by Cristina Ceballos
Home >> A Beginner’s Mind
Each visitor formulates his or her own picture of Japan, from the elegant formality of Japanese manners and the unexpected rural festivals to the hustle and bustle of street markets, the sanitized shopping malls, the extreme order that characterizes Tokyo’s underground…
When I arrived in Tokyo, everything caught my attention. Japan is very different from what we are used to. In a way, you feel like a child again. Suddenly your mind becomes fresh and awake, discovering things again because everything is new.
Japanese people are very polite and there is a sense of calm in places we are not used to finding calm in: restaurants, the underground, etc.
Japanese people honor their history and follow traditions. Almost everywhere there are shrines, temples, torii, and pagodas, where people pray and ask for luck. At the same time they enjoy being on the cutting edge of modernity and technology. They have incredible mobile phones, impressive robots, gigantic screens in the streets, etc.
After a few days in Tokyo, we left for Kyoto, the old imperial capital.
Kyoto is a classical Japanese city, much smaller than Tokyo and full of spectacular Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. People are even nicer there than in Tokyo, and you don’t feel in such a rush.
The temples struck me as very spiritual places. Usually flanking the entrances outside are images of guardians or protectors. Inside are several Buddha images. It’s quite easy to catch the monks in prayer as you visit any of the Zen Buddhist temples.
There is a very interesting concept in Zen called “Beginner’s Mind.” It refers to a beginner’s state of mind. A beginner is free of the habits of the expert and is ready to accept, doubt, and discover. Beginners are open to all possibilities. A beginner’s mind is free of expectations and preconceptions, prejudices and judgments. This concept was formulated by the Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki.
It is a good practice to maintain a beginner’s mind in everyday life and to face new challenges as true “beginners.” This way, we can free ourselves of the burden of fear of failure or of making mistakes.
Be a beginner again!
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2008-03-27 08:00:00 +0100
Copyright (C) ITT (http://www.itt.es) and Planet Lingua (http://www.lingua.es)
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Interesting comments about your trip!
I’m very curious about the Japan culture and I’d like to know more about their culture and phylosophy. If you can recommend me any book, I’d be grateful.
I have the impression of peace, quietness, no stress although they are full of new technology. How do they get this state? The constrast with western countries is high.
regards,
Begoña.
The haiku is one
form of Japanese writing
that I really like
It is a poem
with 5 then 7 then 5
syllables or beats
The haiku tries to
capture a single moment
to express something
Some haikus are zen
and try to enlighten you
with sudden insight
I’m very surprised with the comments of the article.
Some of my coworkers, (Cristina is one of them) have visited Japan in the past few months, and all of them, they talk about the wonderful life in Japan.
But my opinion is that perhaps when someone visits a diferent country he feels that it is perfect to live. I think that Japanese people who visit Spain are very impressed about our way of live.
I would like to mix both cultures. The best of both, the peace of Japan and the food of Spain.
Good meal.
Hello Begoña,
I really can’t recommend just a book to get the feeling of Japanese culture. In my case, the interest in Japan came while I was more into Chinese history.
There are some Japanese books written by Yukio Mishima that I’ve read and I strongly recommend:
- El rumor del oleaje (I read them in Spanish)
- Nieve de Primavera
Yukio Mishima is considered to be a genius and he reflects Japanese society in his books. I was impressed to find out that he died committing seppuku (ritual hara-kiri) with his sword.
Best wishes!
Cristina
Hi
I’m very surprised wit the present weeklyletter in two ways. First of them because I read an article about Tokyo in the Sunday’s newspaper. What a curious coincidence! I’ve always very interested in the culture and way of life of Japanese people. I like the Japanese mixture between tradition and modernity. I’ve never been in Japan but I’d like to go. I’ve always thought about my first trip to Japan and I think it would be as you visited a city in another planet because of the big contrast between our two cultures. The concept “A beginner’s Mind” is a new and different way of expressing this.
Regards from Valencia
Miguel Ángel
I think that nowadays with so much stress in this word, people have forgotten how to relax. We’re always trying to to an impossible amout of things during the day.
I read somewhere that a really great thing to do is to make a list of things to do, but deliberately leave a few things out and not do them. It sounds easy to do, but it isn’t.
I have nothing but the greatest respect for the Japanese Zen Buddhists and all the ‘original’ values of both Chinese and Japanese martial arts, which have sadly deteriorated nowadays. They should change the wording from ‘self defence’ to ‘self-attack’!
People have started to realise the importance of Oriental relaxation techniques, hence the growing popularity of Yoga, Tai-chi etc, which in my opinion is a step in the right direction.
So far everyone seems to like Japanese way of life, their culture and traditions.
I truly encourage you to visit Japan, it is very affordable right now.
Here is a wonderful guide to plan your trip in case you are thinking about it:
http://www.kirainet.com/preparar-un-viaje-en-japon-en-10-pasos/
Best wishes!
Cristina
Hi Cristina,
You can never know but I think I will never go to Japan, mostly because of my flying phobia. But If I once went I would surely go to a sumo contest.
Believe or not, this is what I like the most about Japanese traditions.
It was in the late 80’s that by chance I saw one sumo competition while zapping new sport satellite channels on TV and I was caught at the moment and much more as I was lerning things about this near-religion.
The wrestlers or rikishi are divided into several catagories, Yokozuna being the top one. Is very difficult to become a Yokozuna. Only 69 rikishi in the whole history of sumo have achieved that position.
My favourite rikishi at that time was a Yokozuna called Chiyonofuji. In fact, he was the number one, but the most exciting thing was that he was actually quite a bit smaller that most other fighters and it was amazing to watch how he made them bite the dust.
And as things are changing everywhere, so are they in sumo. Surprisingly the last three yokozunas are not Japanese, which is a sacrilege for some poeple from Japan. But this is how globalization works and who knows, but being that we have already had Japanese bullfighters like the unfortunate “El Niño del Sol Naciente”, in the future we can have rikishi from Albecete or Jaen. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?
Regards
JC
Great comment Juan Carlos!!!
I’m impressed with your knowledge of Sumo…I have no words…
Thank you :)
Cristina
Juan Carlos likes sumo. For me, however, what most attracts me of Japan are anime movies. There was a Hayao Miyazaki film cycle on television recently, and I was blown away by his films. Another really good anime film is Isao Takahata’s ‘Grave of the Fireflies.’ So sad!