[Greetings, friends, from Austin! With the help of my family, I have officially settled into my new (rental) home. I resisted house living for a long time but the time has come.
I find that the process of moving itself always feels bittersweet. Bitter because it marks the end of one season (or chapter). In this case, as we packed the last of what was left in my apartment office and painted the walls back to their original color (from the forest green I had changed them to), it hit me that I was leaving the room where I found my voice. It was the room where most of my first two books were written and where so many of the Lumenorean’s essays were penned. It was a room, with Rapheal’s School of Athens on one wall and his Disputation of the Holy Sacrament on the opposite (just like in the Vatican), where the energies of Athens and Jerusalem met. I think we often underestimate how much the spaces that we occupy work in and on us.
A wave of emotion rolled over me. Part of me, a 220 lb. grown man, wanted to curl up and cry. Not from fear or regret, but from a soft and subtle sadness that swept over me mixed with immense gratitude for the space that witnessed my transformation these last few years.
Then there’s the sweet part of bittersweet. A new home means a new space to fill with even more of what feeds me… a new canvas to create an inspired space from scratch—a space that can be a little more reflective of me now that I know more about myself than I did three years ago. That’s what life is really about, isn’t it? Gaining small insights about who you are, at your core… slowly rubbing away the dirt and dust obscuring the little light within.
All of this reflection dredged up something I think about often: the transience of life. I’ve written before about Medieval meditations on impermanence (see On the Transience of Life). But the emotions that came while moving reminded me more of a Japanese concept I cover in my upcoming third book: mono no aware.
It is to that concept that we devote today’s (tiny) essay.]
The Japanese have a concept—mono no aware—that mirrors, in many ways, the Stoic reminder “memento mori”, the medieval meditation “ubi sunt”, and the ecclesiastical reminder that all is “hevel” (or smoke). Translated individually, ‘mono’ means ‘thing’ or ‘things’; ‘aware’ (pronounced ah-wah-re) means ‘feeling’ or sentiment; and ‘no’ indicates something an object possesses. Together, the phrase means something like “deep feeling for a thing.”
But it is best understood as an awareness of the reality that all things go and an appreciation of the beauty of things passing. It is often associated with the powerful emotions—somewhere between sorrow and serenity—evoked when we witness the passing of lives or objects. Changes of the moon, passing of the seasons, ending of life chapters, absence of lovers or friends, falling of autumn leaves.
Perhaps the clearest (or at least, most popular) example of the reflection in practice comes during the Japanese hanami—the season from March to May—when people watch the sakura (cherry tree) blossom for two weeks before the petals fall. Tremendous beauty that lasts for only a short while. In step with Japanese Buddhism—which emphasizes the importance of gracefully letting go of transient things—mono no aware is the truth that reminds the audience to appreciate the beauty while it lasts, because it will only be there briefly… it is the truth that checks us when our instinct is to lament our loss: if things were never made to fade away, their beauty woud lose their power to move us.
Other cultures also have a version of this. My family is Dutch and, every year, in Pella, Iowa (where my brother and sister live), there is a Tulip Time Festival. Tens of thousands of people come from out of town over the course of a three-day period to celebrate the bloom of the tulips. Thousands of residents wear Dutch attire and celebrate their Dutch heritage. Like the blossom of the cherry tree in Japan, the bloom of the tulips only lasts for 1-2 weeks.
As we come to the bittersweet realization and understanding that everything is fleeting, it is natural to feel a certain level of sadness that the things we love cannot stay. But through practices and reminders like mono no aware, we can teach ourselves how to have a calm appreciation for the beauty while it’s still there. If all we are is saddened by our losses, then we are harmed twice—once in the realization and again when our fixation on it causes us to miss the good that’s ahead.
To summarize Buddha: we can’t always control the first arrow of hurt. But the second arrow—the one that is our reaction to the first—is always optional.
The cherry trees will blossom and the tulips will bloom again next year. Just as the good things that go make space for new (and sometimes better) things to come. So look up and look ahead.
Spring is upon us. The resurrection is ahead.
Good things are coming.