About “ma”:
Ma (間) is a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as "gap", "space", "pause" or "the space between two structural parts."The spatial concept is experienced progressively through intervals of spatial designation. In Japanese, ma, the word for space, suggests interval. It is best described as a consciousness of place, not in the sense of an enclosed three-dimensional entity, but rather the simultaneous awareness of form and non-form deriving from an intensification of vision.

Ma has also been described as "an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled", and as "the silence between the notes which make the music"