What Is Seijaku? Meaning, Kanji, and the Japanese Idea of Stillness

Seijaku (静寂, pronounced "say-jah-koo") is the Japanese word for stillness: a quiet deep enough that your mind goes quiet with it. You find it in a forest at night, beside a lake when there is no wind, or in the empty hall of a temple.

I'm Ryushi Nagata. I was born in Tokyo, I live by the sea in Chigasaki, and I run the MA walls, where one of our collections is called Stillness. This guide explains what seijaku means, how it differs from ordinary quiet, why it is so closely linked to Japanese ink painting, and how to make room for it at home.

What does seijaku mean?

Seijaku is written with two characters.

So the word joins "quiet" to the gentle loneliness of sabi. It is a slightly formal, literary word. You would not use it for a quiet office. You would use it for a mountain at night.

Quiet and stillness are not the same

Japanese has an ordinary word for quiet, shizuka (静か). To me the two words do different jobs.

Shizuka states a fact: at this moment there is no noise. Seijaku goes further. It includes what the quiet does to you. Your mind settles, and you feel safe.

When I hear the word, three places come to mind: deep in a natural forest, the edge of a lake late at night, and the inside of a temple or shrine hall when nobody else is there.

Quiet is when there is no sound. Stillness is when the quiet reaches you.

The quietest night I remember

The stillest moment of my life so far was on a camping trip. It was late at night and I was lying on a cot, looking up at the stars. It was early in the season, so there were hardly any insects yet. Everyone else was asleep. It was truly quiet.

I felt completely at rest. As far as I could see there was almost nothing but stars, and I had the sense that I had become part of the ground I was lying on. I stayed like that, and after a while it began to feel as if I might fall upwards, into the sky.

Small sounds make it deeper

Seijaku is not the same as total silence. Often it is a small sound that tells you how quiet a place is. You hear something you would never normally hear, a river a long way off for example, and that is the moment you notice the stillness.

Japan has a famous poem about this. In the 17th century the poet Bashō visited a mountain temple in summer and wrote a haiku that says, roughly: such stillness, the cry of the cicadas sinks into the rocks. The insects are loud, and the place is still.

Where I find it now

Not at home. I have three children and the house is loud with play, so stillness is not something I can make there. I find it when we go camping: lying back to look at the stars, or watching the fire.

In Chigasaki, I find it at the sea in the early morning. There are few cars at that hour. When I paddle out to surf, the only thing I can hear is the waves, and that is a comfortable sound in itself. It settles me.

Is stillness different in Japan?

From my time in the UK and travelling in Europe, I would say the stillness of nature felt the same there as it does at home. What is different is the stillness inside an old shrine or temple. It has a quality of its own, and I think it is something you can only really experience in Japan.

Stillness in ink: sumi-e

Sumi-e (墨絵) is Japanese ink painting: black ink, water, a brush and paper. It came to Japan from China with Zen monks, and it has always been tied to stillness. A painter uses very few strokes and leaves most of the paper empty.

In Japan, children start calligraphy lessons in elementary school. I was never good at writing neatly, to be honest, but I liked those lessons. The part I liked most came before any writing: rubbing a solid ink stick on a wet inkstone until the water turned black. I still write out my resolutions for the year with a brush every New Year.

I think black and white pictures appeal to me for a similar reason. With so few colours, my attention is not pulled in different directions. And there is a second pleasure: looking at a world drawn only in black and in empty space, and filling in the colours myself.

How to bring seijaku into your home

1. Give one corner very little

You do not need a quiet house. One chair, one surface or one wall that is kept clear is enough to start.

2. Use fewer colours there

Black, white, grey and one natural tone. The fewer colours in view, the less your attention is divided.

3. Let small sounds be heard

Turn off background music and screens for a while. Rain, wind, a kettle, a clock: you notice stillness when you can hear things like these.

4. Keep one slow routine

Making tea, writing by hand, grinding ink. Something that cannot be hurried and that you do without talking.

5. Go out when it is quiet

Very early, or late at night. Ten minutes outdoors at those hours does more than an hour in the middle of the day.

Choosing stillness wall art

Our Stillness collection has seven pieces in the spirit of sumi-e, in black, grey and pale tones. Still Water is a lake so calm it works as a mirror. Mist Valley is mountains fading into fog. Mountain Breath is a single peak above its reflection. Moon is a pale moon over a distant ridge. Winter Branch is one bare branch with snow on it. Bamboo in Wind is a single stem bending. One Stroke is one brush mark.

My favourite is Still Water. The trees are reflected so sharply in the lake that you know there is not a breath of wind, and you can feel how still the air is.

I would hang these where you go to calm down, or where you need to concentrate: a bedroom, a study, a desk.