The Aesthetic Harmony of Japanese Nature

A long Engelsberg Ideas essay on how, in Japanese culture, nature is not merely the natural world but an aesthetic, ethical, and sacred concept — woven into Shinto, Zen, the tea ceremony, garden design (karesansui dry gardens, the borrowed-landscape principle of shakkei), seasonal awareness (kigo in haiku), and the recurring motif of mono no aware: the pathos of impermanence. The piece traces how this orientation differs from the Western nature-as-resource frame and what it might offer at a moment of ecological strain. Note: byline not visible in page metadata.