Mono no aware
Grandpa, 8am, Lucerne
Lately, I move through the world thinking a lot about mono no aware - a Japanese word, which means a poignant awareness of the transience of the phenomenal world, that things end. Every moment imbued with a gravitas and melancholy knowing that no moment is relived again in the exact same manner.
If a moment ends, and there isn’t one like it again, then one feels compelled to be fully alive, fully present for all of it.
That it ends, jolts me awake to my spiritual practice. Being around my grandparents is one of these instances.
And when it ends, memories and remembrance (consolatory afterthought of what had been) seems inconsequential.
May my life be an act of deep presence and letting go.
“If our life did not fade and vanish like the dews of Adashino’s graves or the drifting smoke from Toribe’s burning grounds, but lingered on for ever, how little the world would move us. It is the ephemeral nature of things that makes them wonderful.
Among all living creatures, it is man that lives longest. The brief dayfly dies before evening; summer’s cicada knows neither spring nor autumn. What a glorious luxury it is to taste life to the full for even a single year. If you constantly regret life’s passing, even a thousand long years will seem but the dream of a night.” - Yoshida Kenko (1283 - 1350)
Grandma, 8am, Boon Keng
