Wabi stems from the root wa, -harmony, tranquility, balance. Wabi's roots connoted sadness, desolation, and the morose, but now carries a more positive nuance: simple, humble, and attuned to nature. Someone who is perfectly herself, and never craves to be anything else, is wabi.
"The joy of the little monk in his wind-torn robe" is wabi. A wabi tea-man feels no dissatisfaction even though he owns no Chinese utensils with which to conduct tea. Zen is wabi, content with very little and free from indolence or anger. An understanding of the wisdom of rocks and grasshoppers.
Undertones of abandonment cling to the word, sometimes used to describe the helpless feeling you have when waiting for your lover. It also carries a hint of dissatisfaction in its underhanded criticism of gaud and ostentation.
Sabi by itself means "the bloom of time." It connotes the natural progression of tarnish, hoariness, rust -the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled. It's the understanding that beauty is fleeting. The word's meaning has changed over time, from its ancient definition, "to be desolate," to the more neutral "to grow old." By the thirteenth century, sabi's meaning had evolved into taking pleasure in things that were old and faded. A proverb emerged: "Time is kind to things, but unkind to man."
