The Wabi-Sabi of Wellbeing

Buddhist monk Shunryu Suzuki Roshi is frequently described as one of the most influential teachers of Buddhism to have lived, largely because he is credited with bringing Zen Buddhism and philosophy to the western world. Suzuki was born in 1904 and grew up as the son of a traditional Zen Buddhist priest in rural Japan. In 1959, he moved to the US and, in the mid 1960s, became the first spiritual leader of the first Buddhist monastery for Westerners, The Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California.

David Chadwick, a Zen priest ordained in 1970, has since shared many of his experiences at Tassajara in his book ‘To Shine One Corner of the World’ (Chadwick, 2001). Chadwick’s best-known story is about a fellow student expressing his difficulties understanding the essence of Buddhist philosophy. Chadwick describes how, at the end of a lecture, and after several years of study, the exasperated student asked Suzuki “Can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase?”  Chadwick recounts how everyone laughed at this seemingly impossible request, including Suzuki. None-the-less, Suzuki replied to the question, but with just two words.

He simply said: “Everything changes.”

I propose that Suzuki’s deceptively simple response contains a lifetime of wisdom for living well, and a loud call to revisit the meaning of resilience. Moreover, I believe that it is vital we incorporate an exploration of change and impermanence into current wellbeing narratives, and resilience understandings, if we are to genuinely support both wellbeing and resilience in ourselves, and in young people in schools.

The reality of impermanence can help us to better understand ourselves, better appreciate the best of our experiences, and better navigate life when time are tough.  The more we can accept the impermanence of all things, the more we can let go of unhelpful beliefs about life success equating to constant cheeriness, and everything being ‘just as we want it’.  Instead, we can adopt an understanding of living well that embraces ongoing change. This philosophy of life is echoed in the ancient Japanese art of ‘wabi-sabi,’ which speaks to an acceptance of the impermanence and imperfection of all things (e.g. Juniper, 2003).

In today’s troubled world, we are still sold on feeling happy as an ultimate measure of success. Indeed, the existence of the annual World Happiness Report suggests that entire countries can be judged and ranked on the happiness of their people - and that feelings of sadness, loss and grief represent failure and fear (e.g. Helliwell et al., 2024).  This reduction of life success to purely pleasant emotional experiences is worryingly tied to an idea of some sort of happy constancy being an achievable goal.

In reality, even if we do all we can to find long term joy in our lives, adversity and loss catches us many times over. From the frustrations of missed opportunities, to the deepest cries of grief, we are all impacted. We all struggle. We all sometimes believe life is unfair, even unbearable. And this is undeniably hard. As such, our desire to equate living well with being permanently happy can only ever lead to frustration, disappointment, and possibly resentment when things go wrong. Moreover, it leads to a belief in resilience being the ability to reduce and recover from tough emotions as fast as we can, or to be able to keep ‘pushing on through’ despite them.

But, perhaps the pain of hard times is not something it is good to escape from, at least not completely.

Adversity and loss are unavoidable in a life well lived, however, we would not find a better life if we could avoid them. Even though at times loss is undeniably hard.  As such, it is imperative we do not think of resilience as the ability to create an emotional coat of armour, keeping us protected from the pain of loss, for that may well be the greatest loss of all.  It is also vital we do not mistake the avoidance of loss with success; if anything, avoiding all loss is arguably the greatest failure of all.  Rather, resilience is more about honouring, accepting and healing from the pain of big changes, loss and adversity, than it is about avoiding these things all together. It is more about connecting with passion than it is about avoiding the risk of connection for fear of experiencing pain. It is more about connecting deeply than about being detached, however tough or risky this might appear to be.

The Ever-changing Spiral of Life
We may be able to more readily embrace the good times, and more easily accept the tough times, when we think of our life as a constantly turning spiral of identity creation, fracture and repair (Street, 2024). Wellbeing and resilience are both integral parts of this spiral.

We travel around this spiral of identity creation, and recreation many times over in life. Such is the continuing flow of our social identity.

Our understanding of this ongoing cycle reminds us that each aspect of our socially created self is born from connections made in an impermanent world. It helps us to realise that resilience is about creating and recreating our identity, not about preserving it, or bouncing back to how it was before.  It helps us to find the courage to connect and reconnect, rather than avoid meaningful connections and the risk of loss. The cycle shows us that the connections we need to feel whole will eventually be lost, but we can always find a way to move on and feel whole again, albeit in a different way than before. This cycle continues until finally we meet the ultimate loss and face our own end.  As such, the cycle of our ever-shifting social identity is an admission of our own impermanence and imperfections, as much as it is a representation of the impermanence of our socially created world.

Living well becomes living fiercely, with the conviction to make connections even when we know they can only ever be temporary. It is about having the courage to experience a broad range of authentic emotions as we ride the tide of our constantly changing existence. For most of us, there will be moments when we are truly filled with joy, when we declare that life is great. There will be other moments when we feel more mediocrity, feel sad or perhaps feel desperately distressed, and that is also OK.

A fiercely lived, resilient life is a life filled with highs, lows and plenty of time walking the middle ground, from beginning to end.

Braving Loss - Acknowledge, Accept, Connect, Trust
Still, the weight of significant change and loss can be incredibly hard to bear. So, how can we deal with the pain of losing our most important connections and then find the courage to make new ones in an authentic and meaningful way? Moreover, how can we help children and teens to do the same?

I believe that embracing a process that honours the constantly changing cycle of our social-identity is vital to our long-term ability to be well, and to be resilient, no matter what big changes, adversity or losses we face.

With the above in mind, here are four steps for consideration when everything changes for you, or for your students.

Step One: Acknowledge
No matter what paths we choose on our journey to recovery from distress, we need to ensure we begin with awareness, acknowledgement and the honouring of our fractured identity. We do not get upset because of the event that has happened, be it a loss, a failure or a change in the world around us. Rather, our upset is a direct response to the shift that change creates within us, within our identity as a person (e.g. Breakwell, 2015). The more we identify with something or someone, the more upset we are when this defining relationship is threatened or lost.

This means that it is not helpful to judge the impact of change on another person. Rather, all we can meaningfully do is support the unique journey of each of us and acknowledge that ‘when it matters it matters’.

When a young person is distressed about a low mark on a test, joining a new class, or having an argument with a friend, only that young person knows how much they defined themselves by ‘the way things were’ and the relationships that are now changing.  It is therefore not helpful to try to reduce the importance of change, when it appears important to someone else; or to brush real feelings away with a hasty attempt to cheer someone out of grief.  Rather, we can support young people through significant change and loss when we:

• Listen to a young person’s distress, helping them to articulate and express how they feel, so that they can process how they feel
• Acknowledge and empathise with their distress. Even if we do not have the same experiences or connections as others, we can nearly always relate to others’ feelings and emotions.
• Give young people permission to take time to process their loss and to heal. Social expectations can place a lot of pressure on those dealing with tough emotions to feel better quickly. In reality, knowing you have time to work through change can help you deal with change more effectively, and more efficiently.
• Offer a life raft when required. As much as we want our students to honour their own journey, we also want to ensure they do not drown in a storm of big emotions. Encourage young people to reconnect with the world one small step at a time, or to ‘take a break from grief’, and enjoy a distraction or tangent.

Step Two: Accept
In order to be able to let go of anything - from a loved class to a failed exam - we need to spend time contemplating and understanding the nature of change. In doing so, we learn to live with flexibility in an impermanent and imperfect world.

We rarely spend time in our classrooms or staffrooms considering change. Rather, we often shy away from talking about endings at all, especially ‘death’. We actively pursue ‘happy ever afters’ and we try and stop the passing of time in increasingly expensive ways.  How valuable it could be to spend time:
• Discussing what happens after the ‘happy ever after’ credits roll on a film or story
• Contemplating the meaning of ‘everything changes’
• Exploring the nature of impermanence and how it can help us live well
• Learning to appreciate the good times, knowing they are temporary; and learning to find courage in tough times, knowing they too will pass.

Step Three: Connect
As we begin to heal from the impact of change, we need to begin to connect with our social world once more. This is not about re-creating the same connections that were threatened or lost: it is not about replacing a lost romance with a new one, or a failed exam with another test. Rather, it is about finding ways to connect with the social contexts of our lives so that we feel valued and whole.

‘Contextual Wellbeing: Creating Positive Schools from the Inside Out’ is a book that defines and explores wellbeing in schools. The book encourages educators and parents to consider wellbeing as a social phenomenon, rather than purely as an individual state. It is based on my firm belief that wellbeing is an interplay between our best individual self and our best environment. The ongoing creation of healthy connections to others and to the world around us contributes to a healthy sense of our whole-being, which gives us an experience of wellbeing in the everchanging cycle of our life (Street, 2018).

I wrote Contextual Wellbeing to encourage schools to stop holding each child completely responsible for their individual wellbeing, and to instead understand that the school system plays an important role in supporting the ongoing creation and recreation of healthy relationships within the whole-school community. We need to ask not ‘What is wrong’ with a troubled child, but rather, ‘How can we meaningfully support a troubled child’s needs for belonging and engagement in their school life’

The following are four essential considerations for the continual nurturing of relationships in our schools:
• Being Present: Knowing how to be ‘positively present’ is arguably the most fundamentally important skill for building a meaningful connection with anyone. It involves knowing how to listen, without judgment, how to pay attention, and how to care.  As such, learning to be present is also about learning acceptance and how to embrace others without trying to change or ‘improve’ them.
• Being Kind: One of the greatest facets of any healthy relationship, and indeed, any cohesive culture, is kindness.  Yet, if we reduce ideas of kindness to observable helping behaviours, we are in danger of supporting impression management rather than genuine care. The best way we can support kindness in others is by genuinely being kind ourselves, and this means believing that every student, even the ones disrupting our day, are doing their best to survive and to belong.
• Being Curious: We develop positive relationships more strongly when we take time to get to know each other beyond the reason for our initial connection. The process begins with simple but powerful steps such as asking work colleagues how their weekend was (and taking the time to listen to their answer); or asking a student how they are before letting them know they are late to class. In this way, positive connections arise from a genuine, caring, curiosity and interest in others, without a focus on judgment.
• Being Inclusive: Connection can be further developed with others through commonality and the celebration of shared interests, humour and experiences. As much as we need to recognise and support diversity and difference in our colleagues and in our students, it is also vital that we find our common ground.

Step Four: Trust in Yourself
When things have gone wrong, it can seem artificial and unrealistic to contemplate ‘everything being alright’ in the future. Indeed, some changes lead to long-term turmoil and devastation. Thus, trying to be ‘hopeful’ with a focus on things turning out as we want them to, can seem like betting on events outside of our control.

Yet, hope matters. Numerous studies have shown how hope can support us through significant change; and indeed hope is a distinguishing factor between ‘healthy’ grief and depression (e.g. Murphy, 2023). Thus, I propose that we support an idea of hope that focuses on our ability to navigate change, rather than on change happening in any particular way.  No matter what challenges life brings, if we can hold onto trust and faith in ourselves, we can move forward more effectively and confidently.

When it comes to supporting young people we can foster this self-reliant understanding of hope with:
• A focus on what went well in any given situation, supporting a belief in each student’s personal capacity and capability to manage challenge and change.
• Encouragement to take manageable risks that lead to an increased belief in our ability to do challenging things. This requires an understanding of what a manageable risk feels like for each person.  For one student manageable risk may mean competing in the National athletics championship, for another it may mean turning up to class.
• Holding and sharing your belief in other’s potential to live with change. Belief is not in and of itself a means to an end. There is no scientific research that supports the notion that simply believing in success makes success happen. But still, belief matters. Belief calls opportunity forward.

Belief inspires the passion, perseverance and self-trust required to live well in a world where everything changes all of the time.

Want to Find out More?
The contents of this article is based on Helen’s new book ‘The Impossible Question of Living Well’ available from Amazon, Helen’s website and all good bookshops.

Helen will be facilitating ‘The Positive Schools Big Workshop’ in four states in Australia, in 2024. Each event offers two-full days of professional development to help educators and allied professionals develop their unique professional contexts, supporting staff and students’ wellbeing and engagement. Find out more and register at PositiveSchools.com.au

References
Breakwell, Glynis (2015) Coping with threatened identities. Psychology Press: London.
Chadwick, David (ed) (2001)  To Shine One Corner of the World - Moments with Shunryu Suzuki. Broadway Books, New York.
Juniper, Andrew (2003). Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence. Tuttle Publishing
Murphy, Elijah R. (2023) Hope and well-being, Current Opinion in Psychology, 50
Helliwell, J. F., Layard, R., Sachs, J. D., De Neve, J.-E., Aknin, L. B., & Wang, S. (Eds.). (2024). World Happiness Report 2024. University of Oxford: Wellbeing Research Centre.
Street, H (2018) Contextual Wellbeing – Creating Positive Schools from the Inside Out. Wise Solutions: Australia
Street, H (2024) The Impossible Question of Living Well. Wise Solutions: Australia