CRACKED
I was walking down the flag with someone the other day when he commented on how so-and-so was “weird”. I protested, “No, I’m weird!” He laughed and said, “Yeah, but you’re a nice weird.” I accepted that in the spirit it was given, but also found it sad, knowing how much in life one will find lacking to insist on no cracking.
Seeking more penetrating expression, Asian artisans developed intentional methods of “crazing” the surface of their pottery, recognizing the aesthetic import of such self-born pattern, or “li”. Originally applied to the markings in jade, li became seen as an essential quality of the Tao, capturing a frozen moment in the eternal flow of the Universe. As in chi, prana, and physics, there existed awareness of hidden subtle energies and lines of force, that which give phenomena like frosted windows, mineral formations, animate form, and other natural structure their intelligent mien, seemingly imbued and touched by conscious living purpose.
Like worshipful hymnal scoring, li provides visible notation of the same delicious build and release of inner tensions we feel while “lost” (found?) in our practices, music, and love. As these are all similar soul-wise, who’s to say it’s not a spiritual heat the pot also feels as it sits tastefully lozenging in the kiln? Ask any artisan if they do not come to revere their works as self-willed. Artistry is mysticism, as is life itself in the end.
The Japanese words wabi, sabi, and shibui point to another level of sublimity carried by imperfection. As our vision ripens under the sunlight of life experience, we develop an appreciation and even special comradeship with things that, like us, have come to show the mark of time, thus mellowing to become unpretentious, earthy, and natural. These can be objects like old china, tools, wood, stone, but also people, all developing a chatoyant inner/outer patina of rich personal history, an emergent quality that for most surpasses the original in emotional appeal. How long, after all, do you stand to enjoy the flawlessness of a blank canvass? How much do you trust, in the age of Photoshop, an unmarked cheek? (But if that’s your thing, it’s not love -- get a blow-up doll instead.)
There’s a deeper level still. Buddha taught that impermanence is in all things, but wabi, sabi, and shibui help us to also see the beauty inherent in inevitable loss. For it is indeed the fleeting nature of beautiful things that lends our appreciation of them its aching intensity. We know that this is the time to pay attention -- the shutter click in a forever-length feature where we ourselves also play only a brief cameo role. But looking to the flip side: outside the sacred, does immortal beauty ever rise to the same standard? How long is your eye drawn to artificial flowers? -- they are death itself!
As much as we try to dodge it intellectually, our deepest instincts tell us that all things pass. For this reason an ancient, vine-pierced temple speaks much louder to the heart than does any stainless modern ediface. Reflecting from the crumbling sculpture and mossy pools are the ghosts of once great gods and kings who now sit in silence. How much more feeble and circumscribed are our own grandest intentions!
Seeing as how this is so, that every rat-race ends up down empty, mildewed corridors, perhaps it’s time to slow down a little and see life in a new way: lila, sport, and a playground for love. But would you, by virtue of picking up the beat of a different Drummer, be willing to risk being considered “cracked”? I hope so, for it’s worth it to live your life in the suchness of a haiku, in love with what must be lost, but in that moment knowing eternity. Listen -- you can hear the call of the damaru....