Accepting Our Imperfections: "Wabi-Sabi"

Wabi-sabi is based on the principles of acceptance of our imperfections. We learn to interpret the imperfect qualities of both others and ourselves through the eyes of beauty. Beauty can be flawed, yet still cherished.

(Please note, this is a lecture, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

There's a lot of things in life that can keep us from being happy.

But one of the big ones is imperfection.

When we're younger,

Our bodies may look good.

They may be smooth.

And then with time,

We notice that,

Wow,

I'm starting to get wrinkles or,

Oh no,

My hair's starting to turn gray.

Imperfection set in.

In other ways they do too.

We may be going through life,

Dreaming of our soulmate,

Meeting that person,

And then it doesn't work out.

And our hearts are broken.

And sometimes they feel damaged.

We're damaged goods now.

We're just not the same.

Life can throw us so many curves that it makes it hard to stay happy because life just doesn't turn out the way we expected it to.

We wanted it to.

And because of that,

We begin to suffer.

Maybe we had plans of being a doctor,

But we end up working at the local grocery store.

Maybe we had plans of having a beautiful home overlooking the ocean.

And instead,

Because we couldn't make our rent,

Have moved back in with our parents.

Maybe we had plans to come to Hollywood and make it big in the movies,

But instead life said,

No,

You're going to get married.

You're going to have children and your Hollywood dreams have died.

But what I want to ask ourselves,

Really ask ourselves today,

Are these imperfections necessarily a bad thing?

Or could we see them as something beautiful,

Part of who we are,

And that we can not only not be ashamed of them,

But actually celebrate them.

Many centuries ago in the country of Japan,

A philosophy and approach to life was developed that had deep wisdom in it.

You may have never heard of it,

But it's called Wabi Sabi.

And at its core,

It's about learning to accept the imperfections of life,

Not only accept them,

But embrace them and see the beauty of these imperfections.

And a manifestation of Wabi Sabi began with the actual tea ceremony,

Which many of us have heard of,

If perhaps even participated in.

It's a beautiful tradition celebrating the tradition of tea and the tea ceremony.

And of course,

When you drink tea,

You also have to have tea cups.

Well,

Historically,

The tea cups had to be perfect,

Beautifully shaped,

No imperfections at all.

And then the philosophy of Wabi Sabi began to be developed.

And it comes from the Buddhist tradition of three main principles.

One is impermanence,

The other is suffering,

And the third is emptiness or the absence of an egoic self.

But with the concept of impermanence,

That life does change,

It does not stay the same.

The most beautifully made cup will at times age or won't be made perfectly like the previous cup.

And what happened was,

With time,

These imperfections were seen as beautiful.

Not something that is bad,

But something that is good,

That can be embraced,

That can be loved,

And be seen as beautiful in its own imperfections.

Or the term that I love is flawed beauty.

So when the potter made a tea cup,

He or she didn't have to make it perfectly.

And actually,

The imperfection in the cup were seen as something to embrace,

To love,

To cherish,

And to value.

If we're not familiar with the Japanese culture,

We may be familiar with the Western culture of the term patina,

Which has to do with surface's aging,

And seeing that aging process not as necessarily something bad,

But as something beautiful.

I think there's a tendency here in the West to see it as something old,

Or decrepit,

As ugly,

Or something worth getting rid of,

Or definitely not seen as beautiful.

But what if we were to begin to adopt the philosophy of wabi-sabi?

The thing I talk so often about in this happiness podcast is how powerful our thoughts are.

So if we start developing thoughts saying,

When we see something older,

We see something beautiful there,

Imagine then when we look at our body,

Our failures,

Or all the tragedies we had in life,

And say,

That isn't ugly,

That's part of who I am now,

It shapes me,

It's memories.

And I'm going to begin to not only accept that,

But even love that.

So with the remainder of this talk,

Let's discuss ways that we can embrace this wabi-sabi approach to living and the way that we can embrace it.

To living that can add so much beauty and joy to our life.

Well,

The first and most important thing is to acknowledge that our thoughts are powerful.

Whatever we think has force behind them.

And adopting a philosophy that only perfection is acceptable,

And I'm going to reject all imperfection,

Is guaranteed to be the path of suffering.

And we're here to learn not to suffer.

So we have to look at our thoughts and say,

OK,

What am I thinking throughout the day?

Am I looking at other people and judging them?

Am I looking at my own behaviors and judging my imperfections?

That is the path of suffering.

And if we want to stop doing that,

We need to start seeing imperfections as something beautiful,

Something worth embracing.

And all day long,

We can practice this.

For example,

We go out to get some groceries,

And as we're checking out,

We see the person behind the counter,

And we may think they're fat,

Or we may think they have wrinkles,

Or we may think their job is stupid.

Why are they doing such a silly job at their age?

All these negative thoughts about the imperfection of this person.

Instead,

We can say,

In our minds,

Wow,

They may be heavy,

But I don't know their story,

And their weight may be perfect for them,

And I find it beautiful.

We may look at their wrinkles and say,

I wonder what memories those wrinkles have,

And what wisdom they learned from those wrinkles.

We may look at their job and say,

Isn't it beautiful that they work so hard and are willing to do this to support themselves and perhaps even the family?

I always remember years ago meeting this one man because he and his wife and his kids were so proud of him because he'd been out of work,

And he was able to get a job at a local fast food place,

And he was the cashier,

And he had that job,

And now he's able to support his family,

And they were going to be okay,

And he was so proud that he had that job.

I,

Too,

Had worked fast food when I was younger.

I'd been trained to do other things now,

But at one point,

I did exactly what he did,

And if someday I need work doing that,

I'd be honored to do that job again.

So much of this is about seeing beauty in the flaws of life,

Seeing beauty in the choices that we made that may not have been the way we wish they'd been,

But we grew from them,

We learned from them,

And we're moving forward,

And if someone is above us or someone is beneath us,

We still see the beauty in who they are,

And if we practice accepting and loving other people with their imperfections,

The most wonderful gift comes from that.

We'll do the same when we look in the mirror,

When we look at the flaws in our lives,

And remember the things that we've done that maybe we're not too proud of or the things we're doing now that aren't as pretty as we wish they were,

Then we'll look and say,

But that's okay.

There is beauty in flawed.

There is beauty in imperfection.

There is beauty in impermanence,

And life is impermanent.

No matter how much I achieve,

No matter how much I fail,

I'm still a human being,

And I'm going to love that human being,

And I'm going to love other human beings,

And when I take that approach,

The wabi-sabi approach,

Accepting the imperfections of life,

What I find is life goes better.

I stop judging others,

I stop judging myself,

And life becomes a beautiful adventure instead of a grind where we're constantly critiquing ourselves or critiquing others.

The people that truly do critique others a lot struggle because I can guarantee you they're critiquing themselves just as harshly or even more so.

When we stop looking at the imperfections of others as flaws and instead see it as something beautiful,

Then when we look in the mirror physically or emotionally or spiritually,

We'll do the same.

We'll accept our imperfections and say,

This is who I am.

I can work on changing things if I can,

But things that I can't change,

I'll accept and even embrace,

And I'll embrace the imperfections of others too.

There are just so many factors in life that we don't have control over.

We don't choose our parents,

We don't choose our genetics.

There's so many things that we just can't control.

We don't choose how quickly our bodies age,

What shape we're in sometimes.

There's just so many things out of our control.

But the one thing that we do have control over is our response.

And with the philosophy of wabi-sabi,

We can begin to embrace and love our imperfections and not even see them as imperfections,

But something as beautiful.

It just makes sense.

Accepting imperfections is one of the key ingredients of having a happy life.

And we all want to have happy lives.

I really believe that.

But we have to take the right approach.

Criticism,

Critiquing,

Attacking is not going to lead to the path of happiness.

Learning from our mistakes,

Growing from them,

Absolutely.

Accepting the things that we can't change,

Absolutely.

Learning to love the things that are just natural part of life,

Positively.

And when we approach life through a wabi-sabi philosophy,

I do think that we'll find that as we age,

As we have our successes and our failures in life,

We'll look at them with gentleness,

With kindness,

And we'll say in our hearts,

I know you're not perfect,

But I love you perfectly for the way you are.

Thank you for each day you give me to enjoy life with all your imperfections,

With your flawed beauty.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thank you for your beautiful thoughts and insights. I take your words with me. 🙏

As always, more great advice from The Happiness Podcast. Listening always cheers me up when I’m down, and teaches me happiness strategies I can use day by day.

Loved 🥰 this very much. Thank you for your teaching!💐

Loved the Japanese philisophy

This is a wonderful reminder thank you so much. 💖🙏🏻

Thank you!

Another wonderful, common sense podcast filled with reinforced logic for helping me to live a grateful, happy life. Thank you & wishes for many Blessings. 🙏💕

Wonderful reminder! Thank you. ❤

Thank you for an insightful and positive philosophy explained eloquently and with sincerity.

This was perfectly wonderful. Your message will stick with me today.

So important

Wonderful... thank you 🙏🏽

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Made my day! Thank you!!