The Japanese language has a bounty of words that recast the mundane into the luminous. Shinrinyoku , for example, refers to taking a walk in the forest, but translates as “forest bathing”, conjuring up the feel of cleansing light pouring through tall trees on parched skin. Another instance: mon-koh refers to lighting incense, but translates as “listening to incense”, plunging you directly into the moment the fragrance greets the nose.
Mindfulness, a form of meditation rooted in Zen Buddhism, is the global flavour du jour. It has emerged as big business with corporate trainers exhorting stressed out bankers to focus on the rise and fall of their breath, and universities like Cambridge offering courses that involve eating raisins attentively (to measure how far ‘mindfulness’ can help combat anxiety). By some estimates, the mindfulness industry is now worth over $1 billion.
In essence, mindfulness is simply paying attention to the moment without distraction. It is the antithesis of multitasking; the antidote to our gadget-fractured 21st century attention deficits. Ironically, it is also part of the weft of everyday life in the very country most associated with gizmos and techno-futurism. The reason for this lies in Japan’s pre-robot roots in Zen Buddhism, a way of being in the world that remains foundational. The habits and outlook of Zen are palpable in aesthetics, quotidian rituals as well as in the silences that inhabit social behaviour — befuddling to other cultures that prefer chatter and argument.
At the end of a yoga class, idle chatter about weekend plans or Netflix series is rare. Instead, students spend several minutes painstakingly wiping their yoga mats clean for subsequent use by others, in silence. In those moments, the focus is on cleaning. Nothing else. References to the season, both in casual conversation and more formal rituals like the tea ceremony indicate the importance of being present and contextual in Japanese culture. This attentiveness to nature has survived the modern age with its crowded subway commutes and noisy pachinko parlours. When spring bursts into colour, the streets are full of elderly men and women taking mobile phone pictures of pansies and irises, as carefully as if they were rare treasures. Certain cherry blossom trees attract the kind of staring crowds that are reserved for actors and cricket players in other countries.
Everyone can name the flowers as they bloom in succession: first the plum blossoms and then the cherry trees, followed by the azaleas, rhododendron and wisteria. Roses are swooned over. Lavender fields are inhaled. Flower festivals attract pilgrims from the far corners of the archipelago. Everyday conversations are peppered with blossom talk, which builds complicity and shared discourse, even among strangers. “Did you see the cherry blossoms lit up along the Meguro River yet?” “The wisterias are late this year.”
Deep thoughts?
None of this is to claim that the Japanese are more evolved than the rest of the human race. In an interview with the former Japan correspondent of the Financial Times , David Pilling, author Masahiko Fujiwara claimed that it was most Japanese people’s lack of English fluency that led foreigners to believe them to always be thinking deep thoughts. In fact, Mr. Fujiwara said, if the Japanese improved their English, it would reveal that they just didn’t have that much to say.
Perhaps. Yet living in Japan has helped even this writer, the most argumentative of Indians, to see that sometimes it’s not that important to have something to say. It can be enough to just breathe in the fragrance of a wildflower.
(Pallavi Aiyar is a journalist and author based in Tokyo)
