Kintsugi

“The mind has a light of its own, and by it illumines what it re-creates.” — Margaret Fuller

I recently learned about Kintsugi, a restoration art form from Japan in which a shattered piece of pottery is repaired – reassembled most beautifully with the aid of gold filler and joinery. The image of the repaired pottery bowl is in some respects the same bowl, except that afterwards the bowl’s formerly shattered pieces have become a new whole, a bowl expressing another beauty: hinting at something deeper than the bowl itself.

Such a restoration process is an analogy for my self-work, for I have learned that seeing my flaws, such as the uncontrolled expression of irritations, complaints, and self-pity, and then accepting responsibility and acting on my own personal observations by transformative efforts, allows me to reconstruct myself with greater possibilities. In practice that means that I don’t need to react with rashness and cruelty to the world around me. I can feel humility or compassion or completely change my attitude or orientation about a topic or person who annoys me. But I don’t see and control these useless expressions merely to become a better person, nor a better version of myself. Instead, I reassemble myself into something different, something renewed. I am re-creating myself for a higher purpose.

My body—the vessel or bowl—is still a container but through internal efforts it can now contain something else. This process, the psychological transformation of human flaws, is at the center of the Fourth Way. Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher observed, “We make a vessel from a lump of clay; It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.”

Bowl, China, 10th century, repaired using Kintsugi