Zen and now
“This moment right now is the youngest we’ll be for the rest of our lives. How we live now is important.”
There are two types of happiness. There’s hedonic happiness, fun but fleeting, the kind that comes from buying a new dress or winning a raffle. And then there’s eudaimonic happiness, the deep contentment that comes with living in accordance with your true nature, feeling fulfilled and enjoying both selfacceptance and personal growth.
Travel and holidays, it has to be said, usually result in the hedonic variation. But, in the cultural Japanese city of Kyoto, I found you can actually experience both.
At the ancient Shunkoin Temple, deputy head priest Taka Kawakami tells me why: it’s because so many acts in everyday life here are wreathed in a meditative gesture of appreciation and delight in sharing.
“It’s a constant, not something you leap into now and again like a bungee jump,” says Kawakami with typical dry humour as he leads his daily philosophy and meditation sessions (with a little science thrown in as well). “We don’t believe in no pain, no gain. If you want pain and gain, get a
