Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life [Hardcover]

Taro Gold (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 1, 2004

Taro Gold inspires and enlightens with Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life. A blend of Eastern wisdom, feng shui, and the movement toward simplicity, Wabi Sabi is a Japanese expression meaning "wisdom in natural simplicity." Wabi Sabi helps us to see the beauty in imperfection, to discover that our unique flaws also can lead us to our greatest strengths and treasures.

No one is perfect--in fact, we all are perfectly imperfect. That is the paradoxical first lesson shared by Taro Gold in Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life. What is Wabi Sabi? A universal ideal of beauty, Wabi Sabi celebrates the basic, the unique, and the imperfect parts of our lives. Wabi Sabi is the comfortable joy you felt as a child, happily singing off key, creatively coloring outside the lines, and mispronouncing words with gusto. On a deeper level, Wabi Sabi is the profound awareness of our oneness with all life and the environment. It includes a deep awareness of the choices we make each day, the power we have to accept or reject each moment of our lives, and to find value in every experience.

Appreciate this and every moment, no matter how imperfect, for this moment is your life. When you reject this moment, you reject your life. You don't have to settle for this moment, you are free to steer a different course, but for now, this moment is yours, so be mindful to make the most of it."

Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life leads us to discover the true beauty of our lives, to know true joy here and now, to reveal the most powerfully positive sides of imperfection. Illustrated with stunning yet simple watercolor art, Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life is a beautiful keepsake that is sure to become a beloved resource for wisdom in the joy of living.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This beautiful gift book from Gold (Open Your Mind, Open Your Life; The Tao of Mom) helps readers to see that imperfection is sometimes the source of the greatest insights and growth. From a Japanese expression meaning "wisdom in natural simplicity," Wabi Sabi celebrates life’s quirks, problems and blemishes. Gold calls it "the appreciation of the value and beauty of imperfection," and writes that it is a virtue he learned from his sage Japanese grandmother, Obaa-san. In short and beautifully designed chapters, Gold shares Obaa-san’s optimistic, common-sense philosophy of finding joy in the present despite weaknesses, failures and flaws. Throughout the book, carefully selected quotes from great thinkers and religious leaders invite readers to transform defects and trials into opportunities for growth and change.
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From the Publisher

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese expression meaning "wisdom in natural simplicity." In Taro Gold's latest book we find easy, practical advice based on the lessons of Wabi Sabi to create the joyful life of our dreams. "Living Wabi Sabi" helps us to see the beauty in imperfection and to discover that our so-called flaws can also lead us to our greatest strengths and treasures. When we know this fundamental joy here and now, we can reveal the most powerful and positive sides of imperfection. "Living Wabi Sabi" is an exquisite keepsake and guide to the joy of living.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Universal; 2nd edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0740739603
• ISBN-13: 978-0740739606
• Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 6.1 x 6.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Taro Gold is the New York Times best-selling author of "Open Your Mind, Open Your Life: A Book of Eastern Wisdom;" "What Is Love? A Simple Guide to Romantic Happiness;" "Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life;" "The Tao of Mom: The Wisdom of Mothers from East to West;" and "The Tao Dad: The Wisdom of Fathers Near and Far."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 73 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple to read; hard to live April 22, 2005

By QuinnCreative VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Taro Gold's beautiful book is a visual delight with a profound message. Each page is washed in a tint of color; some pages have powerful quotes written on beautiful backgrounds. But the message is not sweet or simple.

Living a Wabi-Sabi life means accepting your faults as well as your strengths, accepting that you will never be perfect and still keeping yourself open to being a work in progress. It means living a joy unrelated to your income. It means sweeping your life free of blame for others, and living instead with the responsibility of choosing your own happiness or misery.

You can read the book in a single sitting, but don't. Read a few pages at a time, and see how the concept flows into your life. Don't be surprised if you begin to look at your life differently. One of the characters, Obaa-san, says, "No matter how it may seem at the time, the core of your suffering is not your inconsiderate partner, your demanding boss, your insufficient bank balance. . .The root of your suffering is found internally, in the limitations you place on yourself."

This beautiful, small book holds a profound truth that can transform your life. Read it, then live it. You will be changed in wonderful ways.

67 of 71 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Living a Harmonious Perfectly Imperfect Life September 26, 2004

By Rebecca of Amazon HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Perfection exists only in the imagination. As long as we equate joy with perfection in even a small way, we will never know contentment. ~Taro Gold

In our drive towards perfection, we often seek for impossible dreams that lead to unending conflict of the soul. Taro Gold's "Living Wabi Sabi" is filled with ways we can escape this cycle of disappointment. Quotes are interspersed with personal recollections of his grandmother's teachings. Art mingles with quotes and the pages are of a high quality and shaded with natural earth tones. Not only will this book last a long time, it is perfect to give as a gift.

Taro's thoughts are beautiful gifts filled with wisdom and the secrets of Wabi Sabi living. While life is filled with uncertainties, at least we can ponder how we will deal with uncertainty itself.

Through humorous recollections about cooking or Taro's experience with electricity we learn deep spiritual truths. He discusses the birth of stars, how joy is the ultimate goal in life and how his grandmother taught him to develop inner character so he could contribute goodness to the world. He also discusses interesting facts about Walt Disney and how he was fired from his first job for "lack of imagination." There are a few other humorous examples of how life seemed to take a wrong turn, all while leading the participants right to the height of their success.

There are seven main chapters:

Living Wabi Sabi
Like Sugar from the Sun
The Wisdom of Imperfection
Growing Up, Growing Down
Awakening to the Universe Within
A Field of Possibilities
The True Beauty of Your Life

If you have been reading all the books by Taro Gold, you may be interested in reading more about Taro Gold and in this book, you can enjoy reading a bit about Taro's family history. This is a very personal book and I found it to be the most healing and comforting of all the books by Taro Gold. There are life-changing principles in Taro's book that can be incorporated into any spiritual tradition or lifestyle.

Also highly recommended:

What Is Love? A Simple Buddhist Guide to Romantic Happiness
Open Your Mind, Open Your Life: A book of Eastern Wisdom
The Tao of Mom: The Wisdom of Mothers from East to West

~The Rebecca Review

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A pretty package with no substance January 11, 2007

By Charles Martin

Format:Hardcover

The publisher deserves credit for putting together an attractive little book. The short quotes sprinkled through out are pithy and to the point, while the decorative illustrations are pretty. Those illustrations, however are the flowery type you find in Asian poetry books and have little to do with Wabi Sabi. Gold's exposition on the subject is simplistic to the point of being juvenile. Wabi Sabi is a complex topic and requires more depth. While new to the subject, I have already found two better books. Lennox Tierney includes photographs of items which actually illustrate the principles of Wabi Sabi in Wabi Sabi A New Look at Japanese Design. Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren Porvides a better foundation for understanding than Gold's book.