Mono no Aware: The beauty of impermanence through Eid-ul-Adha

There’s a bittersweet beauty in knowing something beautiful will not last forever. This can best be described by the Japanese philosophy of Mono no Aware, which refers to the consciousness that life is ephemeral.

Every beginning carries the seed of its own end. This fragile truth is embedded in our everyday, ordinary lives. It is there between the balance of warmth and sadness in the last day of class, when friends share laughter across the cafeteria, already knowing it is becoming a memory. It lives in runaway summer vacations to the beach in our youth, when the sunlit days are so perfect that we already miss them even though the ocean breeze is still on our skin.

Most deeply, we confront this discomfort in the shared moments with our loved ones. Watching our parents’ first silver hairs catch the morning light, or revisiting an old Polaroid with the tiny paws of our now-ageing pet. We feel a profound heartache for a loss that has not yet arrived, and we start to reminisce about the very moment we are living inside of.

Originating in the earliest written works in Japanese cultural history, this value conveys a fundamental worldview about the transience of human life reflected in everything around us.

Across the world and centuries later, we encounter this delicate emotion when Eid-ul-Adha comes knocking at our door. There remains a hesitation in addressing the guaranteed sorrow that comes alongside this Eid, at the cost of the bond we create with the animal we are about to sacrifice.

I remember watching my then five-year-old cousin jumping with a mixture of confusion and fear as she watched a new giant guest entering our courtyard. The first day, with tears streaming down over her soft skin, she would tug at my shirt every few minutes with a constant question, “When will this cow leave?”

The next day, her curiosity spiked in her a will to touch the cow. Upon my reassurance over the guest’s quiet nature, she mustered it within her to take a step and dared to pat the cow on the back. In an instant, her fear turned into affection. That moment became one of her firsts, forming a bond with someone from a different species. She even named the cow “Millie”.

When we name something, we humanise the entity into a companionship that will exist in our lives. The following days for my cousin would pass in admiring Millie’s majesty, the way her nose scrunched as she chewed grass, and the thud of her tail against the tin boundaries. My cousin didn’t realise that the camaraderie she had created would be short-lived.

On the morning of Eid, after prayers and the ritual of Qurbani ended, the courtyard, once filled with Millie’s gentle presence, was suddenly empty. For a child, looking at a vacant space where her friend had stood just hours before was a confrontation with finality my cousin was entirely unprepared to process.

For many of us, as we grow out of childhood, the protective walls of our hearts go up. Knowing how this Eid ends, we avoid letting affection grow. We look away from the animals’ eyes and refuse to stroke their heads, and instead, treat them as duties to be fulfilled rather than lives to be encountered. We choose distance over vulnerability, refraining from loving what we know we must lose.

Yet, to bypass this heartbreak is to miss the very essence of this eve. Eid-ul-Adha is the ultimate manifestation of Mono no Aware, because sacrifice here is the appreciation of life given for a higher purpose while remembering its existence.

It is this exact temporary nature of our relationships and experiences that makes our existence so incredibly gorgeous. It provides a sense of urgency to appreciate and treasure each passing moment as it unfolds, because every single heartbeat is an unrepeatable miracle.

Reference:

Nippon (Feb 21, 2025). “Mono no Aware”: The Essence of the Japanese Sensibility.

Ramisa Rubaba Rashed is a born poet, daydreaming singer, stuck in the disguise of a wannabe biologist, and a full-time cat-mom. Send her your songs at raemsi.ruby@gmail.com.