In Praise

So it is when there comes to us the excitement of the realization that musicians everywhere make their sounds to capture silence and that architects develop to envelop empty space. Thus, darkness is required for illumination.

- Charles Moore School of Architecture, UCLA

I've been rereading one of the most incredible books. It's called In Praise of Shadows, and in it the author writes beautifully about the culture of illumination within Japanese architecture. It's one of the most beautifully poetic and also touches on a profoundly sorrowful topic in such an elegant way, which is loss.

Loss of elegance, refinement, repose, the beauty of the patina, the worn-in kettle, the light, warmth of lacquer. And so that meditation on loss in such an elegant way is... beautiful when captured with words and writing. And what I find also so magnificent in this book is that whilst capturing the concept of loss, it also highlights the beauty of that which is well worn.

When I used to teach, there was a... How do I describe it?

A desire to use the practice to ‘omit portions’ of life; “I am using this practice to do something for me that I want to omit from life that has happened to me.”

And I find it so interesting that in this book he talks about a well-worn patina kettle and that it is the beauty in its use, in the touching of it, that it has been loved, that it has been used for decades and decades. You see the beauty only in the wood after it has been refined by age. And so this concept of using meditation to omit, subtract, I want to take away from my well-worn life. Instead of learning to be in your well-worn life. Finding patience with yourself allows you to have patience for others. It is always wonderful and enlightening to find an author, a book, words, language that illuminate in the physical sense, non-physical aspects. And so this book allows one to remember that it's the patina, a well-worn life... is the gift.