Yūgen (n) – An important concept in traditional Japanese aesthetics, meaning “dim”, “deep” or “mysterious” used to describe the subtle profundity of things that are only vaguely suggested. Hints at something that is beyond “‘what can be said”, but is not an allusion to another world. It is about this world, this experience. A compound word, each part, yu and gen, meaning “cloudy impenetrability,” and the combination meaning “obscurity,” “unknowability,” “mystery,” “beyond intellectual calculability,” but not “utter darkness.”

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