I had no idea about Japanese aesthetics before. After reading this article, i was amazed by the sensitivity and the life perspective revealed to me.
Yugen [ an important concept in traditional Japanese aesthetics] suggests that beyond what can be said but is not an allusion to another world.[12] It is about this world, this experience. All of these are portals to yugen:
“To watch the sun sink behind a flower clad hill. To wander on in a huge forest without thought of return. To stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands. To contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds. And, subtle shadows of bamboo on bamboo.” Zeami Motokiyo
The whole artice is available in the following link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aesthetics
"How does one forget the self? Certainly not by trying. That would be like trying not to think of a white elephant: the more you try, the more insistent the thought becomes. One forgets the self, Zen teachers say, by becoming one with the task at hand. At such moments, released from the burdens of selfhood, one glimpses, however briefly, a state of spiritual wholeness that underlies and supports one’s everyday consciousness."
— Andrew Cooper, “The Transcendent Imperative”
"Nothing remains
Of the house that I was born in—
Fireflies."
— Santoka
"Coming and going,
life and death.
A thousand villages,
a million houses.
Don’t you get it ?
Moon in the water,
blossom in the sky."
— Gizan
"Actually there isn’t a thing
much less any dust to wipe away
who can master this
doesn’t need to sit there stiff"
— Feng-kan
"only one koan matters
you"
— Ikkyu
