Is modern Japan losing its center?
Imagine a nation of people who no longer know where their center lies. That’s what Japan has become in recent decades.
One of the major casualties of the Japanese language’s rapid and ongoing evolution is the diminishing use of body-related phrases — a phenomenon that reflects how Japanese people’s once-visceral connection between their bodies and minds is these days rapidly attenuating.
Within the Japanese teachings of the system of Reiki we work with the hara. This is the area known as the tandien or tanden in China and is a few finger widths below the navel, inside the body. It is the energetic center of the body and the foundation Reiki technique hatsurei ho is based upon the hara.
Many words in the Japanese language utilize the word hara to express the mind-body connection; although the hara is a physical region of the body, it symbolizes a state of centerdness. In modern day Japan, words that have traditionally included hara, giving each word that symbolic state of centredness, are being used less and less.
For example:
” ‘Hara ga dekite iru’ refers to having a calm mind even in times of urgency — meaning someone who is able to deal with any situation calmly.” To put this in its cultural context, he explained: “In the past in Japan, training in Zen or the martial arts strengthened your spirit and allowed you to keep your presence of mind even in the face of death.”
Why this lack of popularity? Is it that young Japan no longer recognizes the mind-body connection that has been an integral part of the Japanese culture and philosophy?
Read on…
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070923x2.html
