Mono No Aware: The Essence of Japan
Non-conscious monkey: the aesthetics of Japanese beauty
Literally meaning “sensitivity to things”, unconscious monkey is a concept that describes the essence of Japanese culture, invented by the Japanese literary and linguistic scholar Motoori Norinaga in the 18th century, and remains the central artistic imperative in Japan until the today. The phrase is derived from the word * conscious *, which in Heian Japan meant sensitivity or sadness, and the word monkey, which means things, and describes beauty as an awareness of the transience of all things and a mild sadness at its passing. . It can also be translated as “ah-ness” of things, of life and love.
Unconscious monkey gave its name to an aesthetic that already existed in Japanese art, music and poetry, the source of which dates directly to the introduction of Zen Buddhism in the 12th century, a philosophy and spiritual practice that profoundly influenced all aspects. of Japanese culture. culture, but especially art and religion. The fleeting nature of beauty described by non-conscious monkey stems from the three states of existence in Buddhist philosophy: dissatisfaction, impersonality, and most importantly in this context, impermanence.
According to the non-conscious monkey, an autumn flower that falls or fades is more beautiful than one in full bloom; a sound that fades more beautiful than that heard clearly; the partially cloudy moon more attractive than full. The sakura or cherry blossom is the epitome of this conception of beauty; Flowers of the most famous variety, Somei Yoshino, almost pure white tinged with a subtle pale pink, bloom and then drop in a single week. The subject of a thousand poems and a national icon, the cherry tree embodies beauty as a passing experience.
Non-conscious monkey asserts that beauty is a subjective rather than an objective experience, a state of being, ultimately, internal rather than external. Based largely on classical Greek ideals, beauty in the West is sought in the ultimate perfection of an external object: a sublime painting, a perfect sculpture, or an intricate musical composition; a beauty that arguably is superficial. The Japanese ideal sees beauty instead as an experience of the heart and soul, a feeling and appreciation of objects or works of art, most commonly nature or the representation of, in a pristine and intact state.
An appreciation of beauty as a state that does not endure and cannot be grasped is not the same as nihilism, and can best be understood in relation to the earthly transcendence philosophy of Zen Buddhism: a spiritual longing for what is infinite and eternal: the source of all worldly beauty. As the monk Sotoba wrote in * Zenrin Kushū * (Zenrin Temple Poetry), Zen does not consider nothingness as a state of absence, but rather the assertion of an invisible that exists behind empty space: “Everything exists in emptiness : flowers, the moon in the sky, beautiful landscapes “.
With its roots in Zen Buddhism, * unconscious monkey * has some relation to the non-dualism of Indian philosophy, as recounted in the following story about Swami Vivekananda by Sri Chinmoy:
* “Beauty” says [Vivekananda], “It is not external, but is already in the mind.” Here we recall what his spiritual daughter Nivedita wrote about her Master. “It was dark as we approached Sicily, and against the evening sky, Etna was slightly erupting. When we entered the Strait of Messina, the moon rose, and I walked up and down the deck alongside Swami, while he lived in The fact that beauty is not external, but is already in the mind. On the one hand the dark cliffs of the Italian coast frowned, on the other the island was touched with a silver light. ‘Messina must thank me ‘he said;’ it is I who give it all its beauty. ‘”Indeed, in the absence of appreciation, beauty is not beauty at all. And beauty is worthy of its name only when it has been appreciated. *
The founder of * unconscious monkey *, Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), was the preeminent scholar of the Kokugakushu movement, a nationalist movement that sought to eliminate all external influences from Japanese culture. Kokugakushu was enormously influential in art, poetry, music, and philosophy, and was responsible for the revival during the Tokugawa period of the Shinto religion. Contradictorily, the influence of Buddhist ideas and practices on art and even Shinto itself was so great that although Buddhism is technically an external influence, it could not be released at this point.
Literally meaning “sensitivity to things”, unconscious monkey is a concept that describes the essence of Japanese culture, invented by the Japanese literary and linguistic scholar Motoori Norinaga in the 18th century, and remains the central artistic imperative in Japan until the today. The phrase is derived from the word conscious, which in Heian Japan meant sensitivity or sadness, and the word monkey, which means things, and describes beauty as an awareness of the transience of all things and a mild sadness at its passing. It can also be translated as “ah-ness” of things, of life and love.
Unconscious monkey gave its name to an aesthetic that already existed in Japanese art, music and poetry, the source of which dates directly to the introduction of Zen Buddhism in the 12th century, a philosophy and spiritual practice that profoundly influenced all aspects. of Japanese culture. culture, but especially art and religion. The fleeting nature of beauty described by non-conscious monkey stems from the three states of existence in Buddhist philosophy: dissatisfaction, impersonality, and most importantly in this context, impermanence.
According to the non-conscious monkey, an autumn flower that falls or fades is more beautiful than one in full bloom; a sound that fades more beautiful than that heard clearly; the partially cloudy moon more attractive than full. The sakura or cherry blossom is the epitome of this conception of beauty; Flowers of the most famous variety, Somei Yoshino, almost pure white tinged with a subtle pale pink, bloom and then drop in a single week. The subject of a thousand poems and a national icon, the cherry tree embodies beauty as a passing experience.
Non-conscious monkey asserts that beauty is a subjective rather than an objective experience, a state of being, ultimately, internal rather than external. Based largely on classical Greek ideals, beauty in the West is sought in the ultimate perfection of an external object: a sublime painting, a perfect sculpture, or an intricate musical composition; a beauty that arguably is superficial. The Japanese ideal sees beauty instead as an experience of the heart and soul, a feeling and appreciation of objects or works of art, most commonly nature or the representation of, in a pristine and intact state.
An appreciation of beauty as a state that does not endure and cannot be grasped is not the same as nihilism, and can best be understood in relation to the earthly transcendence philosophy of Zen Buddhism: a spiritual longing for what is infinite and eternal: the source of all worldly beauty. As the monk Sotoba wrote in Zenrin Kushū (Zenrin Temple Poetry), Zen does not consider nothingness as a state of absence, but rather the assertion of an invisible that exists behind empty space: “Everything exists in emptiness: flowers, the moon in the sky, beautiful landscapes. “
With its roots in Zen Buddhism, the non-conscious monkey has some relation to the non-dualism of Indian philosophy, as recounted in the following story about Swami Vivekananda by Sri Chinmoy:
“Beauty,” he says [Vivekananda], “It is not external, but is already in the mind.” Here we recall what his spiritual daughter Nivedita wrote about her Master. “It was dark as we approached Sicily, and against the evening sky, Etna was slightly erupting. When we entered the Strait of Messina, the moon rose, and I walked up and down the deck alongside Swami, while he lived in The fact that beauty is not external, but is already in the mind. On the one hand the dark cliffs of the Italian coast were frowning, on the other, the island was touched with a silver light. ‘Messina must thank me ‘he said,’ it is I who give it all its beauty. ‘”Indeed, in the absence of appreciation, beauty is not beauty at all. And beauty is worthy of its name only when it has been appreciated.
The founder of unconscious monkey, Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), was the preeminent scholar of the Kokugakushu movement, a nationalist movement that sought to eliminate all external influences from Japanese culture. Kokugakushu was enormously influential in art, poetry, music, and philosophy, and was responsible for the revival during the Tokugawa period of the Shinto religion. Contradictorily, the influence of Buddhist ideas and practices on art and even Shinto itself was so great that although Buddhism is technically an external influence, it could not be released at this point.