Japanese Concepts To Live By

Japan is known as one of the best places to live as the people of Japan understand what is the correct way of living and its purpose behind.

Oubaitori: Never compare yourself.

Everyone blossoms in their own time in different ways. Don’t judge yourself by someone else’s path.

Have you ever thought that flowers can teach you lessons on how to lead your life? The Japanese principle of Oubaitori (pronounced oh-buy-toe-ree) is just that — a conceptual guide to a fulfilling life based on four trees that blossom in spring in Japan: Cherry, Plum, Peach, and Apricot. In fact, the word Oubaitori is written as a combination of the Japanese Kanji characters (symbols) for these four trees.

Springtime in Japan is a riot of colors, with these four trees blooming in shades of pink, mauve, blush, and white. Though all of these trees co-exist alongside each other, each of them has a specific order, manner, and time when they bloom.

Oubaitori teaches us the incomparable notion of non-comparison. While all these trees produce beautiful flowers which mature to become juicy fruit, Oubaitori seeks to celebrate the uniqueness of each of them. Peach with its juicy-sweet flavor is distinctly different from the tarty sweetness of the plum; both are equally enjoyable to eat and comparing the two to determine which is better, is futile.

Kaizen: Continuously improve.

Constantly strive to improve across all areas of your life.
Small changes accumulate and make all the difference.

Wabi-sabi: Embrace imperfection.

Nothing lasts, nothing is complete.
Accept your own flaws and those of others.
Find beauty in imperfection.

WABU (侘ぶ）describes the experience of our inner world, the feeling of refinement in soberness, quietness, solitude, and nostalgia.

SABU (寂ぶ）is the experience of our outer world such as fading of light, color, having its character as it gets older.

Gaman: Have dignity during duress.

Hard times need to be met with emotional maturity and self-control. We need patience, perseverance, + tolerance.

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.

Shikita ga nai: Accept and let go.

Some things simply aren’t within our control.
Accept what you cannot change, and move on.

Shu-Ha-Ri: Don’t be wasteful.

Everything deserves respect and gratitude.
Recognize the value in what’s around you and don’t waste it.

Phase 1: SHU （守）- Keep & Protect the tradition
Phase 2 : HA （破）- Break & Transformation
Phase 3 : RI (離）- Detach & Transcend

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.

Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese philosophy that literally means “repairing or joining with gold”. This art form of repairing broken ceramics with gold lacquer is said to have originated in the 15th century when artisans re-purposed a broken favorite tea bowl of a Japanese nobleman by using liquid gold mixed with some resins, to fill in the cracked veins.

Over the years, Kintsugi has been elevated from simply fixing broken crockery to becoming a fine art form, in which Kintsugi artists painstakingly create seemingly random fault lines and embellish them with streaks of gold to create beautiful designs.

On a deeper level, Kintsugi is all about celebrating flaws and transforming a broken product into something remarkably more valuable. After all, isn’t that true of love, friendship, relationships, and above all, of life itself? With the passage of time, seemingly perfect relationships start developing cracks. This is true of every close relationship — parents-children, best friends, loving spouses — all of these relationships are stressed with the onslaught of divergent expectations, perspectives and life experiences.

Omoiyari: Show consideration for others.

Life is better when we care for others.
Be thoughtful. Build compassion.

Omotenashi

If you’ve ever had waitstaff kneel down while taking your order at a restaurant or been bowed to when entering a department store, you’ve unknowingly experienced ‘omotenashi’.

At the 2020 Olympic bid held in Buenos Aires in September 2013, Christel Takigawa on behalf of Tokyo’s Olympic bid team spoke eloquently about the Japanese concept of Omotenashi, the country’s spirit of hospitality and its service-oriented culture. It is pronounced as (oh-mo-tay-naa-shi) with brief pauses and a gesture of her hand, followed by a bow with folded hands.

Omotenashi is not just about hospitality — it’s about combining service with a conscious sense of giving the recipient what they need. In other words, it is about delivering the purpose of the service. It transcends beyond mere customer satisfaction; in a way, the service provider makes sure to anticipate the customer’s need (stated or unstated) and strives to deliver the appropriate level of customer experience. Omotenashi is about acknowledging the difference between what the service provider wants to sell and what the customer wants to buy and successfully addressing the gap.

Ichigo Ichie

Ichigo ichie can be loosely translated as “in this moment is an opportunity”. What this means to tell us is that each encounter, everything that we experience in the here and now, is a unique treasure that will never be repeated in the same way again. So, if we let it slip away without enjoying it, this moment will be lost forever.

Komorebi — Seek the light

Imagine that you are walking through a forested area in the daytime. As you are passing through the tall dense trees, you suddenly come across a bright beam of sunlight passing through the leaves and branches, throwing a shaft of light all the way through to the forest floor.

This is Komorebi, a Japanese word that means the sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees. There is no equivalent word in English that captures the essence of this word. Komorebi has a wider connotation than just the literal meaning of the phrase. It is not just about the beam of sunlight but also about the interesting interplay of light and shadow amidst the leaves.