What is the most beautiful thing?

In Japanese term, there is the word called "WABI-SABI".
"Wabi" means that we can feel fullness in poverty OR we can see beauty in unpretentious style of living.
For example, even a family do not have enough money to go to a wonderful restaurant, they can enjoy their meal that made by mother in their house.
This way of thinking is "WABI".

"Sabi" means that real beauty that we can see from old thing like antique style. Antiques look old; however, because of the reason people gain respect and value as time goes by.


Both word is in Japanese, and the basic idea of "WABI-SABI" might be a bit different from culture to culture, but I guess how people think about "the thinking" is almost same all around the world.

What is "MA"??

For my project, I'm studying about "MA" which is space time in English.
Actually, this is really difficult to explain for people from other countries.

At first, "MA" came from Japanese Arts like "Noh" and "Kabuki".
When the performers act, they should feel "MA", and using it, they can get more attention from the audiences.
Somebody says that "MA is like breathing and also air".
In Japanese society, we can see "MA" everywhere like in arts, architecture, even in ordinary conversation. We try to have "MA" to have a great conversation without speaking, and "MA" is useful to insist what the most important thing is. "MA" is necessary, but if we use it too much it does not work well, and it seems that wasting time or wasting space.

This is one of "MA" in Japanese traditional house.
The space looks "nothing" even somebody thinks that it is wasting space, but it makes people feel relax because the room is　overwhelmed with lots of stuffs.
Might be this idea is kind of hard to understand people who do not know about Japanese culture; however, in our thinking "something works in somehow that is 'BEAUTY' ".

Basically, "MA" is Japanese unique way of thinking; however, the idea fits into western culture.
For example, in theatrical situation, "MA" is equal to dramatic pause.
Think about a dialogue from Shakespeare. One of famous quotation is "To be or not to be? That is the question".
In this case, if there is pause between "to be or not to be?" and "that is the question", the audiences might have more attention an actor's performance.

I am pretty sure that I could not explain perfectly about "MA" here, but I just want you to mention about this Japanese term.

Thank you.