An alternate to the art of connecting events is the art of the interval Oriental art does not use connections, but intervals, whether in flower arrangements or Zen poetry or dress. “The grandmother did to silence,” writes Pada Perva, “what inflections do to a voice.”

Practically every aspect of Jaanese life asserts the integrity of the interval. The ma (“space between” in a scene or simply “spacing” of objects) and kukan (“empty space”) are integers, realities.

In contrast, practically every aspect of Western life asserts the exclusive integrity of things, objects, masses. Spaces between objects are not perceived as integers at all, the ideal in technological machines that yield power, and in art and life as well, is to negate and nullify intervals into rhythmical, balanced, symmetrical patterns – all exactly alike. According to th Western “Principle of Plentitude,” the universe is full, there are no gaps, no intervals. “Nature abhors a vacuum” – at least, Western human nature does.

Emilio Lanier writes: “The key to Japanese culture lies in the asymmetrical intervals, spacings, rhythms of writing, designing, music, dancing, all arts. Above all it lies in the ability to see and feel space. The ma perceived as an aura of change – of hue, brightness, shape – becomes symbolized in all sorts of gestures, idioms, etc., throughout all of the cultural and practical arts, and comes finally to be symbolized even more abstractly in some contexts of activity as the aura of ‘freedom.’ This concept of “freedom” poses a non-Aristotelian dimensionality quite outside the comprehension of the West, which considers itself the chief authority on, and author of, liberty and freedom of every form.

Misako Miyamoto writes of the Noh plays: “The audience watches the play and catches the feeling through not only the action and words but also the intervals of the period of the pauses…”