The Book of Ichigo Ichie: The Art of Making the Most of Every Moment, the Japanese Way

by Héctor García

Given the connection between smell and memory, if we want to create better memories for the future in the present, introducing a distinctive aroma will help make an experience memorable.

a theme to make it a memorable occasion.

What should this party be remembered for?

The key to a successful theme is that it should have the potential to summon an emotional response from the guests.

Understanding the guests (so you can also avoid potentially offensive topics). • Looking for common ground so everyone feels included.

The most important thing is to make a break from the inertia of the everyday by creating a story, something that deserves to be reminisced about. In fact, when we work consciously on ichigo ichie, we are creating our future memories—ones that can strengthen a couple’s bonds, thanks to shared experiences. If we want to be able to look back on our lives with happiness and nostalgia, we can’t allow the present to be just a succession of days. We have the magic of our will to turn every encounter into something special.

The success of your gathering will be proportionate to the care and time you invest in it, something in which the Japanese—great lovers of detail—are true masters.

Disconnect your devices when someone is talking to you

• Listen to people’s words and also to their body language.

• Ask questions without being intrusive.

Just be with people.

• Or leave them in peace.

To perform metta bhavana, which translates as “loving-kindness,” you just need to follow these five steps: 1. Sit down and send feelings of warmth, kindness, and goodwill to yourself. Try to feel rather than think these emotions. 2. Now think about a friend, someone who isn’t your partner or a relative, and try to summon even greater feelings of love toward this person. 3. Then think of a neutral person, someone about whom you feel indifferent, and focus on sending them feelings of fondness and humanity. Embrace their humanity. 4. Next, think about someone difficult or even an enemy, someone you dislike profoundly, and make an effort to summon that same feeling of warmth, goodwill, and understanding toward them.

finish, bring these four people together in your mind—yourself, your friend, the neutral person, and the enemy—and try to harbor fond feelings for all four at once. Visualize this love spreading into your surroundings, your city, your country, and the whole world.

When we stop identifying ourselves with our thoughts, our ego dissolves and we flow fully with the moment, at the same time deeply and intuitively understanding the nature of reality. These moments of epiphany are a solitary ichigo ichie, moments of such lucidity that they encompass a whole life.

Projections.

Distractions.

Fatigue.

• Impatience.

Analysis.

1. It’s irrational. It can’t be reached through logic, since it challenges any kind of intellectual reasoning. Those who have experienced satori can’t explain it in a coherent or logical way. 2. It’s intuitive. Satori can’t be explained, only lived and felt. 3. It’s direct and personal. It’s a perception that emerges from the innermost part of consciousness. 4. It’s an affirmation of life. It implies acceptance of all that exists, of all things as they emerge, independent of their moral value.

It gives us a sense of the beyond. When we experience satori, we sense that it is rooted somewhere else. The hard individual shell encasing one’s personality shatters the moment we experience satori. The feeling that follows is one of complete liberation or complete rest, of finally having arrived at one’s destination. 6. It has an impersonal tone. In Suzuki’s words, “Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Zen experience is that it has no personal note in it, as is observable in Christian mystic experiences.” 7. Feeling of exaltation. Upon breaking with the restriction of being an individual, we experience an infinite expansion of our being. 8. Momentariness. “Satori comes upon one abruptly,” Suzuki maintains, “and is a momentary experience, in fact, if it is not abrupt and momentary, it is not satori.”*

If you don’t like reality, create another where you can live.”

When we ask this question, we open the floodgates to the creative flow we need to unblock ourselves and step into a world full of ichigo ichie. Let’s look at some examples of how to use this question in three situations that often make people feel indifferent to life. 1. I’ve been bored by my job for a while and don’t know what to do. What would happen if I took a leave of absence or saved enough to live on for a few months and allowed myself to explore other possibilities? 2. My partner and I are constantly arguing. Sometimes we even avoid speaking to each other so that we don’t have to fight. What would happen if we played the game Island of Harmony, which challenges you not to think or say anything negative—either to complain or to rebuke each other—for as long as the session lasts? 3. I’m having a crisis; I feel unsatisfied with my life, but I don’t know why. What would happen if I allowed myself to be someone else, or even many other people, for the next few months?