clergy, artisans could mix freely in the pursuit of their artistic passions.
During the era of wabi-cha, either the term wabi or sabi was used in poetry or literature. It was only in the 20th century that we start seeing the two words wabi and sabi more often combined as one single term.
The importance of beauty
Beauty is an involuntary response to a high order pattern recognition. Beauty is a kind of enlightenment that reveals something fundamental about the way in which the world appeared to us.
Wabi-Sabi as the heir of wabi-tea
Wabi-Sabi historically was not an established or formal term, not used in written works or scholarly context. It would seem that Wabi-Sabi is the present-day conceptual heir to Wabi-tea.
Conceptualising wabi Sabi
• Aesthetic that appears as a contrast and differentiation from the dominant aesthetic convention that, at the inception of the Wabi tea era, was the Chinese taste for smooth and symmetrical perfection.
• The beauty of wabi-sabi Involves perceiving something extraordinary in something that might otherwise be regarded as quite ordinary.
• Wabi-Sabi emerges out of the infinite potentiality of nothingness.
• It refers to a poverty in the sense of non-attachment not holding onto fixed ideas or material things
• Imperfection: Wabi is often represented by the entropic processes of nature made visible.
• Irregularity rather than imperfection is probably a better term to describe Wabi
Words can give names to things, but they cannot embody the essence of things.
The nature of wabi-sabi materiality
When producing things that are often described as Wabi, some creators deliberately intentionally age, partially destroy, rust, fade, tear or scratch the object. Is this against the true nature of wabi?
From a Japanese point of view, in the creation process things spontaneously appear beyond the technical intervention of artists of designers. This is an “egoless” point of view. When reviewing the artefacts used in wabi-tea, we can see a reluctance to intentionally create wabi-ness.
It was never up to the creator to decide whether the items were truly wabi. This was ultimately determined by the individual beholder (as wabi is a subjective feeling, and will be different from person to person)
Reconciling matter and spirit
From a materialistic point of view the specialness of an object derives from the fame and notoriety of the creator and the collectors that own the object. This is what affects the commercial value of the object.
The opposing narrative, a post-materialistic point of view, says that all objects have equal intrinsic value; objects come alive and reveal their true utility and worth only when attention is focused on them.
July 28, 2015
I very much enjoyed and praised the first book and was excited to follow up with the further thoughts of the elusive wabi-sabi concept, unfortunately I finished the book disappointed and some what indifferent. Compared to the first volume here the text is way shorter and there is a lot of repetition of how wabi and sabi glued together and became a stream in Japanese aesthetics.
December 2, 2025
beautiful prose
also a beautiful concidence that i found this book in a nondescript pile of old books at this rly disorganized old bookstore in dupont circle. love how the form of the book contributes to its message and even more so in state i found it in
also a beautiful concidence that i found this book in a nondescript pile of old books at this rly disorganized old bookstore in dupont circle. love how the form of the book contributes to its message and even more so in state i found it in
March 7, 2016
Even better than the first one.
May 15, 2017
Nothing new, for those who have read the first book.
December 2, 2023
This is about both of his wonderful books about Wabi-Sabi
The painting of six persimmons by the Chinese artist Muqi is something you will find often reproduced in books about Zen Buddhism. Some people (mainly in Japan) feel the painting to be a perfect embodiment of the Zen aesthetic, specifically of the notion of wabi-sabi.
Occasioned by the Heart of Zen exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where the painting is on rare display, I decided to re-read Leonard Koren’s two wonderful little books, Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Poets, and Philosophers and Wabi Sabi: Further Thoughts. The first book is one I have read four or five times since it first came out in 1994. I had myself just arrived in Japan a few years earlier.
The closest English word to wabi-sabi is probably rustic, Koren explains.
I agree that “rustic” is not a bad match, since rustic evokes the simplicity and unadorned quality of wabi-sabi. I’ve also heard wabi-sabi described in English as “an acceptance of beauty in something that is transient and imperfect.”
Something I love about Koren’s approach is the way he looks at one concept by contrasting it to another.
So here he looks at Wabi-Sabi vis-a-vis that of modernism.
Modernism versus Wabi Sabi
logic based intuition based
absolute relative
modular one of a kind
mass-produced variable, hand-made
future oriented present (no progress)
control nature adapt to nature, bend to nature
square circle
slick rough
unambiguous dark and dim
His second volume Further Thoughts is better still since he does a deep dive into the words themselves.
The first thing he points out is that despite the fact that both wabi and sabi are ancient terms, they have not been used as a set phrase until very recent days.
わび・さび（侘《び》・寂《び》
“Sabi” 寂《び》dates back to the 8th century Manyoshu poetry anthology. The word itself is borrowed from Tang poetry and means lonely and desolate. A feeling of sadness but also an appreciation of imperfection, incompleteness, muted etc.
This is distinguished from the feeling of nono-no-aware sadness —or heightened awareness— about human fragility and ephemerality.
Sabi also means to rust. Or to be rusted.
Next is Wabi 侘 which is a word from the tea ceremony.
侘茶 Wabi-cha signifies a style of tea ceremony that was developed by sen-no-rikyu. I have not really heard the term “wabi” too much (if ever) outside the tearoom. Wabi tea is rustic. Beginning with the almost empty tea room where anything extraneous has been removed. Prized objects are often humble and taken from non-tea contexts; broken things are repaired—and the overall atmosphere is the wonderful simplicity of a clean thatched hut with un plastered walls.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, but sometimes within the desolate and pared-down atmosphere of wabi, one can attain the sublime and other-worldly—called yugen.
This was my experience standing in front of Persimmons this week. After wanting to see the picture for two decades and never managing to make it to Kyoto on the one day it is on display every year at Daitokuji Temple, I could not believe my eyes when I read in the New York Times that it had crossed the ocean and was on diplay in San Francisco.
Humble, rustic and a celebration of the blessings of the everyday, I suddenly thought of one of my favorite poems in the world—which is a great expression of sabi (I think?)
Tao Yuanming's poem, Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence:
採菊東籬下
A world away in spirit from Mandelstam's poem perhaps. As the poem sums up perfectly the serenity achieved by a life of cultivation –at the end of the hero's journey.
飲酒詩 陶淵明
結盧在人境 而無車馬喧
問君何能爾 心遠地自偏
採菊東籬下 悠然見南山
山氣日夕佳 飛鳥相與還
此還有真意 欲辨已忘言
Drinking Wine (#5)–Tao Yuanming
I’ve built my house where others dwell
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses
You ask me how this is possible– (And so I say):
When the heart is far, one is transported
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern fence
And serenely I gaze at the southern mountains
At dusk, the mountain air is good
Flocks of flying birds are returning home
In this, there is a great truth
But wanting to explain it, I forget the words
(my trans）
It is in nature where we can find truth. To be untrammeled and easily satisfied. It is the great beauty of our everyday world, if we only stop to notice it. Like those six persimmons. Will be writing about the picture Monday in a short essay at 3QD about driving nearly 800 miles this week to spend an hour looking at the persimmon painting in San Francisco.
Subscribed
Other “untranslatable” words: Nogomi and Yugen and Mono-no-aware
The painting of six persimmons by the Chinese artist Muqi is something you will find often reproduced in books about Zen Buddhism. Some people (mainly in Japan) feel the painting to be a perfect embodiment of the Zen aesthetic, specifically of the notion of wabi-sabi.
Occasioned by the Heart of Zen exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where the painting is on rare display, I decided to re-read Leonard Koren’s two wonderful little books, Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Poets, and Philosophers and Wabi Sabi: Further Thoughts. The first book is one I have read four or five times since it first came out in 1994. I had myself just arrived in Japan a few years earlier.
The closest English word to wabi-sabi is probably rustic, Koren explains.
I agree that “rustic” is not a bad match, since rustic evokes the simplicity and unadorned quality of wabi-sabi. I’ve also heard wabi-sabi described in English as “an acceptance of beauty in something that is transient and imperfect.”
Something I love about Koren’s approach is the way he looks at one concept by contrasting it to another.
So here he looks at Wabi-Sabi vis-a-vis that of modernism.
Modernism versus Wabi Sabi
logic based intuition based
absolute relative
modular one of a kind
mass-produced variable, hand-made
future oriented present (no progress)
control nature adapt to nature, bend to nature
square circle
slick rough
unambiguous dark and dim
His second volume Further Thoughts is better still since he does a deep dive into the words themselves.
The first thing he points out is that despite the fact that both wabi and sabi are ancient terms, they have not been used as a set phrase until very recent days.
わび・さび（侘《び》・寂《び》
“Sabi” 寂《び》dates back to the 8th century Manyoshu poetry anthology. The word itself is borrowed from Tang poetry and means lonely and desolate. A feeling of sadness but also an appreciation of imperfection, incompleteness, muted etc.
This is distinguished from the feeling of nono-no-aware sadness —or heightened awareness— about human fragility and ephemerality.
Sabi also means to rust. Or to be rusted.
Next is Wabi 侘 which is a word from the tea ceremony.
侘茶 Wabi-cha signifies a style of tea ceremony that was developed by sen-no-rikyu. I have not really heard the term “wabi” too much (if ever) outside the tearoom. Wabi tea is rustic. Beginning with the almost empty tea room where anything extraneous has been removed. Prized objects are often humble and taken from non-tea contexts; broken things are repaired—and the overall atmosphere is the wonderful simplicity of a clean thatched hut with un plastered walls.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, but sometimes within the desolate and pared-down atmosphere of wabi, one can attain the sublime and other-worldly—called yugen.
This was my experience standing in front of Persimmons this week. After wanting to see the picture for two decades and never managing to make it to Kyoto on the one day it is on display every year at Daitokuji Temple, I could not believe my eyes when I read in the New York Times that it had crossed the ocean and was on diplay in San Francisco.
Humble, rustic and a celebration of the blessings of the everyday, I suddenly thought of one of my favorite poems in the world—which is a great expression of sabi (I think?)
Tao Yuanming's poem, Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence:
採菊東籬下
A world away in spirit from Mandelstam's poem perhaps. As the poem sums up perfectly the serenity achieved by a life of cultivation –at the end of the hero's journey.
飲酒詩 陶淵明
結盧在人境 而無車馬喧
問君何能爾 心遠地自偏
採菊東籬下 悠然見南山
山氣日夕佳 飛鳥相與還
此還有真意 欲辨已忘言
Drinking Wine (#5)–Tao Yuanming
I’ve built my house where others dwell
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses
You ask me how this is possible– (And so I say):
When the heart is far, one is transported
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern fence
And serenely I gaze at the southern mountains
At dusk, the mountain air is good
Flocks of flying birds are returning home
In this, there is a great truth
But wanting to explain it, I forget the words
(my trans）
It is in nature where we can find truth. To be untrammeled and easily satisfied. It is the great beauty of our everyday world, if we only stop to notice it. Like those six persimmons. Will be writing about the picture Monday in a short essay at 3QD about driving nearly 800 miles this week to spend an hour looking at the persimmon painting in San Francisco.
Subscribed
Other “untranslatable” words: Nogomi and Yugen and Mono-no-aware
September 27, 2025
Ông Koren này viết hẳn là wabi-sabi vốn vô ngôn, mơ màng mà lại muốn đi cắt nghĩa nó thì không được nhưng ông này vẫn cố. Anw theo mình đọc thì thấy ông í cũng không hẳn hiểu bản chất của wabi-sabi nên cái sự giải thích nó màu mè vẽ chân cho rắn. Đọc thấy toàn đao to búa lớn từ ngữ triết học phương Tây nhưng chẳng chạm đến cái gì cả. Đọc lắm lúc thấy khó chịu kinh. Anw nó cũng là điển hình của phương Tây, thích chia chẻ đặt tên cho vào kính hiển vi mọi sự, không thể chạm tới bản môn anw cho người mới tìm hiểu dạng tích môn thì cũng được.
Mình thì cũng chẳng biết gì mấy về wabi-sabi cả, chỉ là nhìn thì thấy thích. Anw đọc cuốn này thì thấy viết rõ là trà đạo Nhật vốn từ các thiền sư Trung Quốc mang sang, uống trà để thiền cho tỉnh =)) (moá ơi hôm nọ lâu lâu uống lại trà công nhận tỉnh tới 2h sáng hoho). Wabi-sabi mang đậm cốt cách thiền. Nên là cũng gọi là có tí liên quan vì đều là người học thiền =))))
chính ra người xưa đâu có đặt tên nó ra thành wabi-sabi, tự dưng ông dở này đặt ra làm gì, đóng khung cái không thể đóng khung. cái cốt lõi của nó thật ra ở đâu chả có. Như ông nội mình chuyên sửa đồ hỏng dùng lại rất xinh, hay như mình thích bê mấy cái cối bỏ chum bỏ về để trồng cây thôi =))) ảnh thì cũng chẳng đẹp lắm. Hình thức kinh.
Nhưng có mấy cái bất ngờ ;)) đọc Phương trượng ký thấy ở nhà 3x3 thấy đã hâm mộ lắm rồi, ở đây phòng trà 7,5m2 là to nha, còn có thể loại 2,5m2 lại còn phải chui vào như chó =)) lố quá lố =)))) hihi nói vậy chứ mình cũng lố lắm. Mê mấy cái nhỏ xíu xinh xinh lố kinh.
Mình đọc bản dịch thì thấy có vẻ dịch khá cẩn thận anw nhiều chỗ mình thấy nhức đầu quá nên đọc k vào. Buồn cười nhất là vụ chú thích ảnh, lệch hết cả trang =)))
Mình thì cũng chẳng biết gì mấy về wabi-sabi cả, chỉ là nhìn thì thấy thích. Anw đọc cuốn này thì thấy viết rõ là trà đạo Nhật vốn từ các thiền sư Trung Quốc mang sang, uống trà để thiền cho tỉnh =)) (moá ơi hôm nọ lâu lâu uống lại trà công nhận tỉnh tới 2h sáng hoho). Wabi-sabi mang đậm cốt cách thiền. Nên là cũng gọi là có tí liên quan vì đều là người học thiền =))))
chính ra người xưa đâu có đặt tên nó ra thành wabi-sabi, tự dưng ông dở này đặt ra làm gì, đóng khung cái không thể đóng khung. cái cốt lõi của nó thật ra ở đâu chả có. Như ông nội mình chuyên sửa đồ hỏng dùng lại rất xinh, hay như mình thích bê mấy cái cối bỏ chum bỏ về để trồng cây thôi =))) ảnh thì cũng chẳng đẹp lắm. Hình thức kinh.
Nhưng có mấy cái bất ngờ ;)) đọc Phương trượng ký thấy ở nhà 3x3 thấy đã hâm mộ lắm rồi, ở đây phòng trà 7,5m2 là to nha, còn có thể loại 2,5m2 lại còn phải chui vào như chó =)) lố quá lố =)))) hihi nói vậy chứ mình cũng lố lắm. Mê mấy cái nhỏ xíu xinh xinh lố kinh.
Mình đọc bản dịch thì thấy có vẻ dịch khá cẩn thận anw nhiều chỗ mình thấy nhức đầu quá nên đọc k vào. Buồn cười nhất là vụ chú thích ảnh, lệch hết cả trang =)))
November 20, 2023
Leonard Koren is an artist and philosopher who, in 1994, introduced the concept of wabi-sabi to the West and western minds. Wabi-sabi is the “Japanese aesthetic and worldview centered around the acceptance of imperfection, transience, and the beauty that comes with age and decay [and] appreciates the simplicity and authenticity found in the natural and imperfect aspects of life.” I recently read his Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers (the book that did the introduction) and wanted to know more. Koren decided to add a second volume to clear up some misconceptions, give a little more history and historical context, and address whether “digital” can be wabi-sabi (spoiler alert: it can’t, and Koren spells out why). Loren’s prose is simple but also beautiful (dare I say “wabi-sabi?”). This is a lovely little book. In the first book, I saved one quote: “The universe is in constant motion toward or away from potential.” In this book, I saved this quote: “ Beauty at the edge of nothingness” which is more an idea than a quote: “true beauty is found in the most subtle, delicate, and fleeting aspects of existence, often existing at the brink of nothingness or emptiness” - the last dark pink of a sunset, ripples on a pond, the wind in the trees.
December 26, 2018
What a perfect read. I’m not how many of you read the first Wabi-Sabi book (likely after Dorsey’s interview about 6-7 years ago), but it was a book that stuck with me. Getting to revisit many of those ideas years later with Further Thoughts has been wonderful and helped solidify many of the positions set up in the first book.
In many ways, Wabi-Sabi helps to prove that we exist and that we interact with the living world around us. Products aren’t built to the 3D-model specs perfectly, and they later show off human wear or time. Winkles, scratches, and smoothed-points are objects way of interacting with the world around them. It could be a way of thinking about why we loved faded books, records with old sleeves or a coffee mug that is slightly cracked after years of use. Objects become a method for the stories we love to tell.
Many objects are made to look vintage and of a time that we would want to remember. Since 2008 (the last financial crisis), products have been designed to look worn, well-loved or brimming with Americana. Torn jeans from the store aren’t as good as our favorite shirt from college, but it’s a good simulacrum.
The idea of Wabi-Sabi is a direct counter to modernism in that there isn’t one correct answer for everyone or every situation—every interaction has the need for something unique.
In many ways, Wabi-Sabi helps to prove that we exist and that we interact with the living world around us. Products aren’t built to the 3D-model specs perfectly, and they later show off human wear or time. Winkles, scratches, and smoothed-points are objects way of interacting with the world around them. It could be a way of thinking about why we loved faded books, records with old sleeves or a coffee mug that is slightly cracked after years of use. Objects become a method for the stories we love to tell.
Many objects are made to look vintage and of a time that we would want to remember. Since 2008 (the last financial crisis), products have been designed to look worn, well-loved or brimming with Americana. Torn jeans from the store aren’t as good as our favorite shirt from college, but it’s a good simulacrum.
The idea of Wabi-Sabi is a direct counter to modernism in that there isn’t one correct answer for everyone or every situation—every interaction has the need for something unique.
December 30, 2019
I didn't read Vol. 1, but with this book itself, Wabi-Sabi concept has been clearly explained. The author chose various aspects, and "digital age" part is of my particular fondness. The language is very academic somehow, but not the abstruse & obscure academic language, rather well elaborated. The style of the book is quite wabi-sabi, with photographic illustrations, it gives a direct taste and feeling of Wabi-Sabi.
I wish this book includes original Japanese when names, concepts mentioned, would really be an enhancement.
Would recommend this book to people who has an interest in these concepts, would be a bit shallow for people who already know Japanese.
I wish this book includes original Japanese when names, concepts mentioned, would really be an enhancement.
Would recommend this book to people who has an interest in these concepts, would be a bit shallow for people who already know Japanese.
July 28, 2019
Definitely a companion to Koren's earlier Wabi-Sabi book rather than a work to be engaged independently. Further Thoughts has its highlights. It is interesting to read Koren's hard stance against Wabi-Sabi's possible existence in the digital realm. Much of which I agree with, but it's quite limited and doesn't take into account more organic growth in the digital world such as networked computing.
I particularly love the inclusion of Persimmions, a 13th-century black and white ink painting attributed to Mu Ch'i (known in Japanese as Mokkei).
I particularly love the inclusion of Persimmions, a 13th-century black and white ink painting attributed to Mu Ch'i (known in Japanese as Mokkei).
September 23, 2025
Leonard Koren’s Wabi-Sabi: Further Thoughts reads less like a conventional monograph and more like an invitation to a practiced, patient conversation — half aphorism, half careful exegesis — with one of the thinnest and most capacious concepts in modern aesthetics. Where so many volumes try to define wabi-sabi by checklist or historical excavation, Koren treats it as a sensibility: a set of attentional habits that recalibrates how we see materials, time, and the quiet economies of imperfection.
Thesis and approach
Koren’s central move is subtle but decisive. Rather than proving wabi-sabi historically or reducing it to a tidy philosophy, he explores it as an operative lens. The book’s essays and reflections coax readers into the practice of noticing — creases, weathered edges, the soft authority of a repaired seam — and then shows how those notices orient ethical and creative responses to a world that prizes the new, the glossy, and the absolute. If the cultural tide is toward erasure and perfection, Koren asks: what is lost when we flatten lived things into flawless surfaces?
Structure and style
Formally, the book favours intimacy over system. Sentences are economical; paragraphs are often vignette-like, returning repeatedly to small objects, small gestures, and small acts of care. Koren writes with a scholar’s precision but also with the gentle impatience of someone who’s learned through making. This blend — concise theoretical claim followed by concrete anecdote — keeps the prose from becoming abstract ornamentation. The voice is conversational but rigorous: suggestive rather than dogmatic, contemplative rather than sermonizing.
Major themes
Several interlocking themes run through the book:
Time and transience. Koren repeatedly redirects attention from monumental temporality (history as epoch) to the quotidian passage of things: patina as memory, wear as testimony. Time, in his hands, accrues as texture.
Materiality and process. The author refuses the modern binary that pits idea against matter. Wabi-sabi is most fully realized in processes — in the crackle of glaze, the seam slowly mended — and Koren’s descriptions honour the stubborn reality of material resistance.
Beauty as asymmetry. The book challenges aesthetic-commodity logics by privileging asymmetry, incompleteness, and restraint. Beauty here is not triumphalist; it is relational, often humble, and frequently melancholic.
Ethics of care. Implicitly political, Koren’s wabi-sabi proposes an ethics: to tend rather than consume, to repair rather than discard, to listen rather than dominate. These ethical inferences are never forced; they emerge naturally from the aesthetics he describes.
Strengths
Koren’s greatest gift is his eye. He can take a small, almost banal detail — the way light gathers in a dent in a tea bowl — and show how it reframes the whole. The book is pedagogical in the best sense: it trains perception. For artists, designers, and anyone working with materials, Koren’s reflections function as practical philosophy. He also resists romanticizing wabi-sabi into sentimental nostalgia; his writing recognizes its melancholic edges without letting melancholy calcify into passivity.
Another strength is the restraint of the prose. Koren trusts the reader to make connections; he rarely over explains, which honours the very ambiguity central to the concept. This restraint mirrors the aesthetic he describes.
Shortcomings
The book’s virtues are also, occasionally, its limits. The absence of broader cultural or historical scaffolding may frustrate readers looking for contextual depth: Koren assumes a familiarity with certain Japanese aesthetic traditions and with debates in contemporary design that not all readers possess. Likewise, his ethical extrapolations — while compelling — sometimes feel more suggestive than defensible; readers seeking a rigorous moral philosophy of repair and restraint will need to supplement Koren with other sources.
At times the aphoristic style flirts with elusiveness. The very terseness that trains attention can leave some arguments underdeveloped; a few more sustained case studies (on contemporary craft, or on industrial design practices that resist disposability) would have strengthened the book’s claims about cultural change.
Significance
Koren’s Further Thoughts is not primarily an academic intervention; it is an educative text for perception and practice. Its significance lies in helping to reorient how creators and consumers think about value. In a culture that equates newness with worth, Koren’s wabi-sabi offers a semantic shift: value measured in care, longevity, and the honest testimony of use. For contemporary designers and artists wrestling with sustainability and meaning, these reflections feel uncommonly urgent.
Read as a manual for seeing, Wabi-Sabi: Further Thoughts is a small, lucid, and often profound companion. It will not satisfy the reader who demands exhaustive historicism or systematic argumentation, but it will repay those who wish to relearn perception. Koren’s book is best taken slowly, the way one might sip a lingering cup of tea: an exercise in attending, in learning not to smooth away the very marks that tell a thing’s life.
Recommendation: For artists, designers, curators, and thoughtful readers who want an aesthetics that doubles as an ethic, this book is essential reading — not because it resolves wabi-sabi into doctrine, but because it trains the eye to live with the imperfect, and thus to see what the modern world so often refuses to acknowledge.
Thesis and approach
Koren’s central move is subtle but decisive. Rather than proving wabi-sabi historically or reducing it to a tidy philosophy, he explores it as an operative lens. The book’s essays and reflections coax readers into the practice of noticing — creases, weathered edges, the soft authority of a repaired seam — and then shows how those notices orient ethical and creative responses to a world that prizes the new, the glossy, and the absolute. If the cultural tide is toward erasure and perfection, Koren asks: what is lost when we flatten lived things into flawless surfaces?
Structure and style
Formally, the book favours intimacy over system. Sentences are economical; paragraphs are often vignette-like, returning repeatedly to small objects, small gestures, and small acts of care. Koren writes with a scholar’s precision but also with the gentle impatience of someone who’s learned through making. This blend — concise theoretical claim followed by concrete anecdote — keeps the prose from becoming abstract ornamentation. The voice is conversational but rigorous: suggestive rather than dogmatic, contemplative rather than sermonizing.
Major themes
Several interlocking themes run through the book:
Time and transience. Koren repeatedly redirects attention from monumental temporality (history as epoch) to the quotidian passage of things: patina as memory, wear as testimony. Time, in his hands, accrues as texture.
Materiality and process. The author refuses the modern binary that pits idea against matter. Wabi-sabi is most fully realized in processes — in the crackle of glaze, the seam slowly mended — and Koren’s descriptions honour the stubborn reality of material resistance.
Beauty as asymmetry. The book challenges aesthetic-commodity logics by privileging asymmetry, incompleteness, and restraint. Beauty here is not triumphalist; it is relational, often humble, and frequently melancholic.
Ethics of care. Implicitly political, Koren’s wabi-sabi proposes an ethics: to tend rather than consume, to repair rather than discard, to listen rather than dominate. These ethical inferences are never forced; they emerge naturally from the aesthetics he describes.
Strengths
Koren’s greatest gift is his eye. He can take a small, almost banal detail — the way light gathers in a dent in a tea bowl — and show how it reframes the whole. The book is pedagogical in the best sense: it trains perception. For artists, designers, and anyone working with materials, Koren’s reflections function as practical philosophy. He also resists romanticizing wabi-sabi into sentimental nostalgia; his writing recognizes its melancholic edges without letting melancholy calcify into passivity.
Another strength is the restraint of the prose. Koren trusts the reader to make connections; he rarely over explains, which honours the very ambiguity central to the concept. This restraint mirrors the aesthetic he describes.
Shortcomings
The book’s virtues are also, occasionally, its limits. The absence of broader cultural or historical scaffolding may frustrate readers looking for contextual depth: Koren assumes a familiarity with certain Japanese aesthetic traditions and with debates in contemporary design that not all readers possess. Likewise, his ethical extrapolations — while compelling — sometimes feel more suggestive than defensible; readers seeking a rigorous moral philosophy of repair and restraint will need to supplement Koren with other sources.
At times the aphoristic style flirts with elusiveness. The very terseness that trains attention can leave some arguments underdeveloped; a few more sustained case studies (on contemporary craft, or on industrial design practices that resist disposability) would have strengthened the book’s claims about cultural change.
Significance
Koren’s Further Thoughts is not primarily an academic intervention; it is an educative text for perception and practice. Its significance lies in helping to reorient how creators and consumers think about value. In a culture that equates newness with worth, Koren’s wabi-sabi offers a semantic shift: value measured in care, longevity, and the honest testimony of use. For contemporary designers and artists wrestling with sustainability and meaning, these reflections feel uncommonly urgent.
Read as a manual for seeing, Wabi-Sabi: Further Thoughts is a small, lucid, and often profound companion. It will not satisfy the reader who demands exhaustive historicism or systematic argumentation, but it will repay those who wish to relearn perception. Koren’s book is best taken slowly, the way one might sip a lingering cup of tea: an exercise in attending, in learning not to smooth away the very marks that tell a thing’s life.
Recommendation: For artists, designers, curators, and thoughtful readers who want an aesthetics that doubles as an ethic, this book is essential reading — not because it resolves wabi-sabi into doctrine, but because it trains the eye to live with the imperfect, and thus to see what the modern world so often refuses to acknowledge.
September 5, 2023
Good context on the roots of the concept. Any books on wabi-sabi will be paired well with Ian McGilchrist’s The Master And His Emissary. I believe both are pointing at a similar divide. And there’s harmony to find between both. David Chapman’s Meaningness blog series has a concept of a ‘complete stance’ that I believe wabi-sabi captures. Be aware that this book doesn’t dive into the concept at all. You’ll have to pick up the previous book for that.
November 27, 2023
A concise book but containing some useful pointers for understanding the ultimate value of Wabi-sabi, including the appreciation of “mother nature” - the ever changing nature and imperfection via human perspective. The suggested examination from ethical angle and admiration from one’s inner true self are quite inspirational. I like the last session the most - it is a direct defense from the latest digital technology.
July 13, 2017
"Wabi-sabi refleja el mundo en el que hemos nacido, las condiciones a las que han estado sujetos históricamente el cuerpo y la mente del ser humano. El ámbito digital es un submundo radicalmente truncado, manipulado, el producto de mentes humanas (imperfectas). ¿Cuáles son los efectos acumulativos de vivir en un mundo como este?"
February 12, 2018
A great conceptual and philosophical book, which contains basic information about Wabi-Sabi as an aesthetic system.I recommend this book if you want to have general knowledge but first you should have read "For artists, designers, poets and philosophers".
I loved that the form and design of the book is related with Wabi-Sabi, also all the pictures that appears in it.
I loved that the form and design of the book is related with Wabi-Sabi, also all the pictures that appears in it.
February 19, 2023
Nice, thought-inducing afternoon read. I found myself disagreeing with the author about the incompatibilities between wabi-sabi and digital realities. Digital programs have endings and extinctions, just like dance, just like a leaf. Even if it would be rare/surprising, I can imagine a digital piece aging and ending and persisting in ways well described by wabi-sabi.
July 26, 2023
More of a brief reflection than anything, I enjoyed learning more about how "wabi sabi" was manufactured as an aesthetic. I wasn't a part of the initial craze of it and missed the unraveling of its origin story, so I wasn't shocked to find it has less than historic origins. That said, I still appreciate the concept and enjoyed a quiet moment of thought on it.
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