Huggybear's Stories
July 26 to August 1 Edition
The Art of
Understated
Perfection
Understated
Perfection
I have chosen a
path where I found inner peace. Then the story of a young man led me to an even
deeper understanding.
I discovered
more profound insights about living to my fullest potential, unchained by the
need for the approval or admiration of others. I saw a kindred spirit in
Nicholai Hel in Shibumi, Trevanian's
classic thriller. Above all, I now begin to seek something new in my life: shibumi.
Philosophers and Warriors
When Nicholai
was thirteen, he found the father he never had in General Kashikawa Takashi
when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded his hometown, Shanghai. The boy's
intelligence, self-confidence and skills in Gō defied his youth and stunned the
General.
It was even more
amazing because the boy wasn't even Japanese or Chinese: his mother was a
Russian Countess and his father a mysterious German aristocrat. "That is
precisely why I chose Gō," he said. "What Gō is to philosophers and
warriors, chess is to accountants and merchants."
Elegant Simplicity
Winds of victory
were blowing towards the Allied Forces. Kishikawa was to be transferred and he
arranged for the boy to be sent to Japan to stay with Otake-san, the legendary
seventh dan Gō master.
Otake-san is a
man of wisdom, one who "will listen with interest but will not burden you
with advice," said Kishikawa. "All of life, for him, is a simplified
paradigm of Gō." Otake-san possesses the quality of shibumi, he continued, trying to find the right word. Nicholai
asked what it meant.
The General, of
noble samurai lineage, said that shibumi
is an "ineffable quality" that "has to do with great refinement
underlying commonplace appearance. It is a statement so correct it does not
have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it doesn’t
not have to be real. Shibumi is
understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is
modesty without prudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi,
it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being
without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is, how does
one say it? Authority without domination, something like that."
But "One does
not achieve it," Kishikawa explained further. “One...discovers it."
It is not about learning, rather, "one must pass through knowledge and
arrive at simplicity.”
Nicholai knew,
at that moment, that he will spend the rest of his life in the pursuit of shibumi. He will achieve "a
personality of overwhelming calm" and he will "excel invisibly,
without attracting the attention and vengeance of the tyrannical masses."
First Conscious
Act
Kishikawa took a
small sandalwood box under the low tea table. Nicholai bowed his head as he accepted
it. "He did not express his gratitude in inadequate words," writes
Trevanian. "This was his first conscious act of shibumi.”
Nicholai opened
the farewell gift as he crossed the sea. Inside were two Gō ke lacquer bowls containing black Nichi
stones from Kishiu and white stones made from Miyazake clam shells. "No one observing the delicate
young man standing at the rail of the rusty freighter," writes Trevanian, "would have surmised
that he was destined to become the world's most highly paid assassin."
To Be Continued
See also Shibumi: My Favorite Novel
6 comments:
"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles," says Buddha. "Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere," says Buddha. "You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection."
"The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower," says Leo Buscaglia, "share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises."
Nicholai knew, at that moment, that he will spend the rest of his life in the pursuit of shibumi. He will achieve "a personality of overwhelming calm" and he will "excel invisibly, without attracting the attention and vengeance of the tyrannical masses."
"Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions." ~ Lao Tzu
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“One does not achieve it. One...discovers it..."
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