An unbearable court lady, a brilliant radar

I’ve been reaching for Sei Shōnagon for years: she is dazzling and mercilessly observant. But also malicious, and a bit of a snob. A genius friend who can make you laugh with a single sentence, and a moment later—with that same tone—knock you off balance. She delights, inspires, irritates, offends. Sometimes, when she pricks too precisely—it hurts—so I sulk and pretend I don’t see her “Makura no sōshi” on the shelf for a few months. Because how can one be so perceptive and at the same time so… brazenly snobbish? How can one read people and situations with such lightness, as if they were…? And yet I return. And every return makes me a little wiser—not because she “fixes” me, but because her gaze works like a mirror in which you can see not only the world, but also yourself: your limits, small ambitions, hidden habits of settling for “good enough.”

“Makura no sōshi,” that is, “The Pillow Book,” is, in truth, not a book in the sense we usually mean. It’s a casket for short forms: scenes, observations, mini-essays and—above all—lists. Lists of things that are “disappointing,” “fascinating,” “that make the heart beat faster”; lists so precise you read them like today’s feed: quickly, greedily, with that familiar “just one more.” Except after a few such “just one more” moments, you realize it isn’t entertainment. It’s training. A bit like mindfulness, only instead of “breathe” you get “name.” Instead of “calm your thoughts” you get “see the detail you usually don’t see.” And then: see what that detail says about you. Sometimes it says something unflattering. Sei doesn’t mind—she’ll tell the truth, whatever it is.

Today—so far as it’s possible in a short article—I want to show what her gaze has taught me over the years. Though she is a giant of classical Japanese literature from more than a thousand years ago, I somehow cannot see a monument in her. I see a living person—brilliant, refined and subtle, and also an unbearable girl, a malicious snob, a know-it-all, and yet truly wise. We’ll return today to quotations and lists from her “Makura no sōshi”: now to the delight in microscale, now to disappointments that expose falseness and lack of tact, now to senses that see “by traces,” and now to the things that quicken the pulse—without psychological padding, without pretending emotions are “pretty.” It isn’t always easy or pleasant. But in the end, time spent with Sei always teaches me something new—and opens my eyes to what I thought I already knew.

“Ugly things”

昼ほゆる犬、春の網代。三、四月の紅梅の衣。
(Hiru hoyuru inu, haru no ajirō. San, shi gatsu no kōbai no koromo.)

“A dog panting in the noon heat.
Spring ajirō (a woven net/fence).
A robe of red plum in the third, fourth month.”

It begins as if innocently, and yet this is one of those Sei openings after which you feel a light prick: “oh—she knows.” Because this is not a list of “ugly things” outright, but a catalogue of small aesthetic disappointments—those moments when the world promised an impression and then spoiled it, shifted it half a tone toward distaste.

Look at how the first image works: “a dog panting in the noon heat.” There is no compassion here. With Sei it is rather a note: here is a body that becomes too physical, breathes too loudly, too openly shows that it is an organism. The Heian court loved curtains, half-shadows, suggestion—and a panting dog is the negation of that delicacy. It is like someone who in an elegant conversation suddenly speaks too loudly or laughs a second too long. You know what I mean: nothing “terrible,” and yet the charm evaporates.

Then “spring ajirō”—a woven, practical thing that makes sense, but has no allure. And here Sei makes her favorite move: she takes an object completely unpoetic, a craftsman’s thing, and places it in the casket of feelings. As if she were saying: “Yes, yes—spring… but do we really want to remember spring through the prism of a net?” This is mindfulness and sharpening perception: not “take a breath,” but “look closely at what ruins the picture for you.” Name it. Don’t run from it.

And at the end: “a robe of red plum in the third, fourth month.” It sounds like a trifle for a snob (and it probably is, a little), but there is also a genius precision of the eye. Red plum—kōbai—has its moment: early, cool, still on the border of winter. If you wear it too late, you are late for the season, for the mood, for the entire emotional backdrop. It isn’t a moral error. It’s an error of rhythm. And rhythm—in Sei’s world—is everything.

And now the most interesting thing: that “malice” is in fact a form of tenderness toward the detail. She doesn’t grumble because she likes grumbling (though she does—we won’t pretend). She grumbles because she takes experience seriously. In today’s mindfulness you learn to return to the breath; with Sei you learn to return to nuances. To the fact that life doesn’t happen only in great events, but in a small mismatch: a dog in the heat, a net instead of flowers, a plum pattern worn a month too late.

And here is the lesson in “seeing like Sei,” very practical, very grown-up: begin to note your own “half-tones of disappointment.” Not to become a bitter aesthete. Only to regain sharpness of vision. Because when you can name what “breaks the spell,” you begin to feel much more strongly what the spell truly does.

And this is precisely how Sei teaches attentive looking: not through grand declarations, but through a microscope. She gives three images, each as short as a brush’s touch, and in a moment you begin to feel that these are not “things,” but a mode of seeing. The quotation above is only one of many examples. Seemingly nothing. Three ordinary things. And yet after that trio something in your head “clicks,” because suddenly you understand that the world is made of exactly such half-tones: slightly off, minimally too early, a hair too late, a little beauty, a little falseness.

And here comes that reflex of resistance: really? This is supposed to be that great Heian culture, that court “sublime,” “poetic,” “legendary”? Some list, three short shots—and the end? Except Sei isn’t trying to dazzle us with “poetry” in the schoolbook sense. She does something much harder: she forces us to feel the difference between the world and its version in our heads. In “Makura no sōshi” this logic returns again and again: the categories can be surprisingly prosaic, sometimes even brazen, but inside there is always precision—what in another person you would call nitpicking, with her can become a tool for tuning perception (though she can be a nitpicker too!). And when you begin to read her this way, the list stops being a list. It becomes an exercise.

Of course you can take offense at her. I have, many times. I would return after months or years, marvel like a child at how accurately she can name a trifle, and then suddenly hit a passage that smelled of snobbery so intensely you wanted to close the book. “What courtly arrogance,” you think. “How petty bourgeois—only in palace silk.” And then I would remind myself that snobbery has different faces. There is dull snobbery, which humiliates because it must. And there is snobbery that is rather an excessive fidelity to form, an obsession with rhythm, order, tone—sometimes irritating, but at times brilliant in what it reveals. Sei can be cruel in judgment, but she can be cruel with a grace that—paradoxically—leaves you more to think about than moralizing does.

You have to arm yourself as a reader. Be aware that she may prick you and you won’t even notice right away, because her malice is as subtle as shifting a robe’s pattern by one month. She can mock under her breath, she can cross someone out with a single shot—and if you feel like a clumsy elephant beside her, as I do, you may walk past the insult with a smile, and only at night will it catch you: “wait—did she…?” And so be it. If we want to learn her way of looking, we must accept that we are learning from a human being, not from a saint. Over the years I’ve felt a particular bond with that “unbearable girl”; she has become like a friend who sometimes tells the truth too sharply; sometimes delights in something so tiny it shames you; and sometimes plays a prank on you.

And then I return to her once more—to my Sei: malicious, a bit snobbish, sometimes unbearable, but brilliant in a way I appreciate more and more with age. Because the twenty-first century has its own “ajirō”: practical things that enter the frame of our lives and turn it into a net. It has its own “robes in the wrong month”: gestures and words out of rhythm, delayed emotions, the wrong reactions at the wrong time. And she, with all her courtly humor, teaches one thing: look as if the detail mattered—not because it is “pretty,” but because in the detail you can see the truth of the moment. And that is a lesson worth returning to, even if you return with a slight pout.

Rare things

ありがたきもの。舅にほめらるる婿。また、姑に思はるる嫁の君。毛のよく抜くるしろがねの毛抜。主そしらぬ従者。
(arigataki mono. shūto ni homeraru muko. mata, shūtome ni omowaruru yome no kimi. ke no yoku nukuru shirogane no kenuki. aruji soshiranu zusa.)

“A son-in-law praised by his father-in-law. Also, a daughter-in-law liked by her mother-in-law. Silver tweezers that truly pluck hairs well. A servant who does not gossip about his master.”

This is the whole Shōnagon mechanism in miniature: not a “story,” not a “moral,” but selection. Four concrete shots into the world—and suddenly you feel that reality has a structure, that you can recognize it by small facts. Because “rarity” is not abstraction here: it has the face of a father-in-law who (astonishingly) praises his son-in-law; it has the tension of a family hierarchy that (miraculously) doesn’t bite; it has the microphysics of everyday life (tweezers!), and it has the ethics of relations (a servant who doesn’t gossip about the master—or, translated into “ours”: an employee who doesn’t complain about the employer). This is mindfulness without incense: see how precisely you can name what usually dissolves into “ugh, people…”

And of course—her temperament shows through: the malicious observer who seems to talk about tweezers, and is in fact smuggling in a judgment of people. Because this is not only a list of “things”: it is a list of tests. Whom to like. Whom not to trust. What is beautiful, and what is embarrassing. Shōnagon doesn’t moralize directly—she looks so sharply that morality rises to the surface in the shape of a trifle. And that is precisely why those “rare things” click in your head like a great post in the feed or a brilliant meme: short, precise, with a hidden needle.

How her method works: the list as a lens, not an ornament

“Makura no sōshi” is not one smooth, flowing confessional book. It is rather a box of short forms: scenes, remarks, mini-essays, fragments of memory—and the lists in that box are something like its most addictive core: quick, sharp, rhythmic. You don’t need to know the entire history of the court in Heian-kyō to feel the удар: “elegant things,” “irritating things,” “things that gladden the heart”… these are categories you grasp immediately. And suddenly you catch yourself reading on as if it were today’s scroll—only instead of a fleeting chuckle you feel you are learning something important, something that will stay with you for a long time.

Here it is worth introducing a key word: ものづくし (monozukushi)—literally “enumerating things,” “a listing,” and in practice: a fully-fledged technique capable of conveying certain deep truths about the world. “Makura no sōshi” stands at the beginning of a tradition in which the list is raised to the rank of a literary form and a tool for ordering experience.

So it is not “Shōnagon’s whim” nor the caprice of a spoiled court lady. It is a Japanese way of taming the chaos of sensations: you take something fleeting, like a feeling, like “shame,” “irritation,” “delight,” you catch it in a title—and then you place beneath it something concrete. The list works like a lens: it gathers scattered light into one point until it starts to burn.

And that is why her enumerations can resemble today’s memes (in the best sense): short form, a strong filter, immediate recognition—and underneath, an entire philosophy of perception. A question I like to place beside her is: is the list a defense against the world’s excess, or a tool to feel it more intensely? With Shōnagon usually… both at once.

Sei’s life

雪のいと高う降りたるを、例ならず御格子参りて、炭櫃に火おこして、物語などして集まり候ふに、
「少納言よ。香炉峰の雪いかならむ。」
と仰せらるれば、御格子上げさせて、御簾を高く上げたれば、笑はせ給ふ。
人々も
「さることは知り、歌などにさへ歌へど、思ひこそよらざりつれ。なほ、この宮の人にはさべきなめり。」
と言ふ。
(Yuki no ito takō furu taru o, rei narazu migōshi mairite, sumibitsu ni hi okoshite, monogatari nado shite atsumari sōrō ni,
“Shōnagon yo. Kōro-hō no yuki ikanaramu.”
to ōserarureba, migōshi age sasete, misu o takaku agetareba, warawase tamau.
Hitobito mo,
“Saru koto wa shiri, uta nado ni sae utaedo, omoi koso yorarazaritsure. Nao, kono miya no hito ni wa sabekinameri.”
to iu.)

“The snow had fallen so high, and meanwhile—unusually—the lattice shutters had been lowered. Charcoal was lit in the brazier, and we court ladies gathered, chatting about various things.
Then Her Highness said:
‘Shōnagon… what does the snow look like on Kōro Peak?’
So I had the lattice shutters raised and lifted the bamboo blinds high. Her Highness burst out laughing.
And others said:
‘We know those words and even quote them in poems, and yet it never occurred to us… Clearly this is the kind of person who ought to serve in this palace.’”

The first thing that comes to mind? This is not a holy, contemplative person. This is a woman with reflexes. Teishi tosses out a half-sentence allusion to Chinese poetry, and Sei—instead of explaining, debating, shining with a definition—makes a gesture. She opens the world. She raises the lattice shutters, rolls up the blinds, lets the snow inside. Everything is in this scene: her intelligence, her theatrical instinct, her desire “to do it better than the others”… but also something that softens me toward her: the readiness to answer with action, not commentary. She understands that court culture is not only knowledge—it is a feel for the moment.

The second thing? This is a passage in which her “snobbery” begins to look different. Because yes: there is ranking here, there is a public flash of brilliance, there is that small courtly satisfaction (“I got it, you didn’t”). But at the same time it is also a beautiful loyalty to Teishi: being the one who “catches” her lady mid-flight, understands her allusions, can answer in the same cipher. And that immediately tells us who Sei was in practice: not a solitary writer by candlelight, but someone immersed in a dense tissue of relationships, rivalry and subtle tests—and in that environment she had the temperament of a sprinter, not a dreamer. Looking at her without that prism of constant competition in refinement, we may fail to understand a great deal.

All right—so now: who was she?

Sei Shōnagon entered the court around the years 993–994 (she was then in her twenties—how old exactly we don’t know, because Sei’s date of birth is unknown) as a lady-in-waiting in the entourage of Empress Teishi (Sadako)—young, intelligent, surrounded by a circle of talented women who helped create her radiance. And this matters: Sei was not a solitary meteor. She was part of a “team”—a literary-social circle whose significance was political, because the Heian court was a world in which reputation was built and lost through style, poetry, correspondence, and manners. In “Makura no sōshi” you feel this constantly: she doesn’t describe “the system,” only life in the system—through small scenes, as if you were standing beside her and hearing the whisper of silk.

And then that bubble began to burst. The political earthquake after the death of Teishi’s father (995), the rise of the rival Fujiwara no Michinaga, the exile of Teishi’s brothers (996), the decline of her position, until finally Teishi’s death in 1000—and with her, the sudden end of that world which had been Sei’s home and stage. And here is something very characteristic of her style: scholars note that she rarely speaks of these catastrophes directly—rather she skirts them, stitches them into allusions, as if choosing not to grant history the right to direct her sensitivity. This is not a lack of depth or indifference. It is her way of survival: her “self” stays alive through the trifle, through observation, through the list—through what can still be named when the great things slip out of control.

What was she like? She could be malicious, proud, sometimes far too sure of herself (you can see it in the snow scene too). But this is not pride in a vacuum. It is confidence forged in a world where a woman had to act “in half-shadow”—with voice, gesture, letter, scent, quick association. And still, after a thousand years, you can know her not from dates but from these tiny gestures: a lifted blind, a glint in the eye, a small prick she leaves in the reader—and that strangely motivates you to look more attentively.

And one more thing: “Sei Shōnagon” is not her “first and last name” in our sense—it is rather a court signature. We do not know her real given name at all (women at court often functioned under nicknames and titles). “Sei” (清) is a reading of the first character of the clan name Kiyohara (清原), from which she came, and “Shōnagon” (少納言) is the name of an office (“minor councillor” or “lesser controller”)—a title used for her regardless of whether she herself actually held it or whether it was connected to someone close to her. In other words: the entire Heian court is already embedded in that name—a world in which a woman’s identity was formed from the lineage of her ancestors and the official function of the nearest man—father, brother, husband.

The lesson of “Things okashi”

春はあけぼの。やうやう白くなりゆく山ぎは、少しあかりて、紫だちたる雲の細くたなびきたる。
夏は夜。月のころはさらなり。闇もなほ。螢の多く飛び違ひたる。
また、ただ一つ二つなど、ほのかにうち光りて行くもをかし。雨など降るもをかし。
(Haru wa akebono. Yōyō shiroku narayuku yamagiwa, sukoshi akarite, murasadachitaru kumo no hosoku tanabikitaru.
Natsu wa yoru. Tsuki no koro wa sarinari. Yami mo nao. Hotaru no ōku tobichigaitaru.
Mata, tada hitotsu futatsu nado, honoka ni uchihikarite yuku mo okashi. Ame nado furu mo okashi.)

“In spring—dawn. As the mountain’s edge slowly grows white, brightening a little, thin bands of purplish clouds trail faintly.
In summer—night. In moonlight, of course. But also in darkness, too. When fireflies fly thickly, crossing their paths.
And also when only one or two slip by, glowing faintly, delicately—that too is ‘okashi.’ And rain, when it falls at night, is also ‘okashi.’”

This is Sei in her purest form: she does not tell a “story” about nature, does not sing a hymn to the seasons, does not try to move us with a grand theme. No—she sets our focus, provokes us to feel and think for ourselves what she decided not to write. “In spring—dawn” could be a postcard, but with her spring begins only when you see the “mountain’s edge,” “a little light,” and those “thin bands of cloud.” In summer she doesn’t say “night is beautiful.” She breaks night into variants: full moon, darkness, a crowd of fireflies, and then the best detail—one or two. This is her microscale: wonder is born not from grandeur, but from precision.

And here enters a word that is translated in various ways; I usually prefer it in the original: “okashi” (in Sei: “をかし,” today “おかし”). This word does not mean only “pretty.” It contains charm, freshness, sometimes something amusing, sometimes something that simply “works” on the senses. It can mislead, because in modern Japanese it is used somewhat as “how strange” or “how funny.” With Sei, however, it has its older meaning—charm, delight, a kind of tender pleasure with the intellect involved—beauty that is light, but not silly. Something between the beauty of nature and the sweetness of kawaii (but not foolish). Most important, however, is that with Sei “okashi” is not a final verdict—it is a signal: stop, this has value.

That is precisely why her lists and notes work like training. They do not teach “calm your thoughts,” they teach: “be careful—don’t miss it.” If you can notice “one or two fireflies,” it means you can also notice “one or two” moments in your day—small, barely glowing, but real.

The mature wisdom of that young girl lies in this: she does not pretend life is only lofty. Her delight is genuine, but not heavenly: it walks on the ground, sits on a threshold, catches on a trifle. It is a decision: the more small things you can recognize as worth noticing, the less the world has to “save” you with a great event. And this is, paradoxically, very un-naive: great things can be rare and beyond control, while trifles are everywhere—but only for the one whose eyes are open.

If we wanted to take one practice from her for today, let it be this: don’t ask in the evening “what important thing happened?”, but ask “what was my one firefly?” Something small: a band of cloud above an apartment block, the sound of a kettle, someone’s look in the tram, a sentence that stayed with you. And then try to do what Sei does: name it as precisely as possible. Not “it was nice,” but “in the darkness, when I was already tired of the day, I saw one thing that barely glowed” (I know—my description is not as airy as Sei’s; I would not dare compete with the mistress). With her, mindfulness is not a fight with thoughts. Mindfulness is the art of naming—and in that naming the world suddenly becomes richer, more inhabited, less “whatever.”

And one more thing: Sei is not always “nice” (I would even say she is nice rather rarely). Her eye can be sharp, sometimes cruel, sometimes snobbish. But in this fragment her most precious side appears: the ability to be faithful to what is delicate. She does not say “love life.” She shows what life looks like and makes us, by ourselves, ready to love life. The world is, every day, capable of surprising us with something interesting. We only have to give it a chance and, sometimes, open our eyes.

Let us end the lesson with this fragment:

をりにつけても、ひとふしあはれともをかしとも聞きおきつるものは、草・木・鳥・虫もおろかにこそおぼえね。
(Ori ni tsukete mo, hitofushi aware tomo okashi tomo kikiokitsuru mono wa, kusa ki tori mushi mo oroka ni koso oboene.)

“It is enough that once, on some occasion, I hear something that lodges in my memory as ‘aware’ or ‘okashi’—and from that moment on I can no longer treat even grasses, trees, birds, or insects as trivial.”

The lesson of “Irritating things”

がっかりするもの。客の来たるに、物のおもしろく語り合ひたるほどに、思ひたがへず入り来る。
墨おろす硯に、毛のありて、すりはててのちに見つけたる。
墨のなかに砂のまじりたる。
加持をする法師の、眠り入りたる。
(Gakkari suru mono. Kyaku no kitaru ni, mono no omoshiroku katarai-taru hodo ni, omoita gaezu irikuru.
Sumi orosu suzuri ni, ke no arite, surihatete nochi ni mitsuketaru.
Sumi no naka ni suna no majiritaru.
Kaji o suru hōshi no, nemuri iritaru.)

“Disappointing things. When you are just telling something interesting, conversing at the very best point—and exactly then someone comes in, as if on purpose.
A hair on the inkstone: only when you have already ground the ink all the way do you notice it.
A grain of sand that has mixed into the ink.
A monk performing a protective rite—and falling asleep in the middle of it.”

This is the moment when our Sei becomes even more… herself. Because it seems like nothing but complaining. Trifles. A hair. Sand. A guest who enters at the worst second. And yet, if you listen carefully, it isn’t a list of “bad mood.” It is a list of fractures in rhythm. For her, the most painful are not catastrophes, but those microscopic jolts that spoil the mood, destroy flow, expose lack of sensitivity. Notice: the first point does not say “I don’t like guests.” It says: “I don’t like people who have no feel for the moment.” And that is a completely different diagnosis.

The second and third points are masterful, because they show her sensitivity to a tiny defect that reveals itself only later. A hair on the suzuri discovered only when the ink is already ground—this sounds like a joke, but it is also a portrait of her mind: she suffers at the sight of things that ruin the effect not because they are big, but because they are small, slight, yet they are a scratch on perfection. Sand in the ink—the same type of disappointment: something that was meant to be smooth suddenly begins to grind. And the monk sleeping during the rite? Here Sei is cruel and funny at once: she doesn’t have to comment. The image alone is enough. The rite is meant to protect you from evil, and “protection” falls asleep. The disappointment is total, because it touches not an object, but trust.

And now the most important: for Sei, “disappointment” is a way of reading the world as a social text. That guest who enters “perfectly” at the worst moment is not only bad luck. It is someone who cannot be delicate toward another’s conversation. It is a lack of tact, a lack of what today we might call attentiveness to others—in Japanese often described with the word omoiyari, that is, a sensitivity that anticipates and spares another person before they have to say anything (more about omoiyari in contemporary Japan you can read here: Omoiyari and the Culture of Intuition – The Deepest Difference Between the European and Japanese Mindsets?). Sei is like a scalpel: she does not shout, does not moralize, only notes. And we, reading, suddenly see that “tact” is not an abstraction. It is concrete: to enter or not to enter, to interrupt or not to interrupt. It is the ability to feel the necessity of a pause.

There is also something perversely wise in her lists: she levels things and people. A hair on the stone, sand in the ink, a badly chosen moment of entry, a sleeping monk—everything goes into one sack, as if she were saying: “the world always goes wrong in the same way: through lack of sensitivity.” It is comic in its impudence. But it is also mature, because she does not pretend she is irritated only by “great unethical behavior.” She is irritated also by the small squeaking of reality. And I think each of us knows this: sometimes what throws you off balance is not “drama,” but that one tiny detail that cancels peace. So small and so trivial that it’s embarrassing to admit it (even to yourself).

The practical lesson here is simple and very effective: check what irritates you. Not to drown in it, but to see where your boundaries are and what you are sensitive to. If what irritates you most is “people with no feel for the moment,” perhaps your value is silence, intimacy of conversation, rhythm. If what irritates you is “tiny defects” (hair, sand), perhaps you need quality and closure. Or a fight with your perfectionism. And if what irritates you is “a sleeping monk,” perhaps it is that you cannot stand trust being abused. Sei doesn’t give us a recipe for calm. She gives us a map: how to draw knowledge of yourself from ordinary situations around you. And when you see it, it becomes easier to speak with people, easier to set boundaries, easier also… sometimes to let go. Because not every “hair on the suzuri” is the end of the world—but it is worth knowing why it pricks so sharply.

And that is Sei’s brilliant malice: she pinches us so we can see the truth about ourselves. She isn’t always nice. But she can be extraordinarily helpful—like a friend who looks and says: “You know what really hurts you, don’t you?” “Well? You do, don’t you?”

The lesson of “Fascinating things”

心にくきもの。
ものへだてて聞くに、女房とはおぼえぬ手の、しのびやかにをかしげに聞こえたるに、こたへやかやかにして、うちそよめきて参るけはひ。
もののうしろ、障子などへだてて聞くに、御膳参るほどにや、箸、匙など、とりまぜて鳴りたる、をかし。
ひさげの柄の倒れ伏すも、耳こそとまれ。
(Kokoro ni kuki mono.
Mono hedate te kiku ni, nyōbō to wa oboenu te no, shinobiyaka ni okashige ni kikoe taru ni, kotae kayakaya ni shite, uchi soyomekite mairu kehahi.
Mono no ushiro, shōji nado hedate te kiku ni, gozen mairu hodo ni ya, hashi, saji nado, torimazete naritaru, okashi.
Hisage no e no taorefusu mo, mimi koso tomare.)

“When you hear, through a partition, the quiet clap of hands—so discreet and elegant you wouldn’t expect it of a court lady—and right after that comes a fresh, young reply and the rustle of silk: someone is approaching.
When, from behind sliding doors on the other side, you sense that a meal is being served: the sounds of chopsticks, spoons, and vessels mingle—that too is fascinating.
And when suddenly a pitcher’s handle falls and clinks against metal—then your ear stops short.”

This is one of those moments when Sei does something only she can do: she builds a scene without an image. You see exactly… nothing. A partition, paper, a curtain. And yet in your head an entire human presence appears: their tact, tempo, softness of movement, quality of voice. “Indirect perception”—I’m not looking straight, I’m recognizing by traces. With Sei, mindfulness doesn’t mean “stare at a candle flame.” It means hearing how someone claps and already knowing whether the gesture is vulgar or beautiful. Very Heian in style, because the court lived in half-shadow: behind curtains, screens, within an architecture that protected privacy and at the same time theatricalized it. If not everything is visible—then all the more what betrays it matters: rustle, clink, a pause in the voice, scent.

There is something else in this fragment—very contemporary. Sei is basically saying: “Don’t evaluate people only when they stand before you in full light. Learn to read them earlier.” Sounds a bit snobbish? A bit at odds with our contemporary sensitivity of non-judgment? A bit, yes. But even this advice has its message: a person’s style is revealed before they utter an “important sentence.” In the way they enter a room. In whether their movements are calm or aggressive. In how they “set down a pitcher.”

And here a small, living note almost begs to be made: Sei would be excellent in the twenty-first century at those descriptions we often ignore. “That guy closes the car door as if he wanted to win an argument.” “That person says ‘good morning’ as if signing the attendance sheet.” Or, conversely: “The way someone hands you a mug has so much softness in it that you immediately feel safer.” These are my poor attempts—Sei would sum us up better. And it isn’t hunting for flaws. It is reading the world with the senses—and a bit of inference that is not gossip, but intelligence of perception.

If this lesson is to have practical meaning, it might sound like this: for one day, catch three things you don’t see directly, but that betray the world’s presence. A sound behind a wall. A brief clink of dishes in a café. Someone’s step on a stairwell. And ask yourself: what do I infer from it? Not to judge—only to exercise sensitivity. Because here Sei teaches that mindfulness is not only “looking.” Mindfulness is the art of recognizing—from half-shadow, from echo, from scent, from a small ring. And then: leaving space for that ring inside you, before it vanishes.

The lesson of "Things that make the heart beat faster"

心ときめきするもの。
雀のこがひ。
ちごあそばする所の前わたりたる。
よき薫物たきて一人臥したる。
唐の鏡のすこしくらき見たる。
よき男の車とゞめて物いひあないせさせたる。
かしらあらひけさうじて、かうばしうしみたる衣など着たる、殊に見る人なき所にても心のうちはなほをかし。
待つ人などある夜、雨のあし、風の吹きゆるがすも、ふとぞおどろかるゝ。

(Kokoro tokimeki suru mono.
Suzume no ko gai.
Chigo asobasu tokoro no mae wataritaru.
Yoki takimono takite hitori fushitaru.
Kara no kagami no sukoshi kuraki mitaru.
Yoki otoko no kuruma todomete mono ii anai sesasetaru.
Kashira arai kesōjite, kōbashū shimitaru koromo nado kitaru, koto ni miru hito naki tokoro ni temo, kokoro no uchi wa nao ito okashi.
Matsu hito nado aru yoru, ame no ashi, kaze no fuki yurugasu mo, futo zo odorokaruru.)

“To feed young sparrows.
To pass by a place where small children are playing.
To burn fine incense and lie down alone.
To notice that a Chinese mirror has darkened a little, has grown slightly clouded.
To see an elegant man stop his carriage and have a servant announce his arrival.
To wash your hair, make your toilette, and put on fragrant robes—even if no one sees you, inside there is still a particular pleasure in it.
And when at night one is waiting for someone: the sudden sound of rain, a gust of wind that moves the shutter—and one startles instinctively.”

This is one of my favorite Sei lists. Here she throws into one sack tenderness, anticipation, something on the edge of fear, and something we might call vanity—and feels no shame about it. Sparrows feeding their young: tenderness, but also a small tension. Children playing: softening, movement, life’s chaos. Incense and lying alone: pure sensory pleasure, without alibi. A mirror slightly clouded: a small unease that beauty and order nevertheless wear out. A gentleman’s carriage at the gate: the excitement of meeting, the social game, prestige, inference. And then: “even when no one sees” — that sentence is like a small Sei smile, her kind: “yes, I do this for myself and I like it.”

And look how she names it: “the heart beats faster.” Not “I am happy.” Not “I feel anxious.” Not “I practice mindfulness.” Only physiology—pulse. Which means: no psychological padding, no explaining oneself. A simple observation: something in me reacts. And that is her mindfulness of emotion: she does not separate “senses” from “feelings” and does not pretend that a human being and their soul are separate from the physical world. With her, emotions are like weather: a bit warm, a bit damp, a sudden gust, a slight shiver—and all of it is worth recording, because it is life in its true, mixed form.

Contemporary mindfulness often begins with “return to the breath.” That can be needed, sure. But Sei offers a different gate, perhaps more for those who do not want to “calm down by force” right away: observe what quickens your pulse—and name it without shame. You can even turn it into an exercise: for a week, make your own list of “things that make the heart beat faster” (without separating them by the kind of emotion that raises the pulse). And do not censor it. Let there be “beautiful” things (e.g., the smell after rain), “strange” things (e.g., an elevator creaking at night), “ambitious” things (e.g., an email from someone important), “small” things (e.g., a cat on a windowsill), and “a bit vain” things (e.g., that a shirt sits well on you). Then read it like Sei: not as a declaration of who you are “in general,” but as a map of micro-tensions out of which your life is made.

Because that is the greatest value of this list: it shows that maturity does not mean always having a “calm heart.” Maturity means being able to recognize when the heart speeds up from tenderness, when from fear, when from hope, and when simply from the pleasure of being yourself—even if no one is watching. And that is a lesson our Sei can give without a single lecture: only a few sentences, written as if in one breath.

Resolution of Perception

人の心のうちは、言はぬがまさり。
(Hito no kokoro no uchi wa, iwanu ga masari.)

“What lies inside a human heart is, more often, better left unsaid.”

This sentence is like her small, cool smile. Sei can be tender, she can be delighted by a firefly and a raindrop, but she can also look at a person in such a way that the person suddenly feels as if under a microscope. Even now, as I write this article, leafing again and again through “Makura no sōshi” and trying to assemble a text from it—I straighten my back. As if I feared she would see everything I try to hide: sloppiness, pose, a dishonest gesture, a false smile. She would see it faster than I would. And worse: she might not even comment. Her silence would suffice. That is the kind of friend she is.

Such a relationship in real life would be horribly uncomfortable. No one wants someone beside them who recognizes a person by how their entrance “sounds”; who hears in the clink of dishes what sits at the very bottom of someone’s soul; who can read from the tone of “good morning” what that whole day has truly been for me. And yet—paradox—it can be endured because more than a thousand years separate us. Perhaps because her sharpness is written on paper: I can read it, I can take offense, I can step away, I can return. In real life I wouldn’t have that control. Holding the book—I do. And that is precisely why her gaze, even so merciless, becomes a gift: it allows me to see what I would try to hide—from the world, from myself, and certainly—from her.

Because in the end those lists are not only about the outer world. When Sei says “disappointing things,” when she notes small falsities of rhythm and tact, we—readers—begin to check our own reactions. What irritates me? What moves me? What quickens my pulse? What do I consider “okashi,” and what “gakkari” (that Japanese onomatopoeic word describing a state of disappointment, like a sinking inside.)? And when we begin to compose such categories ourselves, it quickly turns out that classification is a mirror. If my lists are full of things that disappoint me, perhaps I need calm, quality, closure—or simply rest. If my lists burst with tiny delights, perhaps I still have in me a fidelity to microscale that adulthood often loses. And in both cases—I get to know myself. Not in theory. In practice, in reaction.

Sei is not meant to “fix” us. She is not a therapist, not a teacher of morality, not a saint. She is someone much more interesting: a friend of resolution. She turns up the focus of the world. She teaches that life does not have to consist of great moments to be dense; that it can be built from “one or two fireflies,” from the clink of a spoon, from a raindrop on a shutter, from the tension of waiting. And at the same time she teaches something difficult: that our gestures and our “nothing in particular” truly say something about us—and that it is worth seeing it before we begin to over-explain ourselves.

That is why this friendship with her gaze is strange, but good. Sometimes there is delight. Sometimes I roll my eyes and think, “Sei, seriously?” Sometimes I want to be offended by her snobbery, by her brazen judgments, by that certainty that she knows better. And then I return—because she, even when she is unbearable, always gives something rare: not ready-made wisdom, but a tool. The list as a lens. The sentence as a needle. The category as a mirror. And once you have seen the world through her eye, you can’t entirely “unsee” it.

>> SEE ALSO SIMILAR ARTICLES:

The Author of the World's First Novel: Meet the Strong and Stubborn Murasaki Shikibu (Heian, 973)

Twilight in Japanese literature: kuregata — when the world loses its sharpness, and the human being their illusions

Goze: Blind Female Artists of Feudal Japan – Dignity in a Journey through Snow and Rejection

Kemari – A Ball Game from Medieval Japan That Taught Self-Control Instead of Competition

Fūryū. Listening to How the World Blows.

"Strong Japanese Women"

see book by the author

of the page

    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

Write us...

Ciechanów, Polska

dr.imyon@gmail.com

___________________

inari.smart

Would you like to share your thoughts or feedback about our website or app? Leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you quickly. We value your perspective!