“Because nonbeing longs for being, on occasion it creates a stronger sense of being than being itself. It is difficult to sustain the purity of white because it is so easily contaminated; its beauty strikes us with such power because of our painful awareness of its transience.” p. 002

“In this regard, color is not understood through our visual sense alone, but through all our senses.” p.003

“White is a particular unusual color because it can also be seen as the absence of color. In the old days, Japanese referred to the latent possibilities that exist prior to an event taking place as kizen. Insofar as white contains the latent possibility of transforming into other colors, it can be seen as kizen.” p. 008 

“White can be attained by blending all the colors of the spectrum together, or through the subtraction of ink and all other pigments. In short, it is “all colors” and “no color” at the same time. This identity as a color that can “escape color” makes white very special. Not only does white´s texture powerfully evoke the materiality of objects; white can also contain temporal and spatial principles like ma (an interval of space and time) and yohaku (empty margin), or abstract concepts such as nonexistence and zero.” p. 008

“White can be seen as the basic form of life or information that emerges from chaos; it is that extreme form of negative entropy that is bound and determined to make a clean escape. Life radiates color, while the innate tendency of white is to escape color to reach the opposite side of chaos. Life comes into this world wearing white, but it begins to acquire color the instant it assumes concrete form and touches the earth, like a yellow chick emerging from a white egg. White can never be made manifest in the real world. We may feel that we have come into contact with white, but that is just an illusion. In the real world, white is always contaminated and impure. It is no more than a vestige, a sign pointing towards its origins. White is delicate and fragile. From the moment of its birth it is no longer perfectly white, and when we touch it we pollute it further, though we may not realize it. Yet, all the more because of this, it stands out clearly in our consciousness.” p. 010

“When white emerges from boundless chaos, it becomes information, namely, life.” p. 012

“Yet because paper is so ubiquitous today, we take it entirely for granted, forgetting its special significance. As I argued in the previous chapter, white appears but rarely in daily life. Our imaginations have been incalculably altered as a result of having given that principle of whiteness material existence in the form of a thin, stiff sheet. Thus, although the invention of paper is generally described as the invention of “writing material,” its practical application is less important than its “imaginative” impact.” p. 014

“Paper is much more than a “writing material.” Insofar as its “whiteness” symbolizes life and information, it is a catalyst that stimulates the mental processes of all human beings.” p. 016

“The whiteness and resilience of paper have similarly stimulated human desire. Paper is not merely an inorganic material, a neutral surface used for printing letters and pictures. Rather, the qualities of paper have drawn people into an extended dialogue, which has enriched their capacity to express themselves. Books can be understood as an important tool to carry this dialogue forward.” p. 018

“If we look at books as a medium whose main function is to store letters, then perhaps the factors underlying this trend are practicality and efficiency.” p. 027

” … I want to verify that characters as a “form” within a flat square surface constituted a fully developed aesthetic that transcended their linguistic use. Paper`s seductive power led to the steady growth of knowledge, quickly joined by a new sense of beauty. In short, paper evolved into a medium that recorded and preserved intellectual and aesthetic achievement.” p. 028

“Letters became independent objects through the sheer fact of being printed in black on white paper.” p. 032

“The Meaning of Emptiness

In some cases, white denotes “emptiness.” White as noncolor transforms into a symbol of nonbeing. Yet emptiness doesn´t mean “nothingness” or “energy-less”; rather, in many cases, it indicates a condition, or kizen, which will likely be filled with content in the future. On the basis of this energy for communication.

A creative mind, in short, does not see an empty bowl as valueless, but perceives it as existing in a transitional state, waiting for the content that will eventually fill it; and this creative between kuhaku, or “emptiness,” and the color white is established through this communicative process.” p. 036

“An empty state possesses a chance of becoming by virtue of its receptive nature. The mechanism of communication is activated when we look at an empty vessel, not as a negative state, but in terms of its capability to be filled with something.” p. 039

“Precisely because this space is designed to be “empty,” there is always the possibility that something may enter it This “may” is crucial too – it can be seen as the essence of Shinto, the thing that activates people´s minds and leads them to prayer.” p. 039

“A Shinto shrine, adorned with the natural objects used in ritual, is where the gods are welcomed; the knots atop the four pillars signal that the space has been completed.

…

Because the basic principle of the yashiro is its emptiness, it functions as a vessel to receive people´s thoughts and wishes.” p. 041

“… represents its power in terms of the chance of becoming.” p. 042

“To “inquire” is predicated on “I think” – it establishes that emptiness that sets our brains to work.” p. 059

“In this fashion, emptiness carries our thinking process forward.” p. 060

“Refined beauty cannot be produced by short-term effort – it can only be established through a long process of cleaning and polishing that enables a human being and his natural surroundings to coexist as one body.” p. 068