The idea of the shadowy world extended outdoors as well. The traditional roji¹¹ ("dewy path") through which one walked in order to reach the tea hut is a good example of how trees were planted with careful attention to create the impression of walking through a dim forest. It was the same concept with garden illumination as in the room interior. Instead of hanging lights from trees, stone lanterns were always placed on the ground, reinforcing the mood through a dark above (Fig. 7). The tenuous dim path that led to an ancient Shinto shrine was a similar device to enhance the mood of solitude and tranquility through the idea of the shadowy world. Once again, it emulated the dark and gloomy forest path that kept getting thicker and more intense in its darkness as it progressed. Thus in ancient Japan, one progressed from light to darkness on the path to the shrine, not darkness to light. Metaphorically, one progressed from the secular world of light to the sacred dark world of the spirit, to the personal void, shutting out all things from the mundane world to worship the kami-gami ("spirits").

Several notions of dimness and darkness are manifested in Japanese tradition--the traditional Noh¹² technique of drama used darkness as a backdrop through which emotions were expressed by altering the shadows on the actor's masks, which was achieved by changing the incidence of light in the dim temple interior. Tanizaki Junichiro's seminal writing, In Praise of Shadows (In'ei Raisan), clearly elucidates the significance of dimness and darkness in Japanese tradition. The most important use of diffused illumination was not so much to create depth in space, but to elicit what has been described as the in-ei (literally "shade" or "shadow") experience of space, wherein the participant would undergo a metaphorical change through a realization that he was getting involved in the perception of the shadowy world--a space devoid of physical comprehension but perceived through its emotional content. Such a metaphysical perception of space was often brought forth in old Japan through distinct notions of beauty¹³ or aesthetic emotions that seeped into daily life. It was the perfect amalgamation of physical beauty with, not rational, but intuitive delight. These notions of the shadowy world were subjective, highly personal, and deeply esoteric.

The notion of a state of absolute quietude was significant. One could approach this quietude through incompleteness: the unfinished statement, or the incomplete pattern where there was always a space left for one's imagination--for instance, in many traditional Japanese paintings there was often a clouded area without detail as compared with the rest of the picture. This required the observer to complete the image with his or her own imagination before visualizing the painting--a reminder of the fact that only one who mentally completed the incomplete could discover true beauty. In the classical Japanese room, the shadows created precisely such a clouded area, the ephemeral voids that were meant to be not rationalized but quietly evoked. The idea of yugen expressed a remote profundity that was often considered inexpressible in words. For instance, in the opening of the ancient Tale of Heike^14, "The bell of the temple tolls to warn every man's heart that all is vain and evanescent. The faded flowers that lie by the Buddha's deathbed are witness to the truth that all who flourish are destined to decay. Pride must have its fall, for it is but an unsubstantial spring night's dream. The brave man, he too must die in the end like the dust in the wind", the poem struck a tone of sadness in the inevitable loss and death that accompanied life. The shadowy room was a medium to express this spirit of yugen. Miyabi was the notion that applied particularly to the beauty of novel pleasure and sophisticated beauty. It was an uplifting feeling of the utmost elegance that could be found in the smell of rare wood. A poem by Mitsune may serve to exemplify this, "The spring night is difficult to comprehend, one cannot see the colorful plum flower in the darkness, but the darkness cannot prevent the smell" (Fig. 9).