Ikigai : the Japanese secret to a long and happy life pdfdrive com

Sophisticated simplicity

What do Japanese artisans, engineers, Zen philosophy, and cuisine have in common? Simplicity and attention to detail. It is not a lazy simplicity but a sophisticated one that searches out new frontiers, always taking the object, the body and mind, or the cuisine to the next level, according to one’s ikigai.
As Csikszentmihalyi would say, the key is always having a meaningful challenge to overcome in order to maintain flow.
The documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi gives us another example of a takumi, this time in the kitchen. Its protagonist has been making sushi every day for more than eighty years, and owns a small sushi restaurant near the Ginza subway station in Tokyo. He and his son go every day to the famous Tsukiji fish market and choose the best fish to bring back to the restaurant.
In the documentary, we see one of Jiro’s apprentices learning to make tamago (a thin, slightly sweet omelet). No matter how hard he tries, he can’t get Jiro’s approval. He keeps practicing for years until he finally does.
Why does the apprentice refuse to give up? Doesn’t he get bored cooking eggs every day? No, because making sushi is his ikigai, too.
Both Jiro and his son are culinary artists. They don’t get bored when they cook
—they achieve a state of flow. They enjoy themselves completely when they are in the kitchen; that is their happiness, their ikigai. They’ve learned to take pleasure in their work, to lose their sense of time.
Beyond the close relationship between father and son, which helps them keep the challenge going each day, they also work in a quiet, peaceful environment that allows them to concentrate. Even after receiving a three-star rating from Michelin, they never considered opening other locations or expanding the business. They serve just ten patrons at a time at the bar of their small restaurant. Jiro’s family isn’t looking to make money; instead they value good working conditions and creating an environment in which they can flow while making the best sushi in the world.
Jiro, like Y ukio Shakunaga, begins his work at “the source.” He goes to the fish market to find the best tuna; Shakunaga goes to the mountains to find the best porcelain. When they get down to work, both become one with the object they are creating. This unity with the object that they reach in a state of flow takes on special meaning in Japan, where, according to Shintoism, forests, trees, and objects have a kami (spirit or god) within them.
When someone—whether an artist, an engineer, or a chef—sets out to create something, his or her responsibility is to use nature to give it “life” while respecting that nature at every moment. During this process, the artisan becomes one with the object and flows with it. An ironworker would say that metal has a life of its own, just as someone making ceramics would say that the clay does. The Japanese are skilled at bringing nature and technology together: not man versus nature, but rather a union of the two.