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Beautiful People

Learning from the wise…

I mentioned how I felt drained from my latest visit to Tokyo but my hometown is usually energizing … this exception is due to some key family members I hold dear were in one way or another deteriorating in general health. Some activities just sucks energy out of you and drains you whereas some activities gives you more energy – I try to calibrate a balance but there was a lot of the former – the negative energy – this time to offset and overcome. The toughest was a visit to the hospital where my aunt was undergoing chemotherapy. Met up in the hospital waiting room… After my aunt came out of her treatment and my cousin’s stop at the pharmacy for her medications, 3 of us had lunch afterwards in area of Tokyo called Azabu Ju-ban I remember from time when I was small at a restaurant we used to frequent.

Not fun to see someone once so vibrant and full of life so weakened BUT I am glad I visited. Besides, it’s been some time since someone expressed so much joy to see me (we need to adopt a puppy again for THAT feeling). It’s not depressing – it’s how it is, I told myself. No one lives forever and all things change – nothing is permanent. It was as though she was teaching me a lesson in life. I only wish I had been giving more of me; giving more of my time and energy…Imagine, she treated us for lunch. Even in her weakened state, she was still the giving one – I felt powerless and grateful at the same time.

Some people are fair weather friends and just-for-fun relationships – just temporary superficial friends – that’s alright – but some relationships are for keeps whether in rain or shine, whether in fair weather or rainy or even stormy. Life is about that – Nothing else really matters – it’s not number of years you live; not number of breaths you take but… it’s about enriching experiences and relationships, that are meaningful. In the end, that’s all you take with you.

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Uncategorized

Your home is not in New York or London or Hong Kong.
(or Tokyo or San Francisco or …)
Your home is in every step.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Categories
Yoga

Yoga = Mindfulness

It seems very American the current popularity of “mindfulness” – it’s just so practical for the practically minded. To engage in this mindfulness, there’s no need to study any spirituality and it’s all secular. Which is too bad – in a way, because it seems like you’d miss out on enriching learning experience. It’s so secular self-help – even like a medical treatment or a therapy… where doctors/psychologists, therapists are starting to use the technique devoid of the belief system with any religious association. Classes are offered at hospitals and fitness centers and … Thanks to Jon Kabot-Zinn, MD, in his clinic, popularizing it for stress-management and other hosts of desires. It’s like praying because praying is a form of meditation but WITHOUT God to pray to now – praying because it just feels better and your grey matter is enhanced. What is the message?

From my perspective and background, it’s perplexing without the temple and the alter and the whole “system” to direct the prayers to if you believe but… if it works in making people feel better, and if it’s made more accessible to more people, I hold no judgement. It’s good. As an observation from someone caught in East/West cultures though, it just seems very American or Western to use the techniques for results. Meditation over Medication? It’s all good if it serves. I wonder what would Buddha think… guess of course he’s okay with it, lol:)After all, we are all, each of us, Buddha, right? It’s hard to cut off the practice from spirituality to make it only intellectual though – spirituality gives meaning.

Personally, for me, yoga and meditation practice, if done with yogic breath is an ultimate practice of mindfulness without the zazen where your legs will develop varicose veins…lol …really. Luckily over here, there appears to be no monks in black/white robes who will hit (just tap) you with a stick when it’s obvious that your mind has drifted:) Mindful not mindless – Vibrant & Alive, living radically in the Present… impressions are vivid; Pain and ensuing suffering (optional), not numbed or avoided but really FELT. Jet lag? Will have to seek out Mikiko-san again:) SOS.