Over the years, I have encountered many different philosophies, principles and ways of looking at life. Some interested me for a while, others challenged my thinking, and a few stayed with me long after I had first discovered them.

 

I have always been curious about how people from different cultures and traditions have tried to make sense of life.

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Despite our different histories, beliefs and ways of living, human beings have been asking many of the same questions for thousands of years.

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What gives our life meaning?

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How do we live with change?

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How do we accept what we cannot control?

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How do we find our way through difficult times?

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And how do we learn to appreciate the life we have while we are living it?

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I found wisdom I related to in many places. Buddhist teachings spoke to me of awareness, compassion and being present.

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In Taoism, I recognised ideas about allowing life to unfold without always trying to force or control its direction.

 

I could relate to ideas within different philosophies without feeling the need to follow any one of them.

 

When I began reading about some of the principles and philosophies found within Japanese culture, however, I felt a particular connection to the way they expressed their ideas.

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Many described experiences or understandings I recognised from my own life, but I was fascinated by the way these had been given names and meaning.

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I also loved the positive way many of these principles looked at life — finding meaning, value, growth or beauty within experiences that are simply part of being human.

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Perhaps one of the reasons they resonated was that they did not seem to demand perfection. They made room for change, difficulty, ageing, impermanence and the unexpected. They acknowledged that life will not always unfold as we would like it to, while still recognising its beauty and value.

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One of the first ideas that stayed with me was ikigai — that which gives our lives meaning or makes life worth living.

 

I loved its simplicity.

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Purpose did not have to mean achieving something extraordinary. It could be found in family, friendship, creativity, nature, caring for someone, learning something new or simply having a reason to look forward to another day.

 

Long before I heard of ikigai, I understood how important it was to have meaning and purpose in my life.

 

There were times when something that had given me a strong sense of purpose came to an end. That did not mean my purpose had disappeared. It meant I had to remain open to where meaning might be found next.

 

What I came to understand was that purpose was not one thing I had to find. It was something that could be present throughout my life in many different forms.

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Sometimes it simply meant listening again.

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Another Japanese concept that touched me deeply was wabi-sabi — finding beauty and value in imperfection.

 

We live in a world that so often encourages us to seek perfection. We are surrounded by messages telling us how we should look, what we should own, what success should resemble and even how happiness should appear.

 

Yet life has never been perfect. Neither have we. There is something liberating in recognising that perhaps it was never meant to be.

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Ageing leaves its marks. Life leaves its marks. Our homes change, our bodies change, relationships change and we change.

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Rather than seeing every sign of time as something that needs to be hidden or corrected, wabi-sabi offers another possibility.

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Perhaps there can be beauty in what has been lived.

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That thought leads naturally to kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery so that the repair remains visible rather than being disguised.

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I remember being deeply moved when I first understood what it represented.

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The object does not pretend it was never broken.

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Its history is still there.

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I don't know whether everything painful that happens to us happens for a reason. Perhaps some experiences bring lessons we might never have learnt otherwise.

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I don't believe we have to be grateful for the suffering itself, but we may come to feel grateful for the way we found the strength to put ourselves back together.

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What happens to us becomes part of our story.

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We can acknowledge the cracks without allowing them to become the whole of who we are.

 

Perhaps the repair does not erase what happened, but what happened does not diminish the value of who we are.

 

Then there is mono no aware, a beautiful and much more subtle idea: an awareness that everything is temporary and a recognition of the feeling that comes with knowing this.

 

The Japanese cherry blossom is often associated with this understanding. Its beauty is made even more poignant because the blossom lasts for such a short time.

 

I find something deeply moving in that.

 

We often want the things we love to remain unchanged. We want beautiful moments to last, people we love to stay, our bodies to remain as they were and periods of happiness never to end.

 

But life has never offered us permanence.

 

Perhaps knowing that something cannot last does not have to diminish it.

 

Perhaps it can make us appreciate it more.

 

Another principle, ichigo ichie, expresses the idea that a particular meeting or moment can never be repeated in exactly the same way.

 

We may meet the same person again tomorrow, sit at the same table or walk along the same path, but it will never be precisely the same moment.

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Once it has passed, it cannot be recreated.

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I had understood that long before I knew there was a name for it.

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Life had already taught me the importance of being where I was, appreciating the people around me and recognising moments that might once have seemed ordinary.

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Sometimes the ordinary moments become the ones we remember most.

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And then there is shikata ga nai — the recognition that some things simply cannot be changed.

 

At first that might sound like resignation, but I have never understood acceptance in that way.

 

There is a difference between giving up and recognising reality.

 

I have faced circumstances in my life that no amount of wishing, worrying or fighting could alter.

 

What I could choose was how I responded to them.

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I could ask, What can I do from here?

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That has often been when I found my strength.

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What struck me when I discovered these ideas was not that I suddenly wanted to adopt a different way of life.

 

It was the recognition.

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Here were words describing things that life had already been teaching me.

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Find purpose in what matters to you.

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Accept that life changes.

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Do not demand perfection from yourself or from life.

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Recognise what cannot be changed and decide how you will respond.

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Allow what you have lived through to become part of your story without allowing it to define all that you are.

 

Treasure people and moments because they will not always be here.

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And pay attention to the life you are actually living.

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I found that wonderful and inspiring.

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These ideas arose within a culture very different from my own, where ways of living that value simplicity, impermanence, respect, nature and attention have been expressed through language, customs, arts and traditions over generations.

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Much of what I now know came through living.

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Through making mistakes.

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Through loving and losing.

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Through changing direction.

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Through listening to my instincts when something didn't feel right.

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Through discovering that what gives our life purpose can take many different forms.

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Through learning when to hold on and when to let go.

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Through accepting that there are things in life I simply cannot control.

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And perhaps, most importantly, through remembering to listen to that deeper awareness within me that so often knew something before my thinking mind could explain it.

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There was something almost reassuring about recognising that understandings I had reached through my own experiences had been contemplated and expressed by people in another culture, in another time and in another part of the world.

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It reminded me that wisdom does not belong to one person, one philosophy or one culture.

 

Carl Jung wrote about the collective unconscious — the idea that there are patterns and experiences shared across humanity.

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Through experiences in my own life, I have come to believe that there is a greater consciousness beyond our individual awareness, something we are capable of connecting with.

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Perhaps this is why an idea expressed by someone from another culture, or even another century, can sometimes feel so deeply familiar.

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I don't claim to know exactly how or why this happens, but I remain open to what it might mean.

 

Perhaps many philosophies and principles are not rules telling us how we must live, but guiding signs left by people who walked before us.

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Different cultures gave them different names and express them in different ways, yet so often they seem to point towards similar things — meaning, acceptance, awareness, compassion, courage and an appreciation of life while we have it.

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I find something deeply uplifting in that.

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I sometimes wonder what difference it might have made if I had encountered some of these principles when I was very young.

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Would my road have been easier? Perhaps.

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But would I have understood them as I do now? Probably not.

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There are some things we can be taught, and there are other things whose meaning only becomes clear when life gives us the experience to understand them.

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I had to find much of my understanding along the way.

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It wasn't always an easy road.

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But what a road I have walked.

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I can look back now and see the learning, the love, the mistakes, the courage, the changes, the questions, the purpose I found again and again, and all the moments that helped shape the way I live today.

 

These are some of the Japanese principles that resonated with me and reflected different aspects of my own life.

Ikigai — purpose and what gives life meaning.
Kaizen — continuous, gradual improvement.
Wabi-sabi — finding beauty and value in imperfection and what has been lived.
Shoshin — beginner's mind; remaining open to learning.
Hara Hachi Bu — mindful moderation, particularly around eating.
Shikata ga nai — accepting what cannot be changed and releasing the need to control it.
Kintsugi — the art of repairing damaged pottery while honouring its history; a beautiful metaphor for strength through hardship.
Mono no aware — an awareness of life's impermanence and the feeling that comes with knowing that nothing lasts forever.
Shinrin-yoku — immersing yourself in the atmosphere of the forest.
Ichigo ichie — treasuring an encounter or moment because it will never occur again in exactly the same way.
Oubaitori — the idea of different flowers blooming in their own way and time, often used as a reminder not to compare your life with the lives of others.

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Reading these principles, I recognised so much of what I had learnt and come to understand through my own life experiences.

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What touched me was knowing that people from a very different culture, across generations, had also explored and expressed so many of the things we encounter through the human experience.

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Perhaps our connection reaches further still. There may be other levels of consciousness through which we can connect, a shared level of consciousness where something of our individual experience becomes part of something greater.