Epilogue

Toward the Present — What the World Seeks Now

結章 — 現代へ・いま、世界が求めるもの

From the Past, into the Present

Thus far we have made a journey of two thousand years.

It began with a simple sensibility toward nature, where the gods dwell; the sixth-century arrival of Buddhism brought "impermanence"; the Zen of Kamakura nurtured the spirit of the "here and now" and of subtraction, which crystallised in the warrior's vision of life and death and in the wabi and sabi of the way of tea. And by way of the aesthetic of ma, mu and yohaku, it arrived at Bashō's "the constant and the changing" (fueki-ryūkō) — the ground where passing and eternity are bound into one.

All of this is a story of the past. Yet this spiritual worldview is no relic shut away in a museum case. It still lives, quietly, in the daily life of this country — in its cooking, in its hospitality, in its making of things.

In this epilogue, carrying the journey of two thousand years, we wish to return to the present. There are two questions. Why, now, is the world drawn to this spiritual culture? And how does this great current flow into a cup of tea, a bowl of ferment, a journey taken but once — into concrete experience?

I. Pausing in an Age of Speed

Ours is an age faster than any before it.

Information floods in without pause, notifications never cease, and people are asked to handle many tasks at once. Efficiency, speed and productivity are pursued in every quarter. And yet, in the midst of it, many have begun to feel a certain thirst. Time to pause. Stillness. To be, simply, here and now — a thirst for the very things the age of speed has pared away.

To this thirst, the world has found one answer within the spiritual culture of Japan: Zen.

In the twenty-first century, Zen spread across the world under the name of "mindfulness."¹ It is well known that Steve Jobs was deeply drawn to Zen, and companies such as Google, Intel and Facebook took meditation, one after another, into their employee programmes.² Intellectual elites on the verge of drowning in a vast sea of information found in Zen a way to master both information and themselves.² Younger generations and visitors from abroad still make their way to the Zen temples of Japan.¹

Why Zen? Because the heart of Zen we have followed in this essay — to concentrate on the "here and now," and to be free of regret for the past and anxiety for the future — was the very thing most lacking in the age of speed.³ To pause, to settle the breath, to be in this present moment: this simple act became, amid an unprecedented volume of information, a rare power.

II. Summer Grasses — At the End of Pride

When one pauses, there is something the history of this country tells, quietly.

In the summer of the second year of Genroku (1689), Matsuo Bashō stood at Takadachi, in Hiraizumi of the far north. Here had once stood a golden capital, built over three generations by the Northern Fujiwara. From the Golden Hall of Chūson-ji onward, it was a resplendent glory in which politics, economy and culture had all flowered in this northeastern land.⁴ But that glory collapsed in a mere hundred years, and five centuries later, when Bashō came, not even a trace remained. As far as the eye could see, only the summer grasses grew green and thick.⁴

Before that scene, Bashō composed:

Summer grasses — all that remains of the warriors' dreams

A verse that carved, into seventeen syllables, the fleetingness of it: where once warriors strove in pursuit of glory, now only the summer grasses grow thick.⁵ It plays the same melody as the passage from The Tale of the Heike, seen in the sixth chapter: the proud endure not, but are as a dream on a spring night; the mighty too perish in the end, as dust before the wind.⁶

In every age, the glory most hurriedly piled up and most loudly flaunted is the first to return to dust. Power, wealth, fame — from the moment they are grasped, they slip between the fingers. The Japanese knew this more than a thousand years ago. And it was for this very reason that they chose another path. Not to flaunt, but to deepen quietly. Not to gain in a single night, but to brew over time. Not to make oneself look large toward the outside, but to clarify deeply toward within — the spirit of "immanence" this essay has depicted throughout resonates deeply with this lesson of history.

The answer is not amid the clamour without. It is only when one pauses and places oneself in stillness that what was hidden comes into view — and it lies within oneself. One who knows that summer grasses grow at the end of pride does not raise the voice, does not flaunt, but only, quietly, nurtures something certain. Like a brewery that has kept its fermentation for two hundred years without changing the method. Like a land that has whisked a single bowl of tea for seven hundred and fifty years.

III. The Richness of Paring Away

What the world has found in the spiritual culture of Japan is not Zen meditation alone.

"Wabi-sabi" has become, by now, a word of the world. The thought of "Wabi-Sabi" — of finding beauty in what is imperfect, plain and passing, without seeking perfection — rings out as a fresh value in an age overflowing with things. "Ma" and "Yohaku," too, draw attention in the worlds of design and architecture as a sensibility that pares away the excessive and prizes emptiness and stillness.

This is no accident. Ours is an age in which everything proceeds by "addition." More information, more choices, more stimulation, more possession. And yet, at the end of it, people are the more thirsty. The spiritual culture of Japan we have followed in this essay deepened, over a thousand years, the very opposite — the path of "subtraction." Not to add, but to pare. Not to fill, but to empty. There, precisely, is richness.

It is because ours is an age of excess that the aesthetic of subtraction takes on a new meaning. The stillness of an empty tea room. The emptiness that brings a single flower to life. The heart poured into one plain bowl. These quietly remind people, weary of the "addition" of the present, of a forgotten form of richness.

IV. To Savour, Together with Its Context

Here, however, is one thing on which we wish to pause and reflect.

Zen-as-mindfulness, spread across the world, has in that process often been cut away from its original context. Stripped of its religious and philosophical background, it has been, in part, turned into a tool — "a technique for reducing stress and raising productivity."⁷ Whereas Zen, in its origin, was a deep path aiming at "oneness," at "connection," between self and world, there is even a criticism that modern mindfulness has at times been shrunk into "a technique for managing the self."⁷

Here lies the true value of the spiritual worldview this essay has depicted.

The spiritual culture of Japan is not, in origin, something separable. Zen's "here and now" is bound inseparably to the warrior's vision of life and death, to the hospitality of the way of tea, to the aesthetic of wabi and sabi, and to the sensibility of impermanence. And all of these are rooted in the deepest sensibility of all, seen in the prologue: "being with nature." Within the single act of whisking a bowl of matcha there is Zen, there is hospitality, there is a sensibility toward the turning of the seasons, there is the spirit of "one encounter in a lifetime." Only when one savours not the technique drawn out alone, but the two-thousand-year current behind it, does this spiritual culture open its true depth.

It is for this reason that there is meaning in touching the real thing. Not to read of it in a book, but to place oneself where that culture was born, grew, and lives still. In the scent of a brewery, in the stillness of a tea room, in the movement of a craftsman's hands — to savour it, together with its context, through all five senses. There is, surely, something that can be gained nowhere else.

V. The Current, into a Single Bowl — The Endeavour Called Hosomichi

Where, then, can this two-thousand-year current be savoured, concretely?

One answer is the endeavour called Hosomichi. The name derives from Matsuo Bashō's The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi). As Bashō walked, making the journey his dwelling, gazing upon what changes and what does not — so Hosomichi is a single narrow path that draws one toward the places where the spiritual culture of Japan lives on.

Its stage is no glittering tourist site. It is the small towns of Mikawa, in Aichi — Hekinan, Nishio, Chita. Here, the spiritual culture we have traced lives on, quietly, in the form of daily life.

In Hekinan, mirin and white soy sauce are brewed by methods unchanged for two hundred years. Fermentation is the crystallisation, in food, of the spiritual culture this essay has seen. Having prepared the ingredients, one withdraws one's hand and entrusts the rest to the kōji mould and to time — to "wait." To trust in several years of maturing. This connects deeply with Zen's "here and now," with the "one encounter in a lifetime" of the way of tea, and with "the constant and the changing" (to keep an unchanging method while opening to the world). When one visits a Hekinan brewery, is wrapped in its scent, and savours a single drop brewed by two hundred years of time, one comes to know this essay's spiritual culture with the tongue, with the skin. (On the fermentation culture of this land, the companion volume "Hekinan: A Chronicle of Brewing Culture" tells in detail.)

In Nishio, the tea transmitted seven hundred and fifty years ago together with Zen is still whisked today as matcha. Within a single bowl of matcha there is Zen, there is wabi and sabi, there is "one encounter in a lifetime." All that we have traced in this essay is poured into this one bowl. (On the matcha culture of Nishio, a "Nishio: A Chronicle of Matcha Culture" is planned in detail hereafter.)

These are concrete "branches" extending from the "trunk" that is this essay. The great current of a two-thousand-year spiritual worldview pours into the fermentation of Hekinan, the matcha of Nishio, and the experience of a journey taken but once. Abstract thought takes a form that can be savoured through the five senses — that is the endeavour called Hosomichi.

Conclusion — The Journey Goes On

In the prologue, we raised a single question. That sensibility running through the tea room, the garden, the bowl of matcha, the brewery of ferment — where does it come from?

After a journey of two thousand years, we have our answer. It was one great current, flowing still — beginning with a sensibility toward nature where the gods dwell, passing through impermanence, nurturing Zen, the way of the warrior and the way of tea, binding the aesthetic of ma, mu and yohaku, and arriving at the constant and the changing.

This spiritual worldview is not a thing of the past. In a present that quickens its speed, it takes on, rather, a meaning deeper than ever. To pause. To set in order. To pare away. To cherish what passes. To live this one moment, completely. These are what the Japanese have nurtured since two thousand years ago, and at the same time what the world now thirsts for most.

And this current does not end within a book. It lives still — in the scent of a brewery, in the stillness of a tea room, in the warmth of a single bowl. Not a thing to be read, but a thing to be savoured. Not a thing to be thought, but a thing to be entered.

The two-thousand-year spiritual worldview waits, quietly, beyond the page, for you to come.

The journey goes on from here.

Notes & Sources

This is the epilogue of the white paper "The Japanese Spiritual Worldview." The facts stated rest on the sources cited. On the modern reception of Zen and mindfulness there are diverse assessments and debates, of which this essay introduces but one part. Throughout this white paper, the aim has not been the propagation of any particular religion or faith, but the description, as culture, of Japan's spiritual culture, sense of beauty and view of nature. The accounts of each chapter will be reinforced continuously, hereafter, by primary sources and specialist literature. Beneath this essay (the trunk), regional chronicles of culture ("Hekinan: A Chronicle of Brewing Culture" and others) and individual experiences extend as branches and leaves.

⟨The Japanese Spiritual Worldview — Full Structure⟩

Prologue. Source — Nature, Where the Gods Dwell
Chapter One. Buddhism Arrives — An Encounter with Thought from Abroad
Chapter Two. Zen — Simplicity and Intuition
Chapter Three. Bushidō — The Ethics of Death and Honour
Chapter Four. The Way of Tea — Hospitality and Wabi
Chapter Five. Ma, Mu, and the Beauty of Emptiness — The Japanese Sense of Beauty
Chapter Six. Impermanence and the Constant-in-Change — A Philosophy of Passing
Epilogue. Toward the Present — What the World Seeks Now

This white paper is placed at the uppermost source (the trunk) of the Hosomichi content system; beneath it extend regional chronicles of culture (Hekinan: A Chronicle of Brewing Culture, Nishio: A Chronicle of Matcha Culture, and others) as branches, and individual journeys and experiences as leaves.

"Transforming the Way We Work with Zen and Mindfulness × ICT!," NEC wisdom (on a worldwide rise of interest in Zen, with younger generations and visitors from abroad making their way to Japan's Zen temples, and seated meditation offering hints for how people live and work today). https://wisdom.nec.com/ja/business/2017082401/02.html ↩ ↩²
"Steve Jobs and Zen," nippon.com (on Jobs's devotion to Zen; on IT companies such as Google, Intel, IBM and Facebook taking Zen into their employee programmes; and on intellectual elites on the verge of drowning in a sea of information finding in Zen and mindfulness a way to master information and themselves). https://www.nippon.com/ja/views/b06101/ ↩ ↩²
"Transforming the Way We Work with Zen and Mindfulness × ICT!," NEC wisdom (on mindfulness's concentration on the "here and now" freeing one from regret for the past and anxiety for the future, and on the attention drawn to pausing and concentrating on the present amid an unprecedented volume of information). https://wisdom.nec.com/ja/business/2017082401/02.html ↩
"Where Was 'Summer Grasses, All That Remains of Warriors' Dreams' Written?," Katei Gahō / Hiraizumi tourism materials (on Hiraizumi as the land where the three generations of the Northern Fujiwara [Kiyohira, Motohira, Hidehira] flourished, raising Chūson-ji and others and reaching a height of glory in politics, economy and culture; on its fall in about a hundred years; and on Bashō finding, some five hundred years later, no trace of that glory, only thick summer grasses). https://www.kateigaho.com/article/detail/164025 ↩ ↩²
"'Summer Grasses, All That Remains of Warriors' Dreams': A Thorough Reading," The Haiku Textbook (on Bashō composing the verse at Takadachi in Hiraizumi in 1689; on "warriors" pointing to Minamoto no Yoshitsune and the Fujiwara clan, and "all that remains" holding the fleetingness of human life in the image of all having passed. The sense of "dream" admits various readings.). https://haiku-textbook.com/natsukusaya/ ↩
"The Tale of the Heike: Gion Shōja," Wikibooks (on the original text: "the proud endure not, but are as a dream on a spring night; the mighty too perish in the end, as dust before the wind"). https://ja.wikibooks.org/wiki/平家物語_祇園精舎 ↩
"So That 'Mindfulness' May Lead Not to the Swelling of the Ego but to the Transformation of Society," WIRED.jp (on modern mindfulness losing its original ethical teaching and aim, becoming psychologised, instrumentalised and commodified, and on the criticism that the realisation of oneness with others, nature and cosmos — the core of the contemplative traditions — has been pared away and turned into a merely instrumental technique). https://wired.jp/article/sz-can-mindfulness-be-a-path-to-activism/ ↩ ↩²