For Today’s dharma talk, I want to share some ideas and feelings about the beauty of imperfection. To do this, I want to use a metaphor from Japanese material arts, Kintsugi.  Metaphor helps us learn by adding a deeper, more emotive dimension. Metaphor tends to be the language of the heart. For me, kintsugi is such a teaching tool.

So, what is Kintsugi? 

The story goes that Kintsugi was born out of an accident. In the 15th century, a mighty Shogun named Ashikaga Yoshimasa accidentally broke his favorite tea bowl. At that time, China was regarded as the pinnacle of ceramic craftsmanship, so he sent the broken bowl there for repair. But when it was returned to him, and he lifted the box lid, his heart sank.

The bowl had been repaired, but the fix involved unsightly metal staples that made it barely functional. Disappointed, he sought the help of a local artisan and asked what could be done to restore his bowl. The artisan took the bowl, and the Shogun left.

A few days later, the artisan returned and presented the bowl to Yashimasa. As he unwrapped it, he discovered that there was now a beautiful golden lacquer where the staples had been. The Shogun was overjoyed; his once-broken tea bowl was now repaired and even more stunning than before. It is said that a new art form called Kintsugi was created after this event.

How different our world is. We no longer mend or repair items; instead, we throw them away. Cobblers and TV repair shops, once common, have almost entirely disappeared. Most things are not designed for reuse or meant to last a lifetime. Our society has been labeled a throwaway society. These attitudes toward material culture seep into other areas of our lives and relationships.

As the practice of Kintsugi became more widespread, Zen teachers in Japan emphasized that pots, cups, and bowls should not be neglected or discarded. Instead, these objects deserve our respect and attention, and they should be repaired with great care. The underlying message goes beyond the objects; it is about how we perceive ourselves. The care and love we invest in a shattered bowl can inspire us to appreciate anything damaged, scarred, vulnerable, and imperfect—including ourselves and those around us.

Rev. Gyomay has taught us that Dharma can be found everywhere, even in a once-broken tea bowl.

Repairs made with kintsugi—golden joinery—offer a vital lesson beyond the bowl. They teach us to honor the damaged and scarred parts of ourselves and others, embracing the vulnerable and imperfect aspects of our existence. This is at the heart of Namu Amida Butsu: Come as you are.

Often, because of these broken and imperfect sides of ourselves, we hide significant parts of who we are—peeking out from behind a curtain, wondering what the world outside is like. Rev. Kubose writes about our tendency to conceal parts of ourselves from the world.

He starts with a famous haiku written by Ryokan, a Zen monk, that we recite as part of our ceremony. 

Maple Leaf

Showing Front

Showing Back

Falling down.

Here is Gyomay Kubose Sensei’s commentary on the poem:

“When Ryokan saw the Maple Leaf falling, he could not help but talk to that leaf and say, “How wonderful you are. You don’t just show the front and try to hide the back; naturally, you are. 

I thought I was a monk with no double life, but I realized there still exists in me only a desire to show the front and hide the back but Maple Leaf to you the front and back are just the same. No pretensions no ego , no artificiality. 

How nice if I live like you front and back do not make it different.  I am I”

Namu Amida Butsu

Many of us struggle with feelings of shame, unworthiness, and imposter syndrome. We live in a culture that promotes relentless perfectionism. We aim for the perfect dinner, the perfect partner, the perfect job, the perfect vacation, the perfect friendships, the ideal retreat, the perfect meditation session, and the best spiritual teachers. This obsession with perfection isn’t limited to those who identify as perfectionists.

This ongoing, conscious, and unconscious striving can lead to a subtle but persistent sense of disappointment. It can disconnect us from life and even hinder our spiritual practice.  hose who see themselves as “perfectionists” understand the burden such perfectionism can impose. At the same time, humans feel uncomfortable with the idea of perfection because it is so alien to our experiences. Yet, this discomfort does not prevent us from striving for perfection.

Perhaps this drive stems from an internal narrative: if I can achieve perfection or come close to it, then I can be loved, feel safe, and maintain a sense of control. Our pursuit of perfection may be more closely tied to our insecurities, fears, and struggle to manage an unpredictable world. And here’s the rub –and irony of being human.  I love this from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa,

“We worship perfection because we can’t have it; if we had it, we would reject it. Perfection is inhuman, because humanity is imperfect.”

And in the words of Zen Master Yoshida Kenko, 

“When everything is carefully regulated, (perfect) it’s boring.”

Humanity is imperfect. We are imperfect. Thank the gods!

There is a unique way of looking at life in the East, particularly in Japanese Zen Buddhism. It comes from the insight of impermanence, which we have talked about before, and the idea that everything is already broken.  

Brokenness is inherent in all conditioned existence.

Kintsugi has a concept related to Japanese aesthetics called Wabi Sabi. At its core, Wabi Sabi is the appreciation of beauty in what is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature.

This perspective contrasts sharply with our Hellenistic origins. Wabi Sabi and Kintsugi teach us an important lesson about the nature of life. They emphasize the reality of impermanence and imperfection.

The truth is that we are all imperfect, we all experience brokenness, and yet we are all beautiful. There is something undeniably beautiful in that brokenness. I love the lines from Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

It’s OK not to be perfect. 

It’s OK to be broken, 

you can’t be otherwise.  

For those challenged with the word “broken,” I challenge you to play with it, look at it in the light, and take it apart. Broken is not negative – 

The tree breaks its seed to grow, and a mountain is adorned with broken stones. When our mothers break water, we are about to be born; we call it the break of dawn. When the morning star breaks the night, it was on such a morning that the Buddha awakened. Everything is born when it finally breaks free.

Some say that the cracks in a broken heart let the light in, but those very cracks allow the light of our inner luminosity to shine out.

I appreciate this powerful lesson from Nobuo Haneda, a modern Shin Master, who teaches that the most important virtue on the Buddhist path is not perfection or holiness but humility.

Our journey is not about achieving perfection but rather about embracing wholeness. Right View is the perspective we adopt when we begin to see things not as we wish they were but as they truly are. This shift occurs when we start letting go of our narratives about perfection and how we believe things should be. Rev. Gyomay Sensei wrote in *Everyday Suchness*:

“Modern man wears too many masks. We must unmask ourselves and be genuine, sincere, and live fully as we are.”

I dream of having a magical Kintsugi mirror that could reveal my true self, unmasking my face to show the golden joinery that represents my history. If we could gaze into that mirror, our faces would shine like the sun.

Our scars and wounds tell the story of our journey through the darkest nights, leading us to this moment together. However, we don’t need a magical mirror to start this process; we can simply allow ourselves and others to be exactly who they are. David Wong writes that we should focus on “integrating our wounds into who we are, rather than merely trying to repair and forget them.”

What I love about Kintsugi is that the cracks are not hidden or covered up but highlighted and celebrated. The broken pieces are integrated into the whole, creating something more beautiful—not in spite of the brokenness but because of it. The same can be said for each of us; we are more beautiful not despite our brokenness but because of it.

I would like to share a few lines from a poem by Teryn O’BrienO’brien

From Owning Our Scars

let us embrace our scars,

let us run, jump, and dance,

and bear our scars to the world.

let us rejoice that we are free

from hiding, free from shame.

we will turn our jagged faces 

and battered bodies

to the sunlit sky,

smiling and singing.

owning our scars,

for the scars of the world 

do not own us.

Our imperfections are what connect us. I think that is what Jeff Wilson, a Jodo Shin minister, was teaching when he said,

“There is one advantage to realizing that you’re never going to get it right: you do begin to stop expecting everyone else to get it right too, which makes for less frustration when other people turn out to be just as human as you are.”

That’s liberating. 

So.  As we go through our week I would like to encourage each of us to embrace our imperfections, to reveal our scars so that in the words of the poet Galway Kinnell we….

“Let our scars fall in love.”