If I had to condense Japanese art into a single principle, it would be opposition to any form of symmetry. In Japanese art, the absence of symmetry is a constant.

This principle can be extended to irregularity and incompleteness. According to the Japanese, all three of these concepts generate movement and instability, and are thus pregnant with possibilities.

If I had to choose a second principle, it would be minimalism. When in doubt, don't add but remove. Only minimalism allows the individual characteristics of objects to express themselves fully. Observe the stones above.

A third principle is time. The passage of time beautifies and obscures the hand of humankind. Observe the moss.

A fourth principle is naturalness – a naturalness that is usually entirely artificial. In Japanese gardens, the artificial appears natural, and vice versa. I recall once at Ninnaji Temple in Kyoto, I found myself wondering for a moment whether a dead cicada in the garden had been deliberately placed in the perfect position where it lay. I immediately realized this wasn't possible, but the fact that it occurred to me is significant.

A fifth principle is that of Yū-gen (幽玄), an elusive concept often translated as "profound grace" or "mysterious beauty," which – perhaps appropriately – I have never fully grasped. It is, in any case, an elegance that must be intuited rather than comprehended intellectually.

Beauty must provoke a detachment from the world.

Beauty must ultimately encompass silence within itself.

Note how all seven of these principles are clearly evident.

These are the seven principles of Zen aesthetics which, stripped of their religious background, have now become the cornerstones of Japanese aesthetics.