How We Live Between Belief and Doubt with Hiroko Yoda

In this episode of A Thought I Kept, I talk to Hiroko Yoda about grief, Japanese spirituality, uncertainty, ritual, belonging, and what it means to live somewhere between belief and doubt. We explore the idea of “half belief, half doubt” — the Japanese concept of hanshin hangi and how it can offer a more spacious way of relating to uncertainty, spirituality, and even ourselves.

Hiroko shares how the death of her mother became the beginning of a deeper spiritual awakening, not through certainty or doctrine, but through noticing. A walk in the park. A shrine glimpsed through the trees. A feeling that perhaps we are less alone than we think.

Together we talk about the everyday rituals that help us feel connected when life feels overwhelming: making coffee, eating a meal, taking a walk, speaking kind words aloud. We explore how Japanese ideas of kami — spiritual presences that exist in nature, objects, and everyday life — can shift the way we think about grief, anxiety, happiness, emotions, and connection.

We also talk about anger, darkness, feminism, ghosts, belonging, and why playfulness can sit alongside spirituality rather than oppose it. This is a conversation about learning to live with uncertainty without rushing to resolve it, and about finding comfort in what cannot always be fully explained.

Hiroko Yoda, a Japanese cultural historian and journalist whose work has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, CNN and PBS, offers a path to joy and peace through the peculiar flexibility of Japanese spirituality. In her new book Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan Hiroko takes readers on a journey to her homeland’s sacred core, revealing an essential part of Japan rarely experienced by outsiders – yet has much to offer those on their own quest for meaning and resilience, wherever they are. 

Website | Instagram | Eight Million Ways to Happiness

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of A Thought I Kept, a weekly Monday conversation about the ideas that stay with us, the ones that linger long after everything else has moved on, that shape how we see ourselves, each other, and the world around us. I'm your host, Claire Fitzsimmons, a well-being writer, coach, and someone who spent years collecting and sitting with ideas. The show exists because we're surrounded by so much advice about how to live, and yet so many of us still feel unsure about what to do, feel, or even believe. So instead of adding more noise, the idea is that each week we'll return to one thought, one idea that did stay, and see what happens when we spend a moment with it. So this is something a little new for us. As you know, at the beginning of these episodes, I asked my guests one question, maybe an impossible question. What's the thought that you've kept? And today I'm joined by Hiroko Yoda, a Tokyo-based author, translator, folklorist, and cultural historian whose work sits at the intersection of storytelling and spirituality in everyday life. I really wanted to speak to Hiroko because so much of her recent book, Eight Million Ways to Happiness, feels like a series of epiphanies. And the thought that Hiroko bought is one that resonates so much, but unfortunately didn't get recorded. So there was a glitch in the tech around our conversation, and that part of our conversation was lost. So I am going to fumble through this part and share what she shared with me. Her thought was very much about the importance of Japanese spirituality in her everyday life. And not as sort of this abstraction, but as something that she really lives with and has come to terms with in her recent book. And we talked about one particular moment, one particular epiphany from this book that Hiroiko experienced after the loss of her mother in 2008. And because I don't have Heroku sharing this with you, I think what I'll do is to read out some abbreviated passages from her book. Because I think this will give you a better sense of the thought that she's bringing. So these are Heroko's words from her beautiful memoir and history of Japanese spiritual culture Eight Million Ways to Happiness. And this is her writing just after the loss of her mother. Day to day, I felt as though the flames of my soul had been snuffed, as though the world had drained of colour. I began to question my own identity. I realized for the first time how much I had defined myself through my relationship to my mother. Loss became the lens through which I saw the world. I knew I would have to find a new way to define myself, but I had no idea how. Somehow I sensed that only I could bring myself back together. At some point I decided to take a long walk in the park. My walk was brief. I went out, head down, shuffled my feet, came home and cried. The cycle repeated over days and weeks. One day, I don't know how many later, I managed to do it. I looked up and I saw something amazing. And Harega goes on to explain that in this moment she notices the birds, she notices nature, she notices a shrine, a very old shrine, a Shinto shrine. She noticed the maple trees around her, she noticed the shifts of light. And she says that in that moment she knew that she would never be alone again. Because what she was doing is really connecting with the essence, the traditional beliefs of her country, that everything has a spirit. And with the idea of the kami, the avatars of every aspect of the natural world. That kami are everywhere, that there are multitudes. And this was the beginning of this spiritual awakening that she explores through her book Eight Million Ways to Happiness. So although we lost that part of our conversation, I really hope that that context helps you follow the podcast today, but also inspires you to go out and really maybe get this book and sit with it. And I know how much I enjoyed it and how much it helped me still grieving to better understand where I'm at with my own loss of my mum and the loss of some other people who have been dear to me over the last few years. Um it's a it's a really powerful memoir for finding our way back to each other as well as finding our way back to ourselves. So here is my conversation with Heroko. Hi Heroko, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Good morning for you. Oh, I know. Yes, yes. This well, it's quite a joyful way to start uh start a morning to have a conversation like this. So I yeah, this is a good this is a good beginning, I think, to a day.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

How are you? Yeah, I'm being good. Uh here in Tokyo, uh the great weather, good you know, great afternoon, and and um I like you, and I'm just getting relaxed in here. I feel kind of bad to make you get up so early. But uh I'm very grateful to be here.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

I'm very much a morning person, and I probably would get up at any time to speak to you. What did you believe about Japanese spirituality before you had this moment of going on this journey? How would you characterize your relationship with it before writing this book?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

The relationship never never changed. And I only contextualized it just because I did the research. And we pick by osmosis, by you know, like watching parents do, just like, you know, and just like parents did their own parents. Um and so so it just it just I just could not explain when I went to America. Yeah, I I spent a year as an exchange student in high school. Um I wrote in the book too, and um and I uh the one of the things that I had to explain was Japanese religion, which I had no idea to explain, because our spirituality is not cannot be explained by the word religion. So it just it just it was just it's too it was a kind of air to me, indivisible, it's just everywhere, you know, it's just there, but I just could not see. Just like any other Japanese people, we just could not see. When I learned uh the term uh the secular few years after I spent a year in uh in in America as an exchange student, I learned the word secular and I immediately grabbed it. Ah, yeah, Japan is secular, I am secular, just because we don't go to we don't have a Sunday school. So it's easy to easy for me to say, oh, it's secular. But but then I realized that while we have so many temples and shrines, the huge number of the peep Japanese people visit temples and shrines on New Year's Day. There are many other traditions that it's you know just closely to the spirituality, so it's not really secular. So what's going on? So it's just again, I mean, the the relationship never changed.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

But what's awareness?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yes, it's awareness and then also contextualizing, you know, what happened, what am I doing, and what we do, you know, in especially in English.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

There's a scene in the book that I really love where you're in the States and I think it's a nativity scene. I believe you are playing Were you playing Joseph? Joseph.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yes. I I appreciate that experience. I mean, just you know, not that it's just such a rare, you know? It it yes, because my first host family is was was a very religious family. They go they went to church every Sunday, twice, morning and even uh late afternoon. And then it then they they took me there too. I had no idea what was going on because you know I couldn't speak I couldn't speak English. I mean that is why I, you know, in America to learn, you know, to learn the language, learn the new culture. Um so it was just so I had no idea. But but at the same time, I learned a lot by watching. They singing songs, they they the the priest and just preaching and all the Bible, which I didn't understand because it's once again I my language ability was just so low. But I appreciate the they they they took me in. Even though I you know I became Christian, they they never forced me to become Christian. So it was just kind of part of community thing. And yes, joining the nativity scene was was one of them. And yeah, yes, the December. It was Indiana, it was just cold. It was cold, but they created some kind of barn, you know, got a little housing hot thing, and they they rented a goat somewhere. And then my host sister played Mary, you know, the cradling the dull baby Jesus, and I played Joseph. I they put some fake uh the beers and and it stood there for half an hour, I think.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Um yeah, so it was uh it was experience. You you talk about, I think that's the moment in the book that you talk about play. There was something about like the way that you approach spirituality Japan is very much founded in a sense of play. Yes. Yes and uh yes. And I was just curious about like how how how that kind of like how that felt being in the States where it feels very different, it feels very maybe serious in a different way. And how you then relate to that when you're in Japan, where it feels much more playful and expansive, like we've talked about in spacious.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, so the playfulness and the prey are intertwined, it's very connected, closely connected in Japan. It's one of major characteristics of Japanese rituality. In the West, I learned that the prey is a solemn thing. It's a very serious thing. But in here here in Japan, we don't see the playfulness as sacrilegious. It's it's it's it's just uh bringing uh bringing basically joy and happiness. And here's a great example. Okay, there is a so there is a pla the place called Kamakura, but it's it's outside of Tokyo, but it's one of the major tourist spots. And so a month ago I went there, and there is a shopping street starting with Shinto Tori Gate. The the reasons and why the you know the the shopping street starts with the Torii Gate, because that street it's eventually it ends up with the Shinto Shrine. But it's shopping street. Okay, and I mean it is a shopping street. Yeah, there's a bookstore, restaurant, of course, convenience stores, you know, the toy stores, flower shops, and then and and at the toy store I found uh the drawing of Hello Kitty cosplaying Buddha.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

So, okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Buddha is Buddhism. It's it's a shopping st on the shopping street starting from the Shinto gate, ended up in the Shinto Shrine. The reasons and why I found and I mean that the you know the Hello Kitty cosplay Buddha, it's just only one example. There's so many other, you know, the the fusing stuff and it stuff. Anyway, the reasons and why uh you know they had Hello Kitty Buddha there is that because the Kamakura is known for two major holy spots. One is Shinto Shrine, Tsudugao Gatsimangu. The other one is the Buddhist temple, Kotogin. That's the Buddhist temple of Great Buddha. So, as a souvenir, and then there are keychains and stuffed animals, drawing of Hello Kitty Buddha. So I know it sounds kind of maybe it's you know, maybe some Westerns think that's sacrilegious, but we we we don't see that way. It just makes you laugh. And that's the whole point. The especially for the the vast majority of Japanese people, it's uh it's just it's a hurdle, it's lore and you know, to the this the for the belief systems. And then and then just enjoy it. And then and of course, you know, you can go there and pray, you can show the respect, you can have the serious moment, or you just walking around and enjoy the quiet moment, and then enjoy the flowers or trees, you know, if that's how you name it. And so that is a playfulness too. Walking around, you know, and just enjoy the fresh breeze, that's playfulness too. So it's very intertwined in Japan.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

You said something earlier about belief that you didn't need to have belief. And there is a such a beautiful concept in the book about half belief and half doubt. Yes. And I wonder whether you might explain that, because I found that so fascinating.

unknown 15:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, so it's a yeah, it's called Han Sing Hangi. Half belief and half doubt. It's uh it's a i it's an idea, it's a concept that allows you to stay in the gray zone. Because life is it's it's complicated and there's so many questions out there cannot be answered black and white. So that the concept of handsing hangi, half a belief and half doubt, you know, gives you to stay uncomfortably in the gray zone. Especially, you know, in terms of say spirituality. It's a kind of a kind of analog meter. You can ingesting it. Maybe I can believe a little bit. Maybe maybe I believe you know, 60%. It just depends on what. Like, let's say Santa Claus, for example. You don't as an adult, the Santa Claus just sorry, but doesn't exist. But you wouldn't say that to children. You know, the really nice kind of Santa Claus exist. That's kind of the gray zone. It's just it's a it's it's it's a very nice thing. It there's a lot of questions that it just can't be simply answered. But of course, you know, if there's a fact that comes into play, that concept just doesn't work at all. It's a fact. If the one's fact is on the table, we talk about a fact. But the yeah, the questions of you know, spirituality, if if kami exists, I don't know. But I don't know, but it would be nice. That's that's a concept of a Han Sin Hagi.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Did you ever find that there was any resistance to anything during your research? So as you were exploring Japanese spiritual traditions, was there anything where you felt any resistance to a practice, any anything that you struggled to understand, anything that felt a little bit more like tender for you?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Uh my struggle was that um I it's contextualizing the big subject, the Japanese culture, the spirituality. I mean, we're talking about humanity here. And then the book is just so limited. And then and then also the the challenging, another challenging for me was that my book is is is targeting for anyone, to the anybody who knows nothing about my country. And for it is they the they they readers, you know, so so I and then also there's so many. I mean, we talk about you know Japanese thing, Japanese, you know, the things. So there's so many words and terms that get lost in translation. And so that's another challenging too. Shinto, the word shinto. In shinto in English, it's the way, the way of coming. So I wrote in the book that there's an explosion of interest in Japanese culture. Like pop culture, especially pop culture. But and I I now like I often hear people saying shintoism, but but it's it's kind of strained to a native ears because ism is identity, ism is ideology. And there's a reason to know why the shinto calls shinto because it's the way it's a lifestyle. So that actually you know, you can apply it. Anybody can uh adapt it. Anybody can apply it without any permission. So you know, when you have a beautiful sky or tiny violet with a flower on the foot and it touched your heart. That's that's you know, that's the way of Kami too. So I don't I don't recall I had a resistance, you know, the the sp the spiritual practices and things like that. But I have a really challenging moment, challenging time to put digest the big subject and translate and and and then just put it into an umba book. That's uh that's challenging.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Yeah, that's an extraordinary accomplishment. Like so you'll be it, it really felt like the sense of this real blend as well. There is a cultural history, and there is a sense of it being a memoir as well, and that you do you bring in so much about you know kimono and curry rice. Um you read my book entirely. Thank you so much. I do my research. But there is a real sense of that you in a sense, what I got from reading the book is like so many layers, and it has that the eight million ways to happiness. In a sense, your book has that sense of the same layering, the same sense of sort of possibility and the same like roaming freely. And I can I can understand that the challenge of bringing that all together. Your book has this beautiful fluidity to it that Japanese spiritual tradition has as well. But I'm wondering about that sense of the memoir side of this, yes and your experience of writing and bringing in so much. I mean, you speak so beautifully intended about your relationship with your mom or your mother. And this real sense of you know, going from the loss and through to the gratitude and really acknowledging that the love you felt, but also the anger at times that you felt. And I'm just curious about what that experience was writing from a place of loss or recognition or healing even for you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah, so the the funniest funny thing is that I wasn't planning to write a memoir. Yeah, I have been interested in Japanese history, culture, traditions, spirituality. So I wanted to write a book about that. My husband and I co-authored uh trilogy. This one is called Yokai, Japanese Monster, with Japanese monsters in folklore, and followed by ninja. And then you rate the ghost. The reason why we picked those two three subjects is because they are closely related to Japanese history, traditions, and culture. So it was a matter of course for me to write about commie, spirituality. But it's because it's a big subject. You know, the dose trilogy is is has a manga, you know, like illustrations. It's called a survival guide. And I knew I couldn't do survival guide for commie. And then it's just we can't do that. So I was I was really struggling the format. And then it actually it was my agent who suggested me to write a memoir. And it to be honest, first I felt resistant because it's just a personal thing. And then I was like, and I was like, why? You know, why people care about my life kind of thing. But I realized that the because the subject is so difficult, you know, it's complicated, I thought, you know, maybe I could be an avatar, you know, for the reader. And then just take it my personal journey. And then that's one. And then the two is like the memoir is it's a good choice because then it gives me a freedom. In order to explain the Japanese spirituality, you have to you have to know some kind of history, the historical background. And I travel a lot, a lot. So it's like it's you know, then interview people. So some part has to be, you know, some has to be a travel log. So if I write in a memoir format, I thought like, well, I could create my own layout structure. Yeah, and so that's why. Uh um and then and then it's like, okay, what I should do. And you know, what another memoir. And then and then yeah, and then I realized that my spiritual journey, the dwelling into my spiritual traditions, the research, it started out right after my mother passed in 2008. Because as I said before, my mother's passing was shot at my identity. So it was sort of like a reconstruct thing, my identity. Um, and then the the research, the go uh the relearning, contextualizing my Japanese spirituality traditions was reconstructing my identity. So yeah, and so that's why I decided the memoir, my my journey, healing journey, after my mother's passing. But it was very difficult because the the beauty of the human being, you know, we have a capability to forget things. And even, you know, even you cannot forget, but you know, you can kind of let it fade, especially the painful memories, like say family passing. You can I mean I s you know, I have a pain, I'm gonna take it to grave. But you know, kind of you can let it f you know fade to uh to live. But when you but if you write you can't do that. You can't forget things. In fact, you have to go through over and over in in a fine and memo remember each details because the future readers don't know anything. And that was challenging. And it was almost like a traumatic experience because I had to go through my mother my mother's funeral, you know, the moment I had to say goodbye to my father. And it was just things like that. It was just very hard. But the uh the interesting thing, I mean, you know, that well I wouldn't lie to you, I I cried every time I wrote end of the day I cried. But the one year one year and a half after I started writing the book, I I noticed the the things got changed inside of me. I started seeing things in in my mother's view. I started kind of walking kind of uh like my mother's shoes, so to speak. And I started to think that, well, at the age of, you know, when I wasn't a teenager, and I thought in my mo what my mother my mom meant was this.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

But maybe what maybe what she meant was maybe that and that's a healing process.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

And I you know, I didn't and I didn't I wasn't planning to write a memoir to heal myself. But in the end, it it you know it may it brings a lot of closures to the struggles that I have had. And that was uh interesting. That's something I didn't expect.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Yes, and and it's interesting that idea about like the freedom of it and like the idea of closure as well, because I think sometimes with grief and loss, we think there's a that's almost the end of a relationship. But actually what you're speaking to is almost the fluidity and the freedom side of it that you know, 18 months after you know starting to write the book, you're shifting your relationship with your mom or your mother. Like you are shifting again and again like your understanding of her and your it's again like that sort of layering that we've spoken about. Yeah, about that expansiveness and that that that relationship is kind of continuing in a way. There's that connection, but that connection is evolving.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yes, yeah, evolving, and then also you know, the sadness and the pain is is is shared identity, and it's the same thing as anger, it's a shared identity. I realize that it's hard. It's hard, but um so that um so happiness, you know, it's it's it's you know, it's uh certainly the positive. Positive, but but negative, you know, the sadness, but it can coexist. It's not it can't it doesn't have to be not necessarily has to be polarized. I learned that actually, I realized that it's hard, but but you can, you know, you can have both. And I think the glute of those two things, I think it's a sense of gratitude. And what it comes down to, my mother gave me life. That that just that just all matters. And everything is just I don't know, the whole thing, you know, the negative things just evaporated. Sometimes come back. But like rain, you know, but um, but still, it's uh it's uh it's uh it's you know, it's uh it's that's a life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

And it comes back beautifully to what we started with, this idea about like dualities and the darkness and the light, and just how we can hold different different things in different ways, and sometimes together and sometimes apart. And they are very moving around us.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Right. And then also I'd like to share that darkness. I I learned that you know in in the West, in America, the darkness, you know, tends to be negative. It's associated with void nothingness. Um and but here um we don't see that way. It's just we just maybe we just can't we just just could not cannot see. There it is very possible that there's something there. We just just don't see. And then also there's some beauty in the darkness too. It's a different perspective here. And and so so in my book Even the monsters Yeah, even the monsters can can help you, can be a helpers if you look for it. So it's a it's a it's it's a different it's a different perspective.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

There was a beautiful moment in the book when you were I think you said that you Google words like frightening, and that you that you have always had this deliberate kind of inclination to go towards the dark, and that you would always be drawn to ghosts and monsters and that that side of things, because that's often the side of things that we kind of back away from. And I really like the idea that you're googling you know what is frightening, you know, you're willing yourself and wanting to go there. And that's been part of you.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just you know, it's I think it's you know, enjoying it's still I am doing right now that you know enjoying the half belief, half doubt. You know, if ghosts exist, I don't know, but it'd be fun, kind of thing. Um, but also I think that um it sometimes the ghost, this we call the UD, gives up comfort. But am I saying that is, you know, my parents are gone. And then it's uh, you know, it's oh yes, I understand it's a hard fact that they're gone, but it doesn't heal me. So if I think it's like maybe nice that maybe you're here. You know, I just cannot see. That kind of things gives a small comfort. And um, so it's uh so it's so it's partially it's comfort and partially it's just it's a scary thing, it's just a taste of, I don't know, danger. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

It's it's just it's a safe I wonder whether we could do this. I'm conscious of the time. We do have this five-word segment where we just go through some five words. And actually, before I even get that, one quick question I have for you. You said kami also exists in words. And I love words. So I'm just curious about how kami exists in words. Because that you said they exist in nature and trees and birds and words.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yes, what you're talking about is kotodama, it's a word spirits. And once again, I mean, we don't believe there's a spirit in a in a word, but the people in the pa you know, people in old times knew, already already knew how powerful the words can be. Negative words makes you feel negative. Angry words makes you angrier. Positive awards gives you courage. So, yes, that there's a spirit, there's a kami, and a kami of words. It's a reminder that that you know the words can be very powerful. So that means you have a responsibility once you put in a words, and it's say it aloud.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

I really like that. Okay, let's see if I've chosen the right words then. Okay. Word number one is belongingness. Yes. So what does belongingness mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Belongness to me. Ah belongingness. It's yeah, it's it's say comfort, I guess. Comfort zone. Comfort zone. That belong but belongingness, you can f it easily can find if you pay attention around you know around you. Because you can belong to nature. You know, you just take a walk. And then you realized that human beings are part of nature. We and then and then then once you started seeing that, everything, it just nourishes your belongingness, even eating. When you eat salad, salad that grows in a in a field. If you eat, say, beef, you know, does somebody the f you know, does somebody gr grow the beef with with uh the the the food? And then and also it's just everything is connected. So yeah, belongingness is is your comfort zone.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

There's a moment in the book that you're eating a banana. And you say before you eat your banana in the morning, you say something like a little moment of appreciation and gratitude.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Right. Yeah, the the one that then the ones that you were talking about is it's itadaki masu. The phrase that the Japanese people say before eating. It's a customary, you know, the manner. It means, you know, I humbly accept. So the grammatically it's it's it's kind of wrong because there's no subject. But the thing is, you fill that in. So yeah, so banana, for example, you know, like say I I eat banana and almost every breakfast. And uh so of course I accept, humbly accept banana. But yeah, the thing is, but it's not just banana here. You know, the sometimes my my my husband walks to the grocery store and they buy a banana for me. And so it's just like, you know, that's that's I I I'm feel thankful for that. Or that the people, the people growth grew though that banana, I feel thankful for that. But the people who bring the banana to the grocery store, you know, or cashier that we pay the money to, I mean, it's once if you started seeing that way, the banana is not just banana anymore. It just have a lot of unseen, unknowable connections. And yes, that's that's nourishing the belongingness. And then also evoking a sense of appreciation. Because when once you eat it, yeah, because it helps me to live.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

It's so beautiful because it makes you notice. Again, it's about the noticing what we don't notice and making visible what we haven't we haven't seen before, but it's always there. So much of your work seems to be around that, like sort of highlighting and showing and noticing and making visible even what's there. So word number two is ritual. So I was interested about ritual and how that sits with spirituality for you.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah, the ritual. See, see, see, this is hard uh because ritual in in English, it just is such a um inf uh conflated with uh the religious terms, I believe. But but I think that the ritual for me, or at least the to the uh the the vast majority of Japanese people, it can be you can do the ritual in in a small thing. Or it not necessarily ties to some kind of you know the belief systems. It just it makes you feel comfortable, uh, makes you feel f refreshing. Even you know, I don't know, a cup of coffee. Because in a cup of coffee, you because once again, just like a banana, you can s you can you can imagine, you can enlarge the network. And then, you know, and you in an even if you are, you know, drinking, having a coffee all by yourself, but you're not really alone. And it that's you know, I think that's power of the of the ritual, sort of. Yeah, that's that's that's the ritual for me.

unknown 36:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Yes, there's so much comfort in that. Okay, maybe there's less comfort in my next word, but I think it's really fascinating that you spoke about this, which was anger. And anger's a really interesting emotion. And I think you were talking somewhere about the difference between being angry at and angry for.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

In my book, I use it as the there's a famous kami in Tokyo, Ma you know, Taira no Masakado. Um, if you ask Japanese person, everybody knows him. Anyway, he's angry, we're angry individual. He was a human. He passed away in anger, and and and he became a spirit, you know, the powerful spiritual being. And now today we we he is venerated as coming in in Tokyo. But people love him, including myself. Just because it uh he he reminds all of us that anger is a part of us. In daily life, it's just you get angry in in a lot and small, and that's just part of the human being, it's just emotions. Yeah, so the angry at something, it's it's very painful, but angry for something, it could be driving force. And then also even if you are angry at something, but it's part of you too. You you know, it's but it's coercive if you carry it for a long, long time. So you have to face it, you know, you have to kind of kind of a piece with it, and then and then move on. Closure for good is is it's very difficult. You know, everybody knows that. I know that. But uh it's but I learned from my my experience dealing with my mom with the kimono, the details are written in my book, but I learned it's it's in the end, it was just shared identity. And then I accept, you know, I accept myself like boy, I was angry. I have been angry. I mean, I mean, my anger was huge. But because I forgot for a long, long time I couldn't take it, and uh I just buried it and deep it down. And then one day and then I opened the Pandora box and then I was like, oh boy, I was so angry. And I accepted it as a as my identity and also shared identity with my mother. And then so anger is just you know, it's certainly negative, but but it but if you break in the part in you know, and then there are always ways or things that, you know, you can have a have a to peace with it, and then carry it and move on to your life.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Okay, so we have two more words and then we'll go back to your thought. So this is maybe a difficult one, but let's see. It's feminist. And the reason I wanted to bring that in is because there's a moment that you're you're banned from entering a mountain. And I thought that was so fascinating. And I think you also said that you identify as a feminist. And I was like, oh, I wonder where this is coming in in terms of like how you were coming to terms with spiritual tradition.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, well, the Japan, Japan is very flexible in spirituality, but very visited in society. So, yes, that you know the rights issue, women rights issue, equality between you know men and men and women, is still we have a problem. I don't, I'm I'm not lying, it is still exist. So yeah, so that's that's that's why it I am a feminist. You know, I believe in equal rights. And but I also I'm aware that the people are different. Men and women are different. You know, say if you if you wait, if you lift weight, I mean, sorry I'm gonna lose. But there are differences. Differences is that the equality shouldn't be this absolute same. I think it's just it's a respect for differences. And then, you know, and then and then it was and co happily coexist in in with a mutual respect. And that's alright, that's the my the feminist feminism I am talking about. And what my vision is just happy happily coexist, coexistence with a mutual respect.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

I really like that. I really liked that the moment in the book that you didn't go. You you there was a sign saying, you know, you couldn't go any further on the mountain, and you didn't. And there was a real respect there. There was an acknowledgement you could and you didn't, and it goes back to this idea about respect to being at the heart of so much of this. Yes. So our last word is happiness, of course. So there are eight million ways to happiness. What if you come to learn about happiness?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Happiness is, you know, you you have to find yourself. You can't outsource happiness. You can't let other people give you or judge you or provide, you know, or provide you. You have to find your own because you are the only person who knows what happiness is. And then it could be small, it could be big, but happiness it's for yourself, and um and then you you are the one who finds yourself. And so that the in Japan, the the spirituality is is it's kind of a tool. It's a spiritual tool to to find a way to way to you know basically the the gratitude. Because that's the that's the seed. The appreciation of appreciation is the seed of happiness. And so that's that's how see you know what happiness is. It's it's it's for you. And you know, there's a tons of tools really you can use and then find your own.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Maybe we go back to your thought that you bought at the beginning and and and your book, which is so much about unpicking your thoughts and the importance of Japanese spirituality in your life. You have written this book in English. It is incredibly popular where we are in the UK. What do you hope? I mean, it's it's an extraordinary accomplishment. What do you hope that somebody listening to this, reading your book, spending their moments with you, what do you hope they will take away that they can bring into their everyday lives when they are feeling lost or disconnected, lonely or you know, a little bit uncertain like we all are right now?

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Yeah. So, well, so my my book, it says, you know, the eight million ways to happiness, happiness. But you know, a lot of people first think, you know, from from the cover, my book is about happiness. But in my book is not really about happiness. I didn't start from happy place. I started from the the rock bottom. But in my journey, in my spiritual journey, I found my own way and I found my spirit path. to you know to the happiness. And so there has to be a way for anyone and anyone in order to find the happiness. There's a infinite number. Eight million it's ways. And then it's an eight million you know the spiritual beings, avatars, you know, are surrounding you. And then you can take your time. And then there will there'll be a one or maybe multiple. Who knows? But that's that is my hope. And if the people readers find one and and then that that'll be a goal and that makes me really happy. Pericot thank you so much for spending your time with us today.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

For having a gorgeous book you're so welcome. It's been a delight thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for your openness with this episode today as we navigated some technical glitches between the UK and Japan. There is something that I was so appreciative though in this conversation. And it was something that really is about openness the sense that we don't need to arrive at a really fixed position on belief or even meaning but we can live somewhere in this in between that things can be layered they can even be contradictory and that still can be okay. Harika has this delightful way of making space in her book, in this conversation for the unseen, for uncertainty and even even for grief. And there's no rushing to tidy it all up or to neaten it all out in ways that we can push away or get back into a box. But there is something about keeping going even when life feels like too much to bear and that can just be that first step on a walk. It could be looking up or around it could be cooking with someone that we love or noticing that there is a sky. All of these things can become a way through and they can be a practice and they can be a way of staying in relationship with the world that's around us and maybe with each other and maybe with ourselves. Because there is this too that what we're connected to is both inside us and it's around us too it's in places, in rituals, in small repeated actions that don't look like much from the outside but they carry so much when we return to them. So as you go about your week I wonder whether you'll come back to this conversation about what Japanese spirituality might offer us, what it might hold for us. Maybe you'll keep the thought somewhere between making cup of tea and wondering what you actually believe in. And allowing for some doubt and some play as well as you do that. Maybe you'll share it. Maybe it's something that you're halfway through a conversation that started with something more practical about who can pick up the kids or what we're having for dinner. But it turns to deities and demons fortune telling and meditation or maybe that it's something that you'll forget it will just be in the ether around you and you'll just be coexisting with it in the way that we do with so many ideas, so many things that are kind of invisible to us but they're there nonetheless. If you would like more conversations like this conversations that kind of sit alongside your life without really trying to fix it, then do join us on Substack at more good days. It's where I share reflections and ideas and small ways to orientate ourselves when things do feel uncertain. And if you're looking for more personal support you can find details about my coaching work at iplost.here this is a space to really think things through together openly and honestly so that you can better navigate what's going on in your life. This episode was hosted by me, Claire Fitzsimmons and supported by you in all the ways that you listen and you notice and you follow and you subscribe and maybe even review these episodes. And maybe you would want to as well bye for now