On Japanese Aesthetics

Problems of Interpretation II:

How can Americans living outside of Japanese cultural traditions and reading only translations best interpret Japanese literature?

To what extent are concepts relevant to Zen art (see below) applicable to various works of Japanese literature?
What other cultural concepts or traditions are useful in discussing 20th-century Japanese writing?
What aspects of a given work seem more universal, more Western, or more personally idiosyncratic than "traditionally Japanese"?
To what extent can we tell one influence from another in a given work?

5 terms from Zen Arts used to describe qualities of Japanese literature: (essentially untranslatable, but we try)

Wabi - lonely poverty: for example, a raku tea bowl.
Sabi - tranquil, beautiful loneliness: "the scarred old samurai, fresh from the bath, dressed in new robes for the evening." -- Basho
Mono no aware - the "ah-ness" of things, as in the transience of the falling cherry blossom petals.
Yugen - a mystery deep within things, such as a mountain top glimpsed through haze, or one thin cloud crossing a sliver of moon, or a traveler walking far into the forest.
Makoto - sincerity: intense, spontaneous emotional responses.

Are other Zen influences perceptible in the themes or atmosphere of a particular work?

For example, a person with Zen mind or Buddha mind is "liberated from convention into an openness to all that is and into spontaneous creativity." Does the reading present characters with "Zen mind," or in other ways imply the value of such a state of being?

R. H. Blyth's 13 characteristics of haiku: are these reflected in the work?

4 characteristics of Zen paintings: are these apparent in the literary work?

"One-corner method" - asymmetrical arrangements
Expanses of unpainted white space - suggesting not absence, but presence or fullness
"Thrifty-brush technique" - bold, quick strokes, as few as possible
"Controlled accidents" - a rough, "flawed," unfinished quality (true also of raku pottery)

Nancy Wilson Ross and Alan Watts on the Japanese aesthetic experience (is this reflected in the work you're reading?):

Subject and object are not divided from each other: writer and reader are one, painter and viewer are one, poem (or painting or music) and audience are one.