A friend of mine forwarded me this morning a note on “Ten Japanese concepts that will improve your life”. I share it below. They are truly very wise and profound , these Japanese Concepts and Doctrines of living .
1: “Oubaitori”
Never compare yourself.
Everyone blossoms in their own time in different ways.
2: “Kaizen”.
Continuously improve.
Constantly strive to improve across all areas of your life.
Small changes accumulate and make all the difference.
3: “Wabi-sabi.”
Embrace imperfection.Nothing lasts, nothing is complete.Accept your own flaws and those of others.Find beauty in imperfection.
4: “Mottainai.”
Don’t be wasteful.
Everything deserves respect and gratitude.
Recognize the value in what’s around you and don’t waste it.
5: “Gaman.”
Have dignity during duress.
Hard times need to be met with emotional maturity and self-control.We need patience, perseverance, + tolerance.
6: “Yuugen.”
Appreciate mysterious beauty.
Often we FEEL the beauty in an object without it being stunning to look at.
Discover subtle beauty beyond aesthetics.
Experience something words cannot describe.
7: “Ikigai.”
Know your reason for being.Define the reason you get up in the morning.Make it something you are good at, passionate about, and that the world needs.
8:”Shikata Ga Nai”
Accept and let go.
Some things simply aren’t within our control.Accept what you cannot change, and move on.
9: “Kintsugi.”
Repair cracks with gold.Imperfections are a thing of beauty.The journeys we all take are golden.Our flaws are embellishments that make us more beautiful.
10: “Omoiyari.”
Show consideration for others.Life is better when we care for others.Be thoughtful. Build compassion.
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I have had the good fortune to travel to and within Japan several times during my 37+ years long career in the corporate world and I can say without fear of being faulted for exaggeration that wherever I went there and from whatever I witnessed of Japanese ways of behaving, expressing themselves and exhibiting general attitudes towards the world and to one another, the people by and large do faithfully embrace to a large extent on average, what has been propounded in their doctrines of ethics. I say therefore that the Japanese do really “walk the talk”.
As an Indian I can’t help reflecting upon some of our own great doctrines of living and ethics found in our own ancient civilisational ethos. I take pride in saying that they are all no less profound and perhaps even wiser than the Japanese doctrines above.
We Indians have for example such magnificent books of ancient wisdom that for our benefit were mined by the great minds of rishis and Acharyas of yore, refined and bequeathed to us as true and experiential nuggets about how to lead and realise a good Dhaarmic life, how to find fulfilment and how to create a society that is harmonious and conducive to higher human evolution. For example , we have Vidura Neethi, Yakshaprashna and Bhagavath-Gita, we have Tirukural of Tiruvalluvar, Neethi Satakam of Bhartruhari, Subhasheetha neevi of Vedanta Desika … and many more such.
My reflections on the Japanese ethical doctrines and those of Hindu Dharma persuade me to believe that while both are equal in wisdom and truthfulness , the big difference between the two is this : in Japan the gap between precept and practice is narrow ; in India that gap is very wide … and it seems to be getting wider and wider by the day in the times we live in.
So, what does that tell me?
It tells me further that even the putatively wisest doctrine of life cannot by itself ever bridge the tragic human rift that naturally separates Talk from Walk. Doctrine only serve perhaps to narrow it, but closing the gap is an entirely different matter.
When I compare Indian and Japanese doctrines of life , I also do begin to wonder what exactly accounts for the difference or extent of the rift that exists between their respective and relative Practice and Precept , the Talk and the Walk. In Japan it’s just separation, but in India it seems like great yawing chasm. What makes the average Japanese ways of living to be fairly consistent with their life-doctrines … quite in contrast to what I can observe here in my own country, India, to be a scant, general and amoral disregard for the importance of walking the talk? I cannot help then in starting to speculate on the possible reasons… some historical , some psychological and some socio-cultural. Let me jot down my speculations below:
1. Japan is a small island with a small population. India is a vast sun-continent with a vast population.
2. Japanese people are ethnically and culturally monolithic. Their unity is not a anchored in diversity but in insularity. India on the other hand is demographically and ethnologically a smorgasbord of sub-cultures. India’s Unity is said to be in its Diversity … and that, if you think about it deeply, means India seeks to define itself through an oxymoron.
3. The Japanese have only one language and no more than two religions: Buddhism and Shinto. India by comparison is a Tower of Babel with 25 languages and 2000 local dialects and more than half a dozen major religions and countless cults.
4. Historically, no foreign invader ever set foot on Japanese soil to occupy it for any significant length of time. Neither Chinese mainlanders, neither marauding Islam nor evangelist Christianity could ever spread roots deep into the soil or soul of Japan. India by comparison was a historical basket-case. In two thousand years of its history, the Greeks, the Persians, the Turks, the Mongols, the Afghans, the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and the British all invaded and ruled India for dozens of decades and centuries, turning it into a melting-pot if not a bonfire of alien vanities.
5. Japan is a monarchic democracy. India is a democratic republic.
6. Japan has virtually no Marxists or Communists anywhere in the country. In India there are large swathes of land and populations that are wedded to the red ideology.
7. In India the so-called “pluralistic society” is held to be sacrosanct ideal. In Japan “pluralism” is spurned and yet no one in the world ever disparages the Japanese people as rabid xenophobes.
8. Japan can be said to be an enigma in that it’s people were traditionally a fiercely martial race but who were forced to turn to pacifism after being almost destroyed by a nuclear Armageddon in 1945. India too is an enigma but in a strangely reverse sense i.e. in 1947, India won its political freedom through the essentially pacifist ideology of Gandhian Ahimsa but then soon had to abandon it to fully reinvent itself — not by willing choice but by force of foreign policy and geopolitical considerations— as a very muscular, martial and nationalist “new-India” avatar.
9. Although Japan is a world economic giant today it does not go about seeking — at least not openly — any seat at the high tables of world governing bodies like the UNSC. India is not yet a comparable economic giant and yet aspires — whether rightfully or wishfully— to be some kind of a self-styled “vishwaguru”.
10. Finally, the old adage that “Adversity is the parent of virtue” — meaning that adversity is an opportunity in disguise to grow in knowledge, character, ability, and resourcefulness to reign in life — is perhaps found to be more true in Japan than in India. In the wake of the end of the World War-2 and in the aftermath of the nuclear Holocaust suffered by Japan, its people endured many years and all kinds of great adversity. It taught them painful lessons about virtues that had to be learnt and cultivated if adversity brought on by terrible Violence was to be overcome. In comparison, the adversities that India experienced … and continues to experience even today in its post-Independence years … can be said to be of a truly peculiar, sui generis kind: they have been brought upon themselves … so, so ironically … by benign Non-Violence!
Bhaarath Maatha ki Jai !
Sudarshan Madabushi
All of them are already in our psyche!