Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of cracks with urushi lacquer, which is the traditional labour-intensive production process, time-consuming and expensive.  The broken pottery is dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The method is like the maki-e technique. Maki-e (literally “sprinkled pictures”) is a representative lacquerware technique that originated in Japan around 1,200 years ago. Maki-e is done by painting lacquer motifs on the surface of a piece using a fine brush and then sprinkling gold powder onto the lacquer before it hardens, this technique produces luxurious decorations.

Kintsugi tells us of the temporariness of all things; nothing stays forever. Like a piece of pottery, our lives are filled with fragility, setbacks and unpredictability. The philosophy of Kintsugi highlights that resilience is not merely about bouncing back from adversity but also about accepting the process of repair and renewal. Just like the meticulous process of fixing broken pottery, our relationships, illnesses, profession, education, demand patience, effort and care to mend snags in our fabric of life. Accepting the reality of imperfection frees us to spend time on other projects, even on our work-life balance.

Kintsugi helps us to realize that life itself is not perfect. Every moment we are fighting a world full of chaos. Every time we try to edit our script of life, we become vulnerable by making few new errors. You might get cheated by someone whom you trust the most, you might lose your job, you might not be able to catch up with newness in technology, you may get sick in the middle of a project. An environmental problem like a tornado, hurricane, earthquake may destroy your home. Control what you can and accept the rest.

Self-acceptance is defined as accepting all our attributes, positive as well as negative. When we accept ourselves, we embrace every part of ourselves, the good, the bad and the ugly. Self-acceptance must be unconditional. You made a mistake, but it’s okay, nobody’s perfect, we all make mistakes. We all have flaws, and that’s what makes us human. As human, we all imperfect. Till we breath our last, we are all works in progress. And perfection itself is an illusion.

The philosophy of Kintsugi in Japanese is about being non-judgemental, accepting, and empathetic towards ourselves. Facilitators and workshop participants of Kintsugi explore the connections between the Kintsugi way and the recovery from illness depression, anxiety etc. Once, I enrolled for a short course of pottery, it gave me invaluable lessons that go beyond the clay. To shape a pot we need patience, accept our faults, reshape the clay with firmness by finding balance, creating resilience, and practicing mindfulness.  I realized that like the pot in process, we all have cracks in our body and mind here and there which we try to repair. 

The repaired cracks of the pottery represent our healing process. The difficulties in our life leave many scars which take time to heal. What’s important our willingness and our ability to heal.

God gifted us the freedom to administer our own life, He allows us to connect with Him as and when we want. He helps us to heal our cracks and shape up as a masterpiece. 

Anything created with the creative mind with purpose or meaning behind it, is perfect for the person who makes it – as it is.  Other may find some flaws in it. But, for the person who creates something stops when his gut tells him to stop. He feels satisfied and not necessarily, it should appear perfect to others.  Aesthetic beauty is modest and humble. For example, the Mona Lisa, arguably the world’s most famous painting, may be a masterwork, perhaps is not flawless, yet it is considered incomparable. The background of the painting is dull. There were many other portraits from the same period which showed equally enigmatic expressions. The undue focus on this painting, along with the popularity of a few other pieces, prevents most people not only from seeing the painting for what it really is. It seems the creator of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo DaVinci, did not regard the painting as his finest work.

It is famous in the history that a pianist Daniel Steibelt challenged Beethoven about technical flaws in some of his in masterpiece compositions. They even had improvisation contest in Vienna. Steibelt lost the contest with Beethoven…..but, there are references that Steibelt was also a prolific composer. Any invention, any creation, any art, any strategy cannot be challenged for its flawlessness. There will be critics who will find some or other defects in it.  Each individual has different aesthetic perception. In traditional Japanese aesthetic mindset they believe in accepting imperfection and that is termed as wabi-sabi.

The term is made up of two words. The first, wabi, signifies that anything which appears beautiful is not free from flaws and absurdity; wabi is explained with kintsugi which is an example of repairing bronze statues, ceramics, carvings of heritage structures with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy behind the technique is to recognize the history of the object and to visibly incorporate the repair into the new piece instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful than the original. The second word, sabi, refers to beauty which comes with maturity, such as the ancient art, structures look more beautiful because of the changes that take place in them slowly. They become symbol of a philosophy, culture and history. Even people look more attractive with experience of life and gained wisdom.

Wabi-sabi is Japanes philosophy that nothing is permanent, nothing is flawless, and nothing is perfect. Therefore each experience, each creation has its own beauty. After all, beauty lies in the eyes of beholder.  What look beautiful to my eyes might look not so good to somebody else’s eyes. The term wabi-sabi suggests that life itself is filled with qualities such as impermanence, modesty, indiscretion, and imperfection.

Practicing wabi-sabi into your life does not involve money, qualification, reputation, status, training, or special skills. All it takes is a quiet mind to appreciate beauty; willingness to accept things as they are. It requires an ability to slow down, to shift the balance from doing to being, to appreciating rather than perfecting something. We always expect others to be perfect whereas we forget to look at our own flaws. Nothing is perfect in the world except the word “Perfect.” Each one has his/her uniqueness; the Universal Energy purposefully did not create a flaw-less world. There is no right and no wrong. Accept wabi-sabi as your state of mind to lead a hassle free life.