Shibumi: The Japanese Word for Effortless Perfection
Real perfection of life, simplicity, quiet meanings
Years ago, I went on my first solo vacation to a mountain village, one of the world's most beautiful places.
The three days I spent there taught me a lot and provided me with memories that I will treasure for the remainder of my life.
There, I met one of the most mature people I’ve ever seen, whom I still regard as a role model. She has been through some very tough experiences in her life, and overcoming all of them, she studied in Europe, becoming a psychological counselor and yoga instructor.
Finally, she returned home after twenty years abroad and purchased a stone house because she fell in love with a pine tree in its garden. She then converted it into a hotel with her husband, despite having no prior experience in the field.
When I met her, she was running that beautiful boutique hotel with only a few employees, and as the hotel's chef, she was in the kitchen every day cooking the world's best dishes.
I had plenty of time because I went alone, and since the hotel needed help and I enjoy cooking, I volunteered to help in the kitchen. They gladly accepted. Following that day, I spent the majority of my vacation cooking in the hotel kitchen. It was the best vacation I'd ever had.
During that vacation, I discovered that accepting help is a skill that not everyone possesses.
As an example, if I owned a hotel, I would strive for perfection and provide my customers with the best possible experience. On that holiday, however, we ate hummus made by a guest, different meals prepared with the help of other guests and my desserts. Most of the days I stayed in luxury hotels I forgot about, but I remember every day of that vacation.
Also, I will never forget the concept of simplicity that I learned there for the first time.
We were peeling tomatoes together in the kitchen, and she said to me:
After years of chasing different purposes, one can enjoy the simple act of peeling tomatoes in this kitchen and enjoy it. That is simplicity and the real perfection in life.
Considering that experience was about 15 years ago, the perfection of simplicity wasn’t trendy yet. It had a big impact on me, and it followed me everywhere I went for the rest of my life.
In Zen philosophy, which is regarded as the home of simplicity, I think Shibumi is somewhat equivalent to this.
Shibumi is a state of being in a most refined way.
It’s understanding instead of knowledge. It’s found, not won. It’s harmony, perfect balance, inner peace, natural wisdom, abstracted from everything artificial.
Shibumi is also known as the legendary novel written by Trevanian, which is still one of my favorites. A passage from that novel expresses Shibumi really well.
“(...) shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. 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.
Nicholai’s imagination was galvanized by the concept of shibumi. No other ideal had ever touched him so.
“How does one achieve this shibumi, sir?”
“One does not achieve it, one . . . discovers it. And only a few men of infinite refinement ever do that. Men like my friend Otake-san.”
“Meaning that one must learn a great deal to arrive at shibumi?”
“Meaning, rather, that one must pass through knowledge and arrive at simplicity.”
Finding the perfect existence in every moment, sad or happy, boring or amusing, positive or negative, is a good way to get closer to the state of Shibumi. Every one of us had better at least try for a meaningful life.