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Eight Simple Zenish Habits
Shoshin1
Sentient BeingOceania Veteran
- Kaizen: Continuous Improvement
- Ikigai: Your reason for being
- Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until your 80% full
- Shinrin Yoku: Being in Nature
- Wabi-Sabi: The acceptance of imperfection
- Gaman: The ability to go thru difficulty without complaining
- Omoiyari: Sensing what someone needs before they ask
- Kintsugi: Your failures are part of your story so be proud of them
🙏🙏🙏
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Comments
I am skeptical about such, since some things are ingrained in one's own culture and cannot be simply "copied, replicated", yet so many self-help courses and books pop up, usually by westerners, about Ikigai or Wabi-Sabi (these two I've heard of before). Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people fetishizing such customs, because usually none of these are quite the solution to their problems, but they can ease people more into a direction, little-by-little, as sort of gateway experiences (once they overcome the disappointment that it didn't solve all their problems nor did they get enlightened through them). Zen Buddhism however is almost always conveyed through the same images, no matter where you are: everything strictly looks about the same, you could go to Africa and a Zen Buddhist's home would reflect a Japanese look. It's a bit like a master pointing to a flower and interpreting it in a way that the flower pointed at was somehow special compared to all those he didn't. Am I completely off about it?
Buddhism is a way of life, one that arises from a culture often foreign to the Western mind. Yet many of us in the West practise it and benefit deeply from it, some experience kenshō and take to it like ducks to water, while for others it can be difficult to grasp and may take a lifetime of practice to gain even a glimpse.
A healthy level of scepticism, from what I gather, is beneficial. But if doubtfulness is allowed to hold one back, reinforcing the sense of self, it can trap a person in a perpetual cycle of pessimism, which is not a healthy and balanced way to live one’s life.
I suppose what I am getting at is that genuine practice is not about copying cultural forms, but about cultivating understanding through experience. Practice shapes understanding, and understanding deepens practice.
From what I gather, one must cultivate a scepticism that sits between blind imitation and outright rejection. In other words, the Middle Way, with perhaps a touch of “fake it until you make it” thrown in for good measure.
These sorts of things are much more of a training, a slow developing of new habits and ways of being, than they are customs to be adopted. You can start doing them, but the doing of them is in service of a deep integration and change of being.
And its not like you either have it or you don't. Some changes and benefits come easily while others are like trying to squeeze water out of a rock.
I would also argue that the west does some things right that the east isn't as good at. Like self expression, being true to yourself, following your dreams, or things like social change.
I'm not here to argue, but I find the thumbnail somewhat provocative, as if I'm supposed to believe that most Japanese people, on a cultural level are well aware of all these terms and their meanings and are consciously practicing such habits. I'd be surprised if they'd consider most of these a part of their national identity or heritage, even if to many they are, or for us outsiders it's what Japan is like. It's a bit like when Native Americans appear to be an endless source of wisdom, but the image is not necessarily accurate, even according to actual Native Americans. And that is all I meant, not that these practices are dumb or useless, but that they seem to be romanticized in relation to their origins.
Yeah, I get that perspective. People are people, its rather condescending when westerners fetishize and idealize other cultures. Native Americans did lots of conquering and other forms of wickedness by modern standards before westerners got here. They have plenty of cultural practices that we can learn from and look up to, but they aren't these super peaceful nature saints that they can be portrayed as.
Likewise these Japanese traditions I'm sure aren't perfectly practiced and represented by every, even most Japanese people. But they offer us a different perspective on how we can live that can act to temper and correct flaws and excesses of western culture.
You’re entitled to your own view @RobinH , one person’s meat is another person’s poison.
At this present moment in time, this video may simply not be for you, and that’s okay. Such is life, with all its likes and dislikes.
Meaningful engagement with another culture’s practices does not require perfect knowledge of their origins or wholesale replication of their forms. This video is just one glimpse into cultural trails found in Japan; in the West, some may find its contents helpful, while others may not.
I am also reminded of the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, sati. Western psychology has taken what is essentially a by-product of the practice, the ability to pay attention and the calmness that comes from a focused mind, and bottled it for marketing. What is presented as mindfulness in apps, courses, or corporate training often misses the ethical and philosophical framework of the practice, turning a profound path of awareness into a commodity. Not that the Buddha would likely have minded. When psychologists use mindfulness to help their clients through stressful periods in their lives, I think the Buddha would have seen this as positive and beneficial.
What I have seen over the years is that people in the West who have struggled with anxiety or depression often seek help from psychologists who use Western-style mindfulness as a treatment tool. The client who benefits from it may then want to find out more about mindfulness. Only then do they discover that mindfulness, as a complete practice, is far more profound and beneficial than what Western psychology alone can offer.
The explanation in the video and the gradual approach to these eight practices can help ease the mind into a better frame of thinking:
Kaizen: Continuous improvement
Ikigai: Your reason for being
Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until you are 80% full
Shinrin Yoku: Spending time in nature
Wabi-Sabi: Acceptance of imperfection
Gaman: Enduring difficulty without complaining
Omoiyari: Sensing what someone needs before they ask
Kintsugi: Treating failures as part of your story and taking pride in them
Taken together, these practices offer a gentle and progressive way to cultivate mindfulness, resilience, and balance of mind. They may be a step in the right direction, even if they are not the whole path.
Thus have I heard, and experienced on more than one occasion: if left unattended, the mind can find fault with anything it turns its attention to.
I love to find faults with anything, I am exceptionally good at it.
People might not want to hear risks involved with this and that, but it's not finding them, the issue. It's ignoring them or focusing too much on them. In any case, thank you for your lengthy reply, if you truly disagree, you went out of your way with this, so your kindness is appreciated and I'll let you continue the topic with your original points as intended.
You don't have to turn Japanese to find value is some aspects, surely...
...and now for a musical interlude
Interesting topic. In the way of this video, which lifts eight good things about Japanese culture into view, you could probably also find a number of good things about Dutch culture. Similarly, a given culture also has a shadow side, which becomes clear while living a number of decades as part of it.
Whether adopting a culture’s good properties is a good way towards learning to be a better person, or even a more mindful or more Buddhist person, is another matter. You don’t experience the level of conditioning of growing up in a culture, the immersion of experiencing a childhood within it. You likely acquire a certain surface-level impression.