#kigaku---realize

#kigaku---realize

Gossiping about someone else gave me a fleeting escape, since it allowed me to shift my focus to someone else's behavior. Every time I did it, I felt a sense of guilt and shame after.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Italian scientists documented something interesting: in areas with more trees per capita, the number and severity of COVID-19 cases were lower than in places with fewer trees, even when accounting for differences in human population density. This work is part of a growing body of research around the world investigating whether time spent in forests and nature can provide protection from infections, such as COVID-19 and pneumonia; inflammatory conditions, such as asthma, emphysema and bronchitis; and even cancer.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. It was bracing language for an 8-year-old. Not only was I unclean, but even my best attempt at goodness was filthy.

In Rinrigaku, Watsuji argues that ethics is the study of what it means for us to be human. How we think about the nature of human existence, he says, dictates the ways in which we understand our ethical values. Hence, he criticises Western philosophical conceptions of the modern subject, arguing that the Western rendering of subjectivity is both problematic and foreign

Kintsugi 金継ぎ is known as the Japanese art of putting broken things back together, like broken pottery, using materials mixed with powdered gold and other elements. Instead of hiding damage, this technique celebrates the restoration of an object once viewed as broken, flawed, or imperfect. This same process can be seen as a metaphor for addiction recovery. Even for people with addiction who willingly choose recovery, there's an element of being remade that can't be ignored. Addicts often go through a period of denial.

I didn't have words for it back then, but the feeling was clear: if I stood out, something was wrong with me. And if something was wrong with me, I wasn't good enough. I remember standing there, already tense, afraid that the other kids would think I looked stupid. Afraid they wouldn't want to play with me. Afraid that being different, even in something small, would mean I didn't belong.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~Lao Tzu For many years, I was deeply involved in spiritual communities-satsangs, meditation centers, ashrams, and groups focused on positivity, service, and personal growth. These places gave me comfort, community, and a sense of purpose. But they also shaped something inside me that I didn't fully recognize until much later: I had built my self-worth around being a "good person."

For years, I'd used these journals as a kind of inner courtroom, constantly building a case against myself or others. Every page held evidence of failures, proof of my profoundly advanced ability to gaslight myself. I could shrink or morph into whatever was requested for another person's comfort. Small flowered booklets documenting all the ways I couldn't get "it" right.