Imagine the Possible

Ceremony is everything.

That is the interesting thing about this culture.  Past, present, probably even future, everything depends on ceremony.  Although I have not lived in Japan very long, nor is it my native anything, it’s hard to miss that one, essential fact.

Not only that, but the Japanese have gotten ceremony down to an art form.  They are meticulous in every detail.  When making tea, it matters which foot one steps forward with first, but be careful about whether you are coming or going, and also careful about whether you carry the waste water with you or not.

Learning the language for the first time?  Careful because every stroke is a part of an elaborate ceremony around the written language.  It has to be.  If someone wrote too fast, and everyone wrote in different ways, how could anyone possibly read it?

The spoken language is a ceremony in its own right as well.  The entire grammar and conjugation shifts and changes with each level of politeness one ascends to.  There are whole verbs that are only used to be vulgar, and which attach to the regular action verbs for no reason other than to make the whole sentence more rude.  Common verbs like “eat” and “speak” have entirely different, ceremonial versions that sound nothing like their other counterparts, an honorific way of speaking that is so archaic-sounding that the entire culture had to adapt it as the language of business in order to keep it around.  Sentimentality, I suppose?  Or just taking “the customer is always right” to whole new, pompous levels?

These are only examples.  The whole country is rife with ceremony, with people going about and doing things in one very specific way, from clapping or not depending on if they’re in a shrine or a temple all the way to the angle at which they turn their foot in a dojo because one scroll says it one way, but another scroll says it another.

Is it really any surprise, then, that the energy put into these ceremonies, day in and day out, year after year, century after century of refinement and absent thought, gave birth to something extraordinary?

Should it be any surprise that in an industrial world, on an industrial island, so densely populated that they stack the homes and businesses on top of each other like Lego cities, in a climate of metal and smoke with the environment dying around us, this island somehow manages to be so teeming with life and beauty?

Does no one stop to wonder at the miracle of forests standing next to skyscrapers?  Of gardens spilling out of concrete yards?  Of monuments to faith and meditation, peace and tranquility, right on the side of busy roads and framed by businesses?

Ceremony.  Tradition.  History.  The modern world has kept them up to speed, but ceremony is too deeply ingrained in the psyche of this culture.  Sure, there is instant tea, tea is plastic bottles in vending machines, and tea made into ice cream, but for centuries, they made tea a very specific way.  They couldn’t just stop that.  It was a ceremony, it was their tradition, it was part of their history.  Part of them.  Not every Japanese person knows the tea ceremony, not every one agrees with its existence in a modern world, or likes it, or even cares.  But not everyone needs to.  They have their own ceremonies they can’t live without, that they would cling to no matter what technological advances were made.

Most people haven’t noticed.  Even the culture that gave birth to such rich, teeming energy is mostly unaware.  These ceremonies give life to the people and area around them.  The longer something has been done in one place, the more palpable it is.  Step into an ancient temple, one that has been around for centuries, and feel the hush.  Nothing is quite as loud inside those unless it’s a natural sound of the place.  A child screaming will sound muted, but a gong as ancient as the building will reverberate through bone.

The subtle effects of the energy of history are felt everywhere.  An old chant, performed in an ancient cathedral, stirs the souls of men.  Why?  The sounds are all the same as ones we hear every day.  The walls are made of stone, which we walk on every day.  The voices are modern, people we might be friends with.  The melodies rudimentary, at the beginning of when music was being explored.

Each component, on its own, is also stirring.  The cathedral itself inspires awe, the ancient song inspires thought, the dead language of the lyrics inspire fascination.  But take the history away, and so does the power.  No one is awed by the cobblestone path they saw in the park.  Music is played in elevators to break the awkward silence of strangers.

People who steep their lives in ceremony are different from the rest of us.  A true master of martial arts, one who dedicated himself to the spirituality of it as well as the physicality of it for his entire life, can quiet a room simply by entering.

Not everyone with a long life can be this way, yet.  Most people live their lives very scattered, jumping from one thing to next when it seems the right thing to do.  The ones who are different can be picked out of a crowd.  That’s the kid that knew he wanted to be a chemist since he was five years old, and now he’s retired, living off a well-earned retirement and the warm after-glow of changing the world.  Over there is the war veteran who served his country his whole life, finished as a four-star general, and inspired every one of his grandchildren to join the military with nothing more than sitting in his favorite armchair and telling stories when they begged.

Now imagine you could tap into that vast reserve of energy.  Imagine pulling it in at will, using all of the centuries of focus that thousands, maybe even millions, of people have used on that exact spot.  A strength of ages.  Remember the day of your life you felt the most inspired, the strongest, and imagine calling that state of mind into being at will.

Linking your own energy with the energy of history and ceremony, of pattern and tradition, of the same energy used by people just like you stretching back into time, and harnessing it for the betterment of yourself and humanity.

Why just imagine?