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April 17 - April 18, 2021
ikigai + kaika + time = mankai.
If we discover our talent, open ourselves up to it, and make it a priority in our lives, our passion will be able to develop, leading to our happiness and that of others.
the present moment is a permanent opportunity to experience ichigo ichie.
To achieve this, every time you feel unhappy, you just have to begin to translate it, like this: Are you angry/sad? You’re living in the past. Come back!/Wake up! Are you afraid? You’re living in the future. Come back!
“You will find Zen in your everyday life, if you dedicate yourself passionately to what you love.
Zen teaches us to do one thing at a time, as if it were the most important thing in the world.
4. Free yourself from everything that isn’t essential.
every day, whenever you feel overburdened, ask yourself, What can I let go of?
6. Celebrate imperfection.
If you have the will to improve, then it’s perfect to be imperfect.
7. Practice compassion.
8. Let go of your expectations.
Regarding this last point, expectations are like the wrapping that prevents us from seeing the gift. Once we have freed ourselves from them, the present offers itself to us in all its splendor.
Nothing lasts forever, neither good nor bad. Accepting this fact is the key to taking full advantage of the sublime moments life bestows on us and to not losing hope when we go through a rough patch.
meta-emotion: what we feel about what we have felt.
There is no way to protect ourselves from the first arrows, because life is an adventure full of constant risks, but what we can do is avoid shooting ourselves with the second ones, which are the worry and anxiety that arise from thinking about the first.
Buddha summed it up with perhaps his most famous saying, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
The Japanese expression mono no aware is used to express the appreciation of beauty and translates literally as “being aware of the passage of time.”
Nature provides beautiful moments of mono no aware: the blossoming of the sakura, the golden light of the setting sun, a light dusting of snow, or a path covered with dry leaves on an autumn day.
“hedonic treadmill.” This is the mechanism by which, once our desire is quenched, we feel unsatisfied again, because we automatically want what lies one step ahead of us.
the hedonic treadmill is the foundation of consumer society. Once we get what we want, after a brief period of satisfaction, we return to our “base level” of happiness.
The key to achieving this is to stop orienting ourselves toward new desires, and to begin to sense the magic in everything around us. Happiness lies in wanting nothing outside ourselves, and in appreciating what life has to offer us while it lasts.
Carpe diem! (Seize the day and don’t count on tomorrow).
the enemies of the present: Prioritizing the urgent (for other people) over the important (for us). Postponing what we most want to do again and again, as if we had unlimited time. Thinking that the conditions aren’t right to do what we want to do but that in the future they will be. Boycotting the present with feelings of resentment, sadness, and worry that prevent us from enjoying it.
The Butterfly Effect The term the butterfly effect is associated with the popular saying, “A butterfly beating its wings in Hong Kong can unleash a storm in New York.” In other words, any change, no matter how small, ends up creating completely different circumstances due to a process of amplification. Since what happens to us affects others, which in turn affects still others, the initial disturbance ends up changing everything. This theory and the image of the butterfly were proposed by meteorologist and mathematician Edward Norton Lorenz, who postulated that if we had two identical worlds,
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Amor Fati The Latin expression amor fati, meaning “love of fate,” describes the belief that everything that happens in life is for a reason, even though it may not seem so at the time.
While amor fati means accepting that everything that happens to us, even when it’s unpleasant, happens for a reason, it’s up to us to give it a positive meaning, with our attitude and with what we decide to do with what destiny hands us from moment to moment.
Paying more attention to what happens around us:
Keeping a diary. Writing down our day-to-day experiences makes us more aware of the nuances of reality and
Practicing meditation. This might help us to recognize coincidences more easily, since it anchors us in the moment, where coincidences appear, and it increases the bandwidth of our perception.
That is how kintsugi was born. Ceramics are repaired with gold, and the gold lines between the cracks give the ceramics a new aesthetic.
Kintsugi is a radical example of wabi-sabi, which teaches us that there is beauty in imperfection. It can also be seen as a metaphor for life, in which we accumulate wounds and losses. Leaving our emotional wounds exposed forever, like a broken cup that goes unrepaired, causes unnecessary suffering. But we can recover, using what we have learned from our misfortunes and failures.
Just like a delicate piece of porcelain, the human heart can be damaged, but concealing the damage out of shame isn’t the solution. The damage is part of our history and has brought us to where we are. Just for this, it deserves the brilliance of gold, which reflects a light that in this case is our own.
In the purest version of wabi-sabi, kintsugi doesn’t attempt to hide any flaws.
It highlights them, giving objects a new personality. Having problems is part of being alive. It is our difficulties and how we face them, more than our periods of contentment, that shape us throughout the course of our lives.
HAVING TEA WITH YOURSELF Although the chanoyu ceremony was conceived for at least two people—traditionally the tea master and a guest—it’s a great idea to have a regular “tea with yourself,” as the Uruguayan author Walter Dresel suggested.
Constantly tied up with commitments and external obligations as we are, a date with ourselves once a week can be a true balm for the soul.
You can set aside a fixed time and day every week to spend in a café or teahouse ...
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Pure listening is a letting go of control.
The bottom line is when we are listened to, we feel connected. When we’re not listened to, we feel separate.” —Tara Brach, The Sacred Art of Listening
Find the right place for important conversations.
The key is not to judge. If we limit ourselves to listening to what someone else has to say, we’ll be able to absorb their whole message, and the person will feel heard.
Don’t give unsolicited advice. When someone shares a problem, it can be difficult not to offer a solution, but often what the other person needs most is to be listened to, not to be told what to do. If we think we have something valuable to offer regarding their situation, we can ask, “Can I give you some advice?” or offer a solution indirectly: “Of course, only you can know the right thing to do, but if I were in your position, I would . . .”
Many people look without seeing. In other words, they don’t pay attention to what’s in front of them.
Forests make for a fascinating visual experience.
komorebi—the play of sunbeams filtering through tree branches, an example of the abstract art in nature—helps us enrich and enhance our sight.
use your eyes to appreciate the world around you, as if you were in an enormous gallery.
Art museums are wonderful places to learn the art of looking.
simple hug has the power to reduce levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that, if secreted continuously, can have devastating effects on our health.
Touching and hugging are beneficial even as a preventive therapy for many life-threatening illnesses. Four hugs a day are considered enough to boost a person’s emotional and physical health, but according to international relations expert Andy Stalman, the ideal number is eight six-second hugs a day. Six seconds is apparently the minimum length of time required for oxytocin—the hormone associated with happiness—to reach the brain, awakening feelings of trust and affection.
