"If one were to pick a phrase that aptly sums up the traditional aesthetic sensibility of the Japanese, it might well be wabi-sabi. A combination of two old words with overlapping definitions, wabi-sabi might be the Buddhist view of the facts of existence: Both life and art are beautiful not because they are perfect and eternal, but because they are imperfect and fleeting."
"The words were born separately and referred to different things. Wabi originally described the loneliness of living in nature, far from society; sabi meant lean or withered, a flower past its bloom. But during the 14th century, the two words began to take on more positive meanings, with wabi describing the more positive aspects of living alone in nature: a quiet, rustic simplicity. Sabi, on the other hand, began to find beauty in old age, in a weathered character, focusing instead on the serenity that can come with time, when inevitable wear becomes a patina, and scars become signs of experience." --Japanology
