Hiroko Yoda – Half Belief Half Doubt and the Art of Paying Attention (N362)

[Music] Welcome back to Nomad Podcast, I'm Tim Nash. This is my Contemplative co-host, it's Anna Robinson. Hello, hello, hello. Or on the subjects of contemplation, you're fresh from leading in two retreats, I think, aren't you? An in-person retreat at Ash Burnham, and then an online retreat, how did they go? Oh, really well. Ash Burnham just loved it there. And yeah, shout out to those who listen to Pogost. It was a great group, and we had a lot of fun contemplating thresholds, such a fascinating topic. Yeah. Thresholds, yeah. And they happen to have big thresholds in the house. There's a really old house with loads of beautiful woodlands, but the house has got, you know, thresholds are like the gap between the door, the inside and the outside of a door, but most doors are quite thin, but there they have, it's really big doors, where you can literally open one door between the rooms, stand in the threshold, close that door, before you open the other door to go into the other big room. Wow. That seems a little unnecessary. I know. Is that where the servants used to hide or something? I don't know. I don't know what that's about. Did you draw on that powerful symbolism? I did. You were all over that. I don't know why. I've run this retreat for a time, but for some reason, we were in one room, and we have another room, so we have the beautiful library, but we also have this lovely room with a fireplace. The rooms are beautiful. And in between those two rooms, there's three of these doors, but all three other massive rooms. So I checked all the rooms, and I saw they were all empty and I thought, we could just walk through these thresholds as a embodied kind of meditative experience. Nice. And so it just came to me that morning, and we did it, and you know, it was right at the beginning. It was so profound for so many of us, just that physical act of kind of going in, it being in the dark, coming out, you know, it stayed with a lot of people during the retreat, so that was quite fun. Cresholds, interesting. Yeah. And then the same bridged in-bork retreat was really lovely yesterday. Yeah, it had loads of people came, and some people booked on torture recording. And I just love bridged. I love St. Bridget, who kind of evolved out of the goddess Bridget. And this, for me, she's fascinating. And actually, there's had a huge impact on my faith, spirituality, the way I operate in the world, my work, her along with Julianne of Norwich, I think, the two kind of key figures for me that I draw on. Yeah, so it was really fun. I've not done that one before, so it was a new addition. Have you ever led a retreat that was a little bit rubbish? I have to ask people. Yeah, but you must sense when it's not, you know, do you ever kind of think, "Oh, I just don't think this is really working?" No, that hasn't, amazingly, that hasn't happened to me. I've definitely had experiences in retreats, usually in-person retreats, where you understand, you've got people gathering, and everyone's coming with different ages and stages, different things in their lives. They're going to be feeling different emotions about being there with essentially a group of other strangers. Do they trust me? How is this working? So you've got a lot of things floating around, and I'm very intuitive, so I pick up a lot of that energy and a lot of that information, whether I like it or not. And so a retreats by the very nature of it, when you slow down and stop, it can bring up stuff, and it can be uncomfortable, and I sort of try and hold a space of people to lean in, a bit to that discomfort to maybe discover if there's something going on. But sometimes you can land, and then I feel like I do a session or a start, and I think, "Oh, in the past, doesn't happen now, but in the past I'll be like, "I'll be on the phone to Jim going. "It's a nightmare." I feel like I'm really worried that people are disinterested in the topic, or perhaps it's not quite what they're expecting, or I have this kind of, then I overthink it, and then, but what normally happens is it's absolutely fine. It's like a journey, and there's highs and lows and ebbs and flows, and so I'm picking up on all of that, but that's just people's journey. I'm not responsible for their own personal journey through that I'm just kind of supporting and creating space and helping guide if they need it. So now I'm a lot more secure, I'd say, and just I pick up that, but I trust everybody. I trust everyone's process, and it's okay. And I do feedback forms on everything I do, and I haven't had anyone go, "It's just rubbish." (laughing) But now we've said that. I hope 2006 doesn't, doesn't, I'm sure, less things that, I always saved him, as you know, possibly knowing my work, that I always saved people. Listen, I'm offering tools, I'm offering things. You do not have to be in the place I am. If it works brilliant, if something I'm offering doesn't work for you for whatever reason or you have something better, or something that does work for you, use that. 'Cause not everybody is in the same page, especially Ashburnin because they come through different channels. Most of my other retreats, it's mainly through Nomad, and their connection to Nomad, which we all love and appreciate hugely. And there's kind of this common denominator, but Ashburnin, 'cause it goes out on their quite extensive mailing list, usually about half, don't know anything about Nomad. And they don't really know much about me, so it can be sometimes a little bit of a shock when they find out more about my journey, perhaps. But always win the moment in the end. - Of course you do, Anna. It's quite a shocking revelation that there are people out there that don't know about Nomad, if I'm not a bit disconset. - Well, it's quite funny, 'cause people do go on the rim, you know, how did you hear about, how did you find yourself at this retreat? And people will go around, and they'll usually say, I heard Anna on Nomad, or I listen to Nomad for last year, or the last 16 years, it really varies. And then you can see the people in the rim, you don't know what Nomad is. And they're just sort of saying, they're picking where am I, have I come to the wrong place? And I would say, listen, it's okay, you don't have to have listened to this podcast, you know, it's a trying to reassure people because they start to feel like they've missed some serious memo on the invitation. But Tim, how are you doing? How's life in the, I forgot you were saying. (laughing) - In the Nash household. - Sorry, it's literally almost green in front of me. Hang on, let me say that again. So Tim, how are you doing? How's life in the Nash household? - Very good, Joe. We went to the Natural History Museum in London at the weekend, had an absolutely amazing time. It's such a cool place. I don't know if you've been, or been recently. But I think it's one of those places if you sort of feel a bit jaded about the world, go to the Natural History Museum 'cause it is just a place jam-packed with awe and wonder, like it's impossible not to be moved. I felt quite disorientated at times, just by the sheer kind of spectacle of the place. So like as soon as you walk in, you're confronted with a skeleton of a blue whale. It's like so big. I just couldn't hold the reality of it in my mind. Do you know what I mean? It kind of felt like I was looking at something from another universe. I just didn't know how to kind of relate to it. And then we went into another room and we looked for a microscope and saw some star dust that apparently is the oldest thing a human can look at. It was formed in the dust around dying stars before our solar system was even born billions of years ago. It's just like it's too much to take in. Yeah, I think I need to go to the cafe after that. Yeah, we did. We did. We had to sit down and kind of like process it. I mean, the building itself is absolutely stunning. You kind of come blinking out of the darkness of the underground station and you're confronted with this kind of beautiful like cathedral to nature. It's just, yeah, it's remarkable. You could easily spend a whole week in there and you wouldn't see half of it. No, it's so much to take in, isn't it? It's so much. I think one of the most remarkable things about it is it's totally free. You don't have to put it to go in. That's just incredible. It's such a gift. It really is an incredible gift. Hellio said it was the best thing he'd ever done second only to Lego land. So that's quite a endorsement, isn't it? Is he not been before then? You're not taking it before? No, no, it's the first time. I've taken the kids a few times over the years, but they've never been to Lego land, so. You're that smart. Because if you've taken him to Lego land, natural history museum would have been a big letdown. Yeah, that is good. I do tend to feel quite, when I've been, I feel like I want to see everything and sort of march around and then just feel absolutely drained and can't cope. But I'm totally overstimulating. And I need to lie down in a dark room type thing. We were exhausted at the end. When we had lunch, we overheard the family next to us and they were going, "Right, should we head off to the science museum now?" I had to restrain myself from going, "Who are you people?" Like, I'm on my last legs. I can contemplate doing this all again in another museum. Yeah, no, I can relate to that though, because when we have gone to London, you've made the trip there. We've definitely done a couple of things in a day. But I've regretted it, you know, because I've thought, "No, this is too much." But when you live so far away, it's quite, and you're in London. Pretty tight to you the best part of a day, just to get there, don't you? It does. It does take a day to get there pretty much, yeah. So Anna, here's some information about this episode's guest. I've been chatting to Heroko Yoda about her book, "8 Million Ways to Happiness." I read a while back that I hadn't really interviewed someone from a completely different spiritual worldview. So when I came across Heroko's book, I read it, thoroughly enjoyed it, and thought, "Yeah, I really want to chat to this person." So I think it's got a lot to say to those of us that are kind of rethinking faith, but maybe not in the ways that we might imagine. It was kind of an interview that I sort of found disorientating in some ways. But Heroko lives in Tokyo. She writes about Japanese folklore and spirituality. She's a shinto cultural historian, a former shrine dancer, and apparently a certified kimono consultant as well. Yeah. But before all that, Anna Robinson, here, is all your essential blurb. Thanks again to everyone who supports Nomad, it was quite a stressful period at the end of last year. year financially at least. But it became one of the most encouraging. We kind of ran a ground financially. But so many people responded with messages of support offering to kind of increase their support or give a one-off donation. It was really, really humbling. It means a huge amount to us. Oh, that's greater here. If Nomad is important to you and you would like to support it, the best way is to make a small monthly donation. You can do that at patreon.com/nomadpodcast or if you can't and you just like to give a one-off donation, you can do that at nomadpodcast.cutituk. A big shout out to everyone who is on the Nomad sustainer's Patreon tier. That's the top tier. And that tier really makes the difference when it comes to projects that require a bit more funding. You know, kind of more than the month-to-month stuff. Like our seasonal devotionals or website improvements to the therapy network, that kind of thing. I'm planning on producing maybe once or twice a year, a sort of state of nomad episode for people on the top two tiers to give them a bit more insight into kind of what's going on behind the scenes and how the money's used and all that kind of stuff. And remember, if you can't afford to donate, but you would like to listen to the bonus episodes, just email me at [email protected]. I'm very happy to give you access. You don't need to tell me why, just say that you'd like access and I'll give that to you. While on the subject of bonus episodes, the longest running bonus episode series is Nomad Contemplations. We've got 90 episodes now, which have been uploaded over eight years and Anna has been at the helm for seven of those years. So Anna, I'm wondering how have those contemplations changed you over the last seven years, would you say? Well, seven years. I moved to Cornwall literally about a couple of months before you emailed me and asked me to do the contemplation gig with nomad. So it's quite nice because it's correlated with my time in Cornwall, which has also been very formative for me in terms of my general wellbeing and life and connectivity to the land and embodiment and my kind of evolving, shifting faith. So I don't know Tim, I mean, you've listened and edited them over that seven years. It'd be interesting to know kind of how you've seen them. But essentially I suppose because I've been in and out of church, the contemplation said, 'Become a ritual for me.' A kind of monthly time to gather my thoughts, to take a pause, to look out the window, to listen to Nomad, and to sort of work out what is really capturing my curiosity at the minute and what can I kind of create or curate in order to invite people into pondering something deeper and to enable their own, their own soul, to surface and their own connectivity to the divine and whatever way shape or form that exists at the moment. Yeah, it's been a practice definitely for me. An anchor point. And obviously in this episode, we're talking about, she talks about rituals and so many of us, I think, who perhaps have left institutionalism or religion. On one hand, you kind of get a liberation and freedom. But sometimes we do miss some of these kind of ritualistic things. So I think nomad contemplations have really given me time to pause and ponder. And I think you can see my kind of belief and theology is definitely interwoven into them as well. And that's kind of been growing and deepening and shifting and changing. So yeah, it's a lovely kind of collection and record of my journey in a way. Yeah, I had one of my favourite nomad contemplation moments recently. I was editing your wintering episode. Oh yeah. And halfway through your recording, your phone pinned an interrupt to you in the recording. And as I was editing it, I was thinking, I'll come on, and he should have turned your phone off. I've got edit that out now. But you actually checked the phone. And it was me that had texted you and interrupted the recording. So it was this weird kind of meta moment where I was being annoyed at myself interrupting your recording. And as I was kind of editing it, funny. What did I say that? I said, it's you Tim. Did I say it? Yeah, you did, yeah, yeah. You didn't say what the message was. But apparently I'd message you why you were recording. That's very funny. Sorry about that. Yeah, I do normally turn my phone off, although actually, let me just turn my phone off. Come on, it's basic stuff. Yeah, yeah, no, it's great. I love doing them. I really enjoy them. And of course, the beautiful thing is when the music is, they're interspersed with the music and you're wonderful editing. It just creates a real, yeah, lovely, hopefully, lovely, lovely, I didn't want to call it. I was going to say package, but contemplative space, contemplative space, yeah, for people to journey. And I hope it has created that anchor point for many people who listen. Oh, definitely. Yes. Yeah, you get some great feedback. I remember to check out the therapy network. If you need a safe space to process all your faith shifting fallout, we've got 40 qualified experience registered faith aware therapists now on the network or wait until help. So good. So good. And we're actively pondering the building of a spiritual directors network as well. So get in touch if you'd like to volunteer a little bit of time to help us shape that. I'm not asking for spiritual directors to get in touch. You want to be on that network because the network doesn't exist. We're hoping there might be a handful of people out there that will want to get involved in helping us shape it. So we're asking for spiritual directors to get in touch. You have two years training and five years experience. Email me with a few of your details especially around the training that you've had. And you can do that at [email protected]. And finally, Anna, is there anything coming up that you'd like to draw our attention to? Yeah. So I shout out for the faith shift groups that I'm running. I've got a lovely group at the moment that have chosen their topics to gather around and discuss around faith reconstruction, reimagining faith. And there's plenty of spaces on the March group. So if you want to do that for six sessions, about an hour and 45 minutes, it's just a lovely space to connect with other people and feel a sense of solidarity and less aloneness and just help you process, help you process where you're at and where you find yourself. So yeah, get in touch. Live light to our deep.org. And let me know if you want to join that. And also just a quick one, if I'm alright. I've got a retreat in Cornwall in May. If you have a desire for creative expression in the faith shift journey, come and work with some brilliant artists who host some workshops and I host some space for contemplative meditation. And you get to be in a beautiful, beautiful homestead with delicious home-cooked food. And that's in May. So it would be great, great to have some of you listeners to gather there around the table. Be lovely. Very good. And that, beloved listener, is all your essential blurb. Before we get onto the conversation with Herokode, I just wanted to flag up that this is a slightly shorter interview than usual. It came in at quite a modest 35 minutes. I wanted to mention that, because I don't need to think that it was because I wasn't really engaged in the conversation it was. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. We had our usual hour together. But because English is Herokode's second language and because I, to be honest, I didn't really appreciate how different our spiritual traditions are. There were quite a few questions that just didn't sort of land or I had to repeat myself a few times. She had to repeat herself a few times as we were trying to work out where each other were coming from. And so once I'd kind of tidied all that up, the interview went down from sort of 50 to 35 minutes. But it's a very interesting 35 minutes, I think. So here is me in conversation with Herokode Yoda. Herokode, welcome to No My Podcast. Thank you so much. What did spirituality and religion mean to you growing up in an average Japanese home? Okay, so this is a big question to begin with. Most of Japanese people have Buzudang. It's a furniture like wooden box. You can call it probably altar, I guess. They basically, you know, the pray area. See, it's very difficult for me to say the word pray too. I mean, you're going to talk a lot about this, a Japanese spirituality, but anyway, Buzudang is an object that allows people to be together with the past 11 ones. And when I was a little, I mean, my parents had the Buzudang too. And sometimes they offered burning the incense, the cup of water, sweets, flowers. And they do that at the time of the time. And I saw them, and sometimes I joined them because I never seen my grandparents accept one, but still as he passed away when I was very little. So in strictly speaking, the Buzudang is a Buddhist object. But to the vast majority of the people, Japanese people, we don't see it as a religious thing. It's just place. Well, now my parents passed away. And well, I don't have a Buzudang. It's just because it's a big box. And I live in this small house and it takes up space. So instead, I display their photos. So that's right there. So what caused you to begin to explore Japanese spiritual traditions more deeply? That major cause was my mother's passing. The passing was just massive blow. It was just darkest period. She passed away in 2008. And so many years ago. But when she passed away, I needed to realize that my identity. basically crumbled and it just fell apart because I realized that my identity was really close to my mother. But the thing is that the beginning of the process of the dealing this degree, I wasn't really, you know, the recognizing of the spiritual path. It just simply, simply I wanted to give myself a big pause, just pause. And I started walking my neighborhood park. And then at the very beginning, it just, I just could not walk for long. I just put my shoes on, went outside, and it came back right away, and I cried. But later on, I started doing something that I couldn't do beforehand, like I said, I started looking up. And I started paying attention to surroundings. And then I just started realizing that there's a beautiful sky out there. It was a fall. And then I noticed that, you know, that leaves are changing colors beautifully. I started noticing that the birds are flying. The ants are crawling on the ground. And then so I realized that, I mean, I thought I was totally alone, even though my friends and my family members tried to comfort me, but I thought I was just totally alone. But I realized that I wasn't actually alone. I was surrounded by a lot of lives. And then I just started realizing that I could even communicate if I opened my eyes and heart. So it was just just interacting with nature, the very beginning. But then I realized later, in fact, that when I saw that Shinto Tōri is trying to eat and I realized that actually I was touching on the Japanese spirituality, which was foundation of our culture. So that was the beginning. It just started out just to walk. And then realized my own culture and then started just going deep dive. And here I am right now. You described the experience in your book of coming across this small shrine in the park. What did you encounter at that shrine in yourself, not just in the place? I've known that park for a long, long time. And inside of the park, there's a Shinto shrine, very tiny shrine. And I've known that shrine ever since I was a little girl. But just there. It was just there. So it symbolizes Japanese culture. The Japanese spirituality is hiding on plain sight. Never be evangelical. Never be pushy. It's just there. I'd like to give you a big concept before we started talking a lot about this. There's a concept called "Yauyo-ro-tsunokami", 8 million spiritual beings. "Kami" means spiritual beings. So 8 million spiritual beings, it's not exact number. It's simply many infinite. So the Japanese people in old times, they thought that everything surrounding them had spirit, sun, the moon, water, ocean, trees, I mean the rocks, ground, even the wards they spoke. And that idea, it's still pretty much active today. But not necessarily mean that the Japanese believe or worship the "dose kami", it's a reminder that those are avidars of nature. "Kami" belong to nature. So it's our worldview. And then at this time, it comes from Shinto. But it's actually much bigger than that. And it's a foundation of our culture. You mentioned the word belief there a few times. And you say in your book that Shinto doesn't require belief. What does spirituality look like when belief isn't the foundation? Okay, so before I answer that, I'd like to tell you that there are three major belief systems in Japan. Shinto, Buddhism, and Shuyendo. And then the Shuyendo is hybrid of Shinto and Buddhism and other belief systems. And it's centering around the worshiping mountains. Let me tell you, the religions, the boundaries are so blurred, so blurred. And you find the Shinto shrines inside the property of Buddhist temples. Or Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, the built, the side by side. And so the peacefully coexist. And another thing is that the Hanshin Hangi that you mentioned, that belief and disbelief, that is not religious at all. It's just the Japanese idiom. So it actually, I think it's key concept to understand our spirituality. Just because the belief doesn't really matter. It's more like just what we do. Because once again, the Kami, spiritual beings belong to nature. And so it's not like, you know, belief in nature, believe in tree. It's just, it's there. And so it's a different word of you. Yeah, I love that idiom. When you wrote that in your book, I paused and reflected on that for quite a while. It's a beautiful idiom, half belief, half doubt. And it suggests that holding ambiguity is part of the path. Yes. What does that kind of look like in day-to-day life then? Yes. Just because our life is so complex. And all the questions cannot be answered in black and white. Yes, and no. The fact comes into play. You know, that's not the place and the way you use this concept, the belief and disbelief. But you know, and so it's like an analog meter, you know, the, the, the, the Cavallion meter is just you turn on a belief, be it or high or tune it down a little bit. It because it's okay to embrace the grain zone. And so I think it's a very nice term, especially I think personally, the dealing with the lost loved ones. It's a fact. My parents are gone. My parents passed away. It's just I still feel pain. And in that pain, I'm going to take it to my grave. But that this concept, it's really comforts me because it's really nice to think that maybe they are out there somewhere. And maybe the place they are at right now, maybe closer than I think. It's just I could not see. And is that that kind of gray zone? I don't have to be black and white. You know, it's just, it's really helping helping, especially in the grieving and especially in the difficult questions. So in terms of your exploration of Japanese spiritual traditions, what did it look like for you? They're not focusing so much on what do I believe, but more focusing on participation. To us, the majority of Japanese people, the spirituality is more like spiritual tools. In Japan, religions are not dogma. We can freely move in and out without any equipment. So to us, it's more like a spiritual tools to pick and choose and then apply it to heal ourselves or cultivate positivity. Or just, you know, have a little joy in a daily life. It's a very interesting because I spent a lot of years in America, in the West. And then I learned so much that there's big differences in terms of spirituality, the matter of the belief. You know, the question is just, you know, in Japan, we see spirituality here. It's just absolutely different. And I even probably the wild in the West. So how would you describe the worldview or the particular posture that underpins this traditional Japanese spirituality then? Yeah, so I think I guess I have goes back to the concept that, you know, eight million spiritual beings. So that, and I said that eight million there, it's infinite number. So that means it's additive, always additive. So there's always room for more. That's one thing. And another thing is reminding us that, you know, the eight million spiritual beings, Yaro Yoruzanokami, that concept, is that there's so many different coming out there. You can create even because it's even at number. There's even the spirit, the words we speak. It's called Kultodama, the word spirit, because people in all times knew that words are powerful thing. The negative words makes you uncomfortable. And angry words makes you angrier. And positive words make you feel positive. And also, they are coming of plague, coming of poverty, and coming of earthquakes. And it's not like we worship, you know, those bad things. But it reminds us that no matter how much we wish that those bad things, you know, don't exist, we wish that we don't have to deal with those bad things, but it's there. And so it's reminding us, quietly reminding us that we have to deal with them. And also the kami, art must again, is avotars. And they're all equal in existence. So that is our word of you. And I think that's another huge difference in spirituality in the West, that in my experience, for example, in Christianity, there's hierarchy. And there's an absolute God on the top. And it based on faith and in worship. But in Japan, it's all equal in existence. And infinite numbers. And also, believe it's not that's already matter, because I think In that show, the Japanese spirituality, in that show, there's three things, I think. It's cultivating positivity in our life, expressing the gratitude for what we have, and nourishing the sense of belongingness to nature. And in those things, I'm not actually limited to Japan. I'm Japanese. So I can only offer you Japan things. But when I'm talking about here, I'm not really just a Japanese thing. They did not, they didn't do my country. So that is why I wrote my book in English, so that because I realized there are so many things that we can share with anybody, with any background. So from what you're saying, it sounds like spirituality is really embedded in Japanese culture. Here's an example, the number of Shinto shrines and Buddhist and Shigendo temples is actually three times more than the number of convenience stores. And if you come to Japan, you know how ubiquitous the convenience stores are. It's everywhere, I mean, everywhere. But there's three times more. And then most of the temples and the shrines are open to public. You can go in as long as they, you know, in respect for matter. And then also that number, it's only registered to the government. So if you hike mountains or if you take a walk on the street, down to an area, even Tokyo, you'll find small effigies. You find small shrines. Those are not counted as those the number that I just mentioned. So we are so surrounded by it. For hours to be a judge, it's just never be pushy. It's just there. You describe small, ordinary tender rituals like offering water, bowing, greeting the morning. What do these rituals do for you? I think that's the makeshirt. I'm having a connection to, you know, to do something bigger, of course, nature, but also like my ancestors, my family, you know, all of us. We are descendant of the huge group of people. And so it's a connection. And so even though it's a tiny thing, yes, the cup of water or to me, the offering, it's just still, it's a tool. I think what comes down to, you know, what I'm doing here, it just gives myself a moment. It's just a pause because, you know, everybody's so busy. It's just, that's how we do. Like when we get up and we have, we have to deal with all the emails. And you have, you know, works and errands and just like, it's just crazy every day. And so to us, luckily we have so many scintosh rinds and temples. You know, the Buddhists, you get temples and even inside the city, we can walk in and, you know, they give ourself a moment. But you know, anybody can give yourself a moment anywhere, even a desk, you know, it's just pause. And then it starts spirituality. It just finds your own piece. Yeah, so I have my own, the spiritual algebra here. It's just really created my own thing. It's just my private space. But yeah, to me, it's just, it's a tool to have a moment. You describe moments where wind or trees or birds seem to communicate with you. What's that experience doing for you? So when I was walking in the park, I was just so desperate. I didn't know what to do. And then also at the time, I mean, a lot of people told me, you know, my condolences. It was a very nice thing to say, but it hurt me pretty badly just because my brain knows that my mother was gone, but my heart, it's just, it's a rejecting it. And then also I noticed myself that I was looking for her. It's just looking for her. And then of course, she's, you know, she's not there anywhere. And then I just basically, I got beaten up pretty badly emotionally. So when I walk and then I, and then I, and then I started paying attention to surroundings. And that's communication. That's what I'm saying. And then I saw that it was full. And then so that a lot of leaves started falling and you know, they, they looked dead, but it's not because when I looked closely, there were tiny buds and it branched and waiting for spring to bloom. And that taught me that it's a cycle. It's another aspect of life. And then I realized that, you know, my mother's gone, but I was here. And then also I was looking for her everywhere. But one day when I saw myself in the mirror, I found her in my reflection because I looked like her. And then you know, like when I cried, she cries. And then when I laughed, she laughs. And then when I smile, I smiled. So I said, okay, I'm going to just smile to make her smile. And that's the communication I was talking about. And then it just in her journey. So it seems like in your culture, the boundary between the living and dead is quite sort of porous. You know, what possibility is does that open for healing then do you think? Like I said before that for us, the spirituality is, it's a tool to heal ourselves and there's infinite number of ways to do that. And one was just, yeah, walking through the park. The other one is just going to the shrines and having a moment. It's a powerful, powerful thing. It's interesting because there's a folklore of coming, the spiritual beings. It's written in a century. There are many sad stories in the folklore. The kami also have difficult times kind of thing. And some kami cried too. But the only tears that shed by a male kami who lost loved one is wife turned coming, spiritual being. So that's telling us all of us, the tears that you shed for the past of one. That's a powerful thing. That is why I found it very interesting. And I like our spiritual traditions and culture and folklore things because it's all reminder. It's a reminder. You don't have to take it. If you think it's a saga, I don't think so. That's fine. That's great. But it's also great. You can take it and just it makes you think, well, yeah, kami even cried. And then the tears that shed is turned into another kami. It's a powerful thing. It weighs a lot. So it's okay to go through dark period. It's okay to take your time. That is basically why I titled my book Eight Million Ways to Happiness. I found my own spiritual path to define my own happiness. So if there are many infinite number of spiritual beings out there, there has to be infinite numbers of spiritual paths to everyone. Everyone, it has to be one. It could be multiple to, but everybody has a different difficulties. But I believe that there has to be one that you know, your own path to for healing and to find your own happiness. Un-unplay aren't qualities often linked with religion in the West. But in Japanese spirituality, it seems remarkably at ease with them. What role do joy and playfulness have in the spiritual life? Yeah. So basically, the Japanese spirituality, it's a key to understanding everything about my culture. Everything. Like, say, craftsmanship, cleanness, you know, the mannerism, the words of my mind. And we speak, we're even in pop culture, in manga comics and anime cartoons. So yeah, it's pray and play are fair intertwined because it brings you a small joy or it makes big joy too. It's a fabric of life. So you know, I know in the West, in my experience, pray is a very, you know, it's a, you know, it's all that I'm in thing. And so you may think that play is a soccer religious, but we don't see that way. In fact, I can give you an example. I went to the Kamakura, the one known for the major tourist spots in Japan. And there's a shopping street, leasing to the Shinto shrine. And the shopping street starts with Shinto shrine gate. Okay. And then in a shopping street, there's so many stores. I mean, really, just normal stores like flower shops, cafe, restaurants, souvenir shops, literally the toy stores. I mean, you name it. And then in the other toy store, and I found the, you know, kid restorations of hybrid of Hellkiri and Buddha, which is a symbolized beauty. Okay, because Kamakura is known for two major holy spots, as a tourist spot, Shinto shrine and in Buddhist temple. So I just realized that like how unique that is to find Hellkiri Buddha. But it's basically telling us that the spirituality is, it's not, of course, really, it's not It's a very difficult, you know, the difficult, you know, the subjects. Of course, I mean, that's why there's a lot of studies there. Of course, but it's at the same time spirituality can be really close to us. It's okay. And anybody can buy "Hallo Kiri Buddha". Japanese religious institutions claim millions more followers than there are actually people in the population itself. Yes. What does this tell us about how Japanese people relate to religious identity? Yeah, I was absolutely shocked by it. But at the same time, I quite understandable that the Japanese government explained that it's basically lack of a lack of sense of belongingness to religious groups. Yes, I agree. I totally understandable because we have so many spiritual beings and kami and adidis and we pick and choose and the religion is not identity to us. It's a culture. Japan is very rigid in society, but very flexible in spirituality. And so because of that, the number belongs to that organization. It's way more than the Japanese entire population. It's mind-blowing, but it's quite understandable. As you've already said, Japanese spirituality is very open. You know, people drawing from shinto, from Buddhism, from folklore, even modern practices. Yes. But how does a Japanese person decide what to adopt and what to leave out? Is it kind of just purely whatever works or what feels good or kind of what's compatible with shinto? What's the process? There's no process. It's just how you feel. Okay, there is a media. Japanese people born shinto, Merry Christian, and diabetes. I mean, yeah, I know it's not that simple, but still it describes what's happening in my country. There's a tradition that when a baby is born, the parents and grandparents take their baby to shinto's rine. But that's not obligation or anything. My parents didn't do that for some reason, but the some people do. Okay, wedding. Wedding. I had a Christian style of wedding. A lot of people do. Just simply because I wanted to wear the pre-goid dress. Yeah, in the church, it's just it's not a church for a pray. It's a wedding hall. And then we had a wedding there. And I, you know, I switched to the kimono for the for the after party. My sister did shinto's shinto style, what a wedding. But it's all a style. It's not shinto way. It's Christian style. It's not Christian way. It's a style. And then it Buddhist, you know, the few are not the same thing. It's a style. It's just organic way. It's totally depends on individuals. You don't have to do Christian style of the wedding if you don't want to. Or you don't have to even have a ceremony either, kind of thing. Or you can have just totally, you know, a home party type of thing. That's fine too. So it's organic. It just totally depends on the individual. Does Japanese spirituality shape your kind of moral and ethical framework? Because in the West, we would see Christianity or Islam or whatever the religion is as being the kind of foundation of our ethical and moral outlook. How does that work in Japan? Oh, yeah, definitely. I can give an example on the words that words we speak. The Kododama, the word spirit, the concept. There's a term called "itadakimasu." We say that "itadakimasu." Before we eat, it literally means "I am believed to accept." Grammatically, there is no subject. So you feel in the blank. I accept "filling the blank." Every morning, I eat banana. And then of course, I say "dehakimasu." Because that's tradition, right? And it's also "dehakimasu." First, I accept banana. But it's not just a banana. I accept banana didn't come from nowhere. Somebody grew it. And in order to grow the banana tree, you need a good soil. You need a sun. You need rain. And there's people work together. And then the harvest them. And then they carry that banana to the supermarket. And then yeah, I mean, I got the banana in a supermarket. There's a worker there. And there's a kissier there. And so now it's just like, if I started seeing that way, there is anoyble connection. And that's worthy to feel the gratitude. So that's only one example. But yes, definitely shapes the morality in daily life. You've already mentioned that you lived and studied in the US. Yes. What struck you about the Western focus on belief and certainty and religious identity? I went to America at the age of 17 as an exchange student. So basically that was the first time I was questioned my identity in terms of religion. Because till then, as I said, you know, the before that it's just our spirituality is so blurred, but everywhere part of our fabric of our life, culture. And we don't identify ourselves with one specific religion. So I was really shocked that I got questioned. And also we don't discuss freely either. I mean, because once again, we're doing it without recognizing it. That exchange program was organized by youthful understanding. So there are other students that sent to America as exchange students in different states. Anyway, right before we left for America, there is orientation program. And that's basically helping us students and family members to prepare for living in a foreign country. And one of the things that they told us was that the Americans probably would ask a lot about your religion and identity. And I just no idea. My parents had no idea. And they didn't need to do anybody in that orientation room. But now looking back, I really feel grateful to have that experience because they provide me. There's something that I compare to. Because till then, I didn't see it. It was just like an error to me. And then just people started questioning me. They're like, "Hmm, made me think a lot. It's nudged me to go to deep dive my own culture." And so I feel grateful for that. It almost feels to me listening to you talk that spirituality is so much a part of your identity that you can't talk about it. You can't sort of separate it and look at it and describe it because it's so kind of fundamental to who you are. Yes, I think so. Because the thing is, until I realized that, I thought I didn't have any identity. It's a religious identity. Yeah, so that's why when I learned the term secular, I immediately grabbed it. Yeah, Japan is secular. I am secular. Because we don't go to the shrines and temples, like Sunday schools, we don't. So it was easy for me to say it. In other words, basically, I don't want to talk about it. But immediately I realized it just doesn't work that way. It doesn't explain. It's actually wrong. So now if people ask me what religion, or are you a religious person, or what religion do you believe in? My answer would be, I'm Japanese. That's my answer. I'm Japanese. It's so interesting because I've heard Japan described as being secular. There are millions and millions of people that are signed up to religious institutions and organizations. And you've got more shrines than there are convenience stores. Yes. Yes. Yeah, and also in my research, I found a very interesting point. The boundaries among religions are very blurred. But that's not limited to the Buddhism, Shinto, and the Chigendo. There are other belief systems here in Japan on a lot of small scale, including Christianity. So I found that there are over 700 universities in Japan. And about 10% are Christian universities. But according to the survey, less than 1% of Japanese people claim they are Christians. So that explains that a lot of students, faculties, walkers at those universities are not Christian. So even Christianity, in my country, the boundaries are blurred. And I actually, I went to, I completely forgot about it until I wrote my book. I went to Christian kindergarten. It's not because my parents were Christians, anything like that. It was a kindergarten, but it happened to be closest to our house. So it's a very blurred. as you lived among and got to know Christians in the US, was there anything that resonated with you? Did you have any kind of positive experiences of Christianity? Perhaps, you know, did you even adopt any Christian rituals or practices? I'm not Christian. And then so, no, I don't have any something that I adopted from the Christianity. I don't, but I learned a lot. I learned a lot myself because once again, they gave me, you know, a lot of the things that I can compare to. And also, I didn't know anything about Christianity until my host mother took me to return every Sunday. And they really tried to, to include me. So, that's experience. So, that's an adoption, but I learned. I didn't have any negativity for, you know, whatsoever. It's just, it's just, everything was new. I was only 17 and I had no idea what was going on. I mean, I never seen a person in the preaching. And also, once again, I was so busy learning English. So, everything, what I heard, it's just, it's a learning, my foreign language. So, it's not just a religious experience. It was, it was absolutely part of the experience, learning experience as exchange student. Many people listening may feel spiritually lost or empty. Is there one very small thing someone could try today to help them feel more connected to the world around them? I would say take a walk, take a walk, just put your shoes on, leave your iPhone at home, leave your iPhone at home, and take a walk. And you will find something pretty beautiful, makes you, gives you, you know, small joy or big joy. You never know. But take a walk and you'll find into the something. Yeah, take a walk, but by yourself. Maybe you can find something in you too. I would say, you know, take a walk, leave your iPhone at home. Yes. And finally, what would you say is most alive in you right now, in your spiritual life? That's very hard to pin down. I mean, it depends on how I feel kind of thing. But if I have to deal with something hard, I always remind myself that, you know, the answer is, it doesn't have to be one thing. It could be multiple. I don't have to stick to them. It doesn't work out, it just let them go and you find something. And then yeah, and then keep smiling, I guess, you know, I'm so appreciate, but that's that's how I can say. You're okay. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you for it on helping me. Thank you very much. So Tim, what caused you to look deeper into Japanese spirituality? I think it was the Nash's experience of forest bathing. We went on a foraging sort of experience with a group of people and at the end we did some forest bathing. And we all found it really moving, even earlier, actually, I was kind of worried that he'd get really bored, but he seemed to really get into it. So we've done it a couple of times since then. It was just something really moving about just sitting in the silence of the trees listening, you know, sort of feeling their presence. And unlike our tradition, I was kind of struck by how no one was asking us to believe anything. No one asked kind of what trees might symbolize forests. No one asked what the forest means. They just kind of let the forest work on us, you know. And so when I saw Heroko's book, I was just really curious to know a bit more about the sort of spirituality that sort of underpinned that practice. So yeah, I think that's kind of that's how I got into it. Nice. And how was it connecting with Heroko? Yeah, it's great. She was lovely, warm, engaging, really curious. But it was one of those interviews that sort of stirred quite a lot up for me, I think. I'm unprepared it really thoroughly, but I was still sort of quite caught off guard by just this simplicity and the practical nature of Japanese spirituality. Like even though I'd read her book, I just assumed that the kind of questions that are really meaningful for me would be the kind of questions that would be really meaningful for her. So I'm pretty obsessed with post deconstruction meaning making, you know, that's kind of what nomads all about. So I wanted to ask her those sorts of questions, you know, what can Japanese spirituality bring to that space? Quite quickly, as I got into the conversation, it just became apparent to me that the Japanese simply aren't asking those questions. You know, their focus is very practical, very embodied, everyday spirituality. So I thought that for an ultimate question, I asked really highlighted that where I said that many people listening might feel spiritually lost or empty, is there one very small thing that someone could try today to feel more connected to the world around them. She said, yeah, turn your phone off and go for a walk. I sort of feel like if I'd have asked a typical nomad guest that question, I could imagine them talking about inheriting a religion that had a kind of a higher archaeo-spiritual practices, maybe tentatively exploring practices outside of the traditional Christian ones, maybe talking about their discovery of embodied practices, rediscovering a connection to nature, all that stuff that we talk about in the podcast. It's huge. It's just like, yeah, just go for a walk. I was sitting there thinking, it took me 15 years of the construction to come to that place. It's a kind of realised that a walk could be a spiritual practice that going for a walk is actually one of the most life-giving spiritual practices for me, and that I can go for a walk without agonising about what it means or what it symbolises. So that's what I meant in the introduction about how some of my questions just kind of weren't landing. It wasn't until the interview started that I realised we're just coming from very different spiritual worlds, and her spiritual world is fascinating and very helpful, but I don't know, it just kind of felt a bit disorientating for me. What was your kind of response to the simplicity of it? Like, you obviously kind of got that awareness whilst interviewing her. Did you think originally great or did it kind of, did you find it frustrating? Yeah, initially I was kind of frustrated because I was kind of thinking, come on, we've got to go deeper, we've got to go deeper. What does this mean? What does this tell us? What does it symbolise? So I was having the conversation in my head thinking, this isn't deep enough. We should be agonising over these questions. It wasn't until I kind of listened back to it, then that simplicity became something that felt really beautiful and something that I kind of felt really drawn to. What about you? How did it kind of feel to you listening to it? Yeah, I think as I was listening to it, it's fascinating hearing about another culture that I'm not familiar with, very familiar with. I did teach somebody once who was half Japanese, so I learnt a bit about the culture there from him. So I find it, I find it's really interesting to say how other people and other cultures do things. So that was fun. But then it's also when you listen to that, you kind of compare and contrast, don't you? And you think, oh, where does that relate to this? And I became kind of increasingly aware. I mean, my own practice and way of being in the world, simplicity is really key. And there was just so many things that she was mentioning that made me think about things like the Celtic Druid ancestry here. And I thought, oh, that's like that. And that reminds me of that. And so there's definitely some correlations that I recognise in other traditions that have a similar kind of some similarities. Yeah, so that I suppose, yeah, it was both. So it was both interesting to learn about the Japanese culture in this sort of way of being and also reflecting on my own areas where I could relate to it. Yeah. I felt really drawn to the idea of spiritual practices being tools. I mean, that's something you mentioned when you were talking about your retreats. And she mentioned that a number of times, you know, you can pick these things up, you can try them out. If they bring you life and joy, keep them if they don't, just put them down. It's such an obvious and simple thing. But again, it sort of took me years of deconstruction to kind of come to that place because I inherited the idea that spiritual practices were inherently good. So reading the Bible, prayer, church, fasting, whatever it was, they were good in and of themselves. It didn't matter how boring or confusing or soul-destroying they were. They were good things to do. And if they didn't work, it was you that had the problem. The practice wasn't the problem. Whereas I think actually in our spiritual tradition, you know, there is that sense that these are tools. I mean, it made me think of what Jesus said about the Sabbath that Sabbath is made for people, not people for the Sabbath. Like the Sabbath itself isn't inherently good. It's just a 24 hour period of time. It's what it enables that is sacred. You know, if it enables rest, if it enables restoration, if it enables relationship, that sacred. But, you know, if it's crushing you, if it's soul-destroying, don't do it. I think on some level, I'm still unpicking that. You know, sometimes I still get that kind of niggling feeling that there is a bit of a spiritual hierarchy that says that some things are inherently more spiritual than others. So wrestling with the Bible, whatever you make of it, wrestling with the Bible feels more meaningful than just going for a walk. Whereas that just didn't seem to be the case for her or for Japanese spirituality at all. And that's really informed the way we've gone about sort of sharing faith and spirituality with Elliot after years of agonizing about how to do that. That's kind of where we landed. That's all we do really. We're not attempting to pass on beliefs so much as passing on tools. Things that will help him connect with nature, things that are creative, gratitude practices as well as more traditional things like Bible or pilgrimage. But just saying to him, these are tools. Some might work, some might not, some might work now, but they might not work later. That's fine. These things are tools. But yeah, from what Aroko said in Japan, that all just seemed really natural and obvious that these things are just tools to bring you life and to bring you joy. Yeah, and I guess in the context of religion and spirituality, tools can be used to control, can't they? Or they could be used to liberate. Yeah. And I think it's really interesting when you look in all that there's always areas where there's been some sort of really toxic leadership. I think of all those yoga retreats where people were the tool of yoga, which was being used to kind of abuse and manipulate people. So yeah, even things that should be good tools can be used in the hands of the wrong people with different motives to create problems. I think yoga is a good example actually because when it came to yoga, in terms of the tradition that I inherited, it didn't even matter if it worked or not. The question was, is it Christian? And that was another thing that struck me about what Aroko is saying, that they were drawing from a range of different traditions. The question really was a very practical one, does this work or not. So in a sense, it doesn't really matter where it comes from if it works. We'll adopt it. Whereas again, we would kind of agonise over the roots of beliefs or the roots of practices. That was more important than whether the thing actually worked or not. Yeah. I think the tools that I picked up in those early years of joining that certain sort of style should be say of Christianity. As Aroko said, talked about style, didn't she? Yeah. I think the tools were like quite sort of simple, really. For me, it was Bible study, which I found really dull, not because I love the Bible or studying it or grappling with the teachings of Jesus, but the way it was done, I didn't enjoy. And sort of accountability circles, but that seemed to be mostly for men. I didn't seem to be so stressful women, but anyway. And then some kind of band-led charismatic worship, those seem to be the main tools. Until I discovered the contemplative way through my two wonderful women friends who introduced me to all of the tools in that incredible space, which just felt like there's so much deeper and enabled so much more kind of fascination, curiosity, growth, development of self and connectivity to my soul and what I was understanding as the divine is God. So yeah, it's interesting. What are the tools of different spiritualities and religions? Yeah, it's quite a limited toolbox, wasn't it? In the evangelical world that I inhabited, it was essentially go-to-church, reach-ab-ible, have your daily quiet time. And then there was a few others for kind of more in quotes, kind of advanced Christians like fasting, not many people did that, but we were kind of aware that that was a spiritual practice. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's quite limiting really. If you didn't connect with those three or four things, you were kind of stuck really. I think for me, the tool of silence was really key in kind of when I started to question all of that, like the relief of being able to have the practice of silence and meditative silence, kind of like mindful silence, focused silence, accenturing prayer, for example. But there's lots of different ways you can do it. There's such a relief that I could still have a practice, but I didn't have to think and have to analyse everything that the practice of just being. And interestingly, I understand it's when Heroko is saying, just go for a walk, take a pause. It's almost, for me, I hear that's a take a moment to just be, just exist, just get present, like be in the present moment. And that's something I've really had to learn later on in life. It certainly wasn't something I was taught through my education or through church. It was something I sort of learned when I was questioning things, I think. Yeah, I found that really helpful in my kind of deepest period of questioning. When I kind of wasn't sure who God was or wherever God existed, when I was really confused about prayer, you know, prayer just clearly wasn't working in the way I'd been led to believe. And silence just kind of cuts through all of that. It didn't require me to believe anything. It didn't require me to have any expectations. I could just sit in silence and be kind of nourished by that and just not have to kind of fret about all the kind of questions and the expectations that came with the faith that I inherited. That's it. I think I just sat with the sort of general awareness that I'm loved. And that was enough. And I needed to sit there for, you know, a cumulative hours just to sit and just receive that message, which seems to me, you know, that I'm loved and you are loved and that we're all, all life is a value. And this is a sacred, it seems to me like the key message that comes out of Christianity. And indeed, you know, most of the kind of mystics and the main religions and spiritualities, I would say, strong sense of that. Yeah. So Timmy kind of mentioned that you really enjoyed the quote in her book, "Around Half-Doubt, Half-Belief." I'm wondering how she kind of framed that in the context of the book and what was it that kind of grabbed you about it? Yeah, I thought this is a really good example of how Japanese spirituality just isn't playing the same game that we are because the spirituality I inherited was about resolving questions. Like doubt was a problem to be solved. And I think even deconstruction can kind of exist in that same world. It can still center around belief. You're just believing or not believing different things. Whereas that half-belief, half-doubt idea, it doesn't sit on either side of that line. It just does away with that line completely. It says that not knowing isn't a temporary state on the way to knowing, on the way to being more certain, that that is actually the place where you can live. Now, I find that quite a radical challenge really. The question stops being, what do I think is true? And it becomes how am I relating to what's in front of me right now? Do this person, this place, this moment, that just sort of feels like a different way of existing? And I think her example that she gave in interview and in the book, she's talking about living in that sort of gray space of loss. So she says it's a fact. My parents are gone. That's an unarguable reality. But then she allows herself the other half of that kind of equation that it's really nice to think that they're out there somewhere, that maybe they're actually closer than I think. So she doesn't claim that's true. She's isn't trying to prove it. She simply lets that possibility live because of what it does for her. So she gave that example of looking in the mirror. And she said that she'd kept looking for her mother in the world. And then one day she realized that she could see her in her own reflection, in her face, in her smile, in the way she laughs. And I think that's the kind of half belief, half doubt in practice. Like she knows that her mother isn't literally there. But she still relates to her as being present because that relationship brings comfort. It brings continuity. So it kind of feels like it's kind of holding a fact and holding a feeling at the same time, sort of existing in that place. So yeah, I found that sort of quite moving and quite challenging. Yeah, I kind of reminds me. I don't know if it's the same. But the idea of holding a parent opposite together, again, looking at St. Bridget, that's she's the kind of thresholdsaint because she sort of stands in the threshold of kind of polarities. One of the big ones that they talk about is that she grew up with a chief ten druid father and a slave Christian mother. And so she had both her ancestry in the kind of Celtic tradition. But also she was kind of part of this had this faith in this new Christianity that was evolving in Ireland. And so she is not either or it's both and. So they're kind of integrated. And of course in Celtic, druidgy, there's a lot of mythology. And in fact, even with Bridget, there's just a lot of legend and mythology that's woven into that. I've sort of been raised to sort of have a rash that sort of rash on mind that says, well, that's not true. So therefore we ignore that. That's just rubbish, you know, put it to the side. Whereas actually, and Raw talks about this and his book falling upwards where, you know, mythology might not be true in the particular, but it's always true in the general. Like it's the we have the mythologies often understood as sacred because it's in connected to gods and goddesses, but it's kind of dealing with kind of really big concepts and ideas that are hard to understand and hard to grapple with and hard to rationalize. And yeah, so I'm quite fascinated by that. So that whole half-doubt, half belief. I'm very comfortable with that now, you know, a lot of us talk about moving away from that certainty and drawing towards the mystery. But even in the mystery, it's not like we have to go, there are still things that we hold on to. There's still anchor points. There's still beliefs that we hold in the mystery. But also we perhaps maybe we hold some of them more lightly than we once might have done. And we're open. We're open to questions and to go, well, you know, this could change. And that's okay. You know, yeah, I don't think it's a question of kind of like turning our brains off. I don't ever want to stop finding those questions interesting. And, you know, I'm as curious now about all those questions as I've ever been, if not more so, but it's holding it lightly. It's the posture, isn't it? Like I don't feel like I have to find the definitive answers anymore in the way that I used to. I just enjoy wrestling with those questions. I enjoy being curious. And that shapes my spirituality. That's shaping my faith journey. But yeah, it's kind of holding it lightly like it's not my spirituality doesn't depend on certainty, doesn't depend on finding answers. The kind of journey is wrestling with those questions and enjoying the curiosity. I think that's the kind of have been a shift for me really. Another thing that sort of occurred to me while Heroko was talking was that Japanese spirituality just feels more ease with itself in a way that I don't think Christianity does. I mean definitely not the Christianity I inherited. The Christianity I inherited kind of felt quite insecure. And I just had this real kind of sense that Heroko and the Japanese spirituality as far as she was portraying it just felt very ease with itself. I think there are possibly a number of reasons for that. I mean I think this idea of spirituality as tools is part of that because it's just very pragmatic, it's very practical. So they're not agonizing over what does this mean? Like the question is quite simple, does this work for you or not? I think as I mentioned before the fact that they draw very easily from other religious traditions as part of it. Because like I said about yoga, we were kind of constantly agonizing about yeah, but where does this come from? What are the kind of roots? You know, it didn't matter whether something worked. It mattered is this Christian or not. You know, we were very concerned about being kind of polluted by other kind of spiritualities and religions. The fact they're not trying to convince anyone to be a part of it, I think is a big thing. She said on a couple of occasions this works for me. It may not work for you. You have to find your own way. Whereas I grew up in an environment where beliefs and practices, these things we universal truths and we had to try and convince the world of them. And I think that creates anxiety as well. And I think just the playfulness of it as well. I was really struck by that. Like she said, there's no separation between prayer and play. I just thought that was such a kind of a radical statement really because Christianity can be very earnest, can it? It's not a playful religion. I don't think the faith-fine heritage has shaped me as quite an earnest, quite an anxious person. And I just didn't get that sense at all about Japanese spirituality. It felt very peaceful. Yeah, as you say, it feels like it has no agenda. It doesn't have to prove itself. Yeah, exactly. And it's not trying to win. So I guess that takes the pressure off. I'm sure Japanese people have as many reasons to be anxious as us Westerners, but it just felt like spirituality wasn't one of those reasons to be anxious. Like the spirituality was the thing that you engaged with to manage your anxiety. Whereas for me, religion was my primary source of anxiety. Sure. So yeah, I felt very sort of attracted to that aspect of it. And when it comes to my kind of faith and spirituality, I feel very at ease with it. I do know. Yeah. She's talking about, you know, the boundaries are blurred because I've had, I feel like I don't answer to people who have a very fixed mindset of certainty in how Christianity should look. And I've kind of given myself permission and autonomy through the reading and the theology that I explore and the places that I grapple and the practices that I do that I feel a real freedom to be able to genuinely kind of look at the teachings of Jesus and then try to discern my way through with the help of others and, you know, what is bringing my soul alive and what is enabling me to live a life of love and to bring more good into the world than bad. And yeah, it's interesting because it's almost like the Japanese spirituality. It feels like quite well-being stuff, like quite mindful. Yeah. You know, that kind of present moment stuff, which is so it was obviously so important, especially in a stressful world that can be overstimulating and with so much information, but marding us, being able to just know that there's tools and practices that help you ground and get back into your body and back into your present moment because when she says, take a pause, go for a walk. What I hear, and of course, we'll all respond to that differently. How I would respond to that is when I go for a walk like that, what I'm doing is I'm reconnecting with myself. I'm dropping back into the present moment where my head is usually, you know, thinking of other things in the future or the past. Maybe a monk is about something and it's using nature or allowing nature to bring me back into my own body and bring me back into the only moment that truly exists, which is this one right now. I feel like that in a way gives a bit of an essence of that kind of Japanese way of spirituality in the world, which as you say, is calming and kind of reassuring somehow, even though it doesn't seem that there's a, it's giving you the big answers to the problems of the world and why we exist. It's just saying we do, we're here. And let's be here well. Let's be here connected. Yeah. Yeah, so it got me thinking a little bit about, I think when you asked how do you discern or choose, like what to follow, I think you said something like that and it made me think, I wonder what you do because obviously you've come from a certain background. Nowadays, how do you choose what to engage with in your sort of faith and spirituality? Yeah, I guess this kind of relates to the one hesitation I felt when I was listening to, although that kind of resolved itself because at times it sounded quite individualistic, what she was saying. So she kept emphasizing, this is your journey, it's your path, spirituality can help you find your peace. I think, oh, this sort of feels a bit individualistic, but on reflection, I think I realized that it is deeply communal because their spiritual tools emerge from a shared tradition. So they're kind of selecting tools from a communal toolkit, you know, shinto Buddhism. So you're kind of free to find your own unique expression of a shared tradition. And I guess that's what I'm doing really, like I'm trying to find my own unique spirituality, but largely drawing from the toolkit of the Christian tradition in its broadest sense, you know, that's not because I think it's inherently superior, but they're the tools that have been given to me, they're the tools that I'm most familiar with. So I guess that's sort of how I'm doing it is just trying out different tools from within the Christian tradition and seeing what works, see what fits, you know. What about you? Yeah, well, I kind of relate to that whole shinto, kashintoism is the kind of indigenous spirituality of Japan. And then you have Buddhism, which my understanding from my very limited research came in about the eightth century, or somewhere along where I think, so that reminded me of like the British Indigenous religion of that kind of Celtic, Foki kind of ancestry. And then of course Christianity sort of started coming in with the Celtic saints. And then of course then the Roman church later, which of course I've drawn on hugely in my own life and in my work of kind of re-connecting and allowing the boundaries there to be blurred. But the difference with us in Japan, it sounds like there's a kind of continuity of shintoism, whereas the kind of Celtic druid ancestry, it really got kind of slightly stamped on by a particular form of Christianity that said that that was witchcraft, that is bad, we can't have that, that is not okay, that is suspicious, you know, it became very much like that. So a lot of us have been really cut off from our deep connection to our own kind of ancestry and our own ritual and mythology, which isn't all bad and isn't, and I so I really enjoy marking the Celtic calendar and re-connecting with the seasons and the land, because I just think that's how we're meant to be and it's not very natural for humans to be sort of put into completely urbanised areas, completely away from nature, connection and all the rest of it. I think we were, when we lived a slower pace of life and had to walk down the village, down the lane to work, or you know, I think about even the miners who have tough jobs here in Kormor, but there's mining paths all over where I live through the woods, along the coast. So they would all walk back and forth. So even that kind of having time to just walk slowly before or after work in beautiful surroundings can just be really good to process and kind of have a breath take stock. Yeah, so I think by discernment these days, you know, is where is the aliveness, where is the life? Yeah. So Tim, the last thing I was thinking about was rituals. I do have more lately loved a ritual and obviously in Japanese spirituality, they have these beautiful rituals of bowing to people, offering a cup of water. She didn't mention it, but I understand they have a beautiful tea ritual as well. I just wondered if you have any rituals that you have discovered that bring kind of meaning and anchor points into your life? Yeah, I mean, it depends what you mean by ritual, doesn't it? Again, it's kind of one of those words that I in the past would kind of super spiritualise and kind of overlook the things that as a family, we naturally do together that actually have a huge amount of meaning for us. So actually for us, just every week going for a walk in the countryside, me, Hannah and Elliott, most Saturday mornings or Sunday mornings if we can, we'll just go out somewhere and go for a walk. That's just happened naturally and that happens regularly. We didn't kind of make an intentional commitment to that. That's just what we do because it draws us closer together, it connects us with nature, it connects us with our bodies, it just feels like a really, really life-giving thing to do. So yeah, there's tons of things that we do every week, but I'd say at the heart of it, that's one of the most kind of foundational that the three of us will just go out for a walk and just enjoy breathing in some fresh air, having a good conversation, seeing what animals we can spot and you know, all the rest of it. So yeah, that's probably the most life-giving ritual for me at the moment. What about you? Well, I think of two. One, I decided the Celts used to always have like songs around things like lighting and bedding down the fire and leaving or exiting the home. They would be have like blessings or cairns that they would say. And I remember thinking, "Oh yes, I want to do that. My family won my kids for young. I'm right a whole load of them. This is fantastic." That's not happened. But I was I wasn't the cause we were heading off on a long journey from Cornwall to see family. And I thought, oh, I'll just sing a song. I'll just sing a song. I just sang a song. I just made one up there and then, and I'll say it a few times. And I said, oh, this can be our song. So it's like a blessing for the road song. So I sort of bless the roads and everybody on the roads and keep us safe. Like a protection song. Like almost like a car of protection for everybody traveling at this moment. Anyway, it stuck. And that is the song we all sing now when we get in the car. We're going along journey, the whole family. And it was not even me that suggested, I didn't even suggest it anymore. Like my kids who are now older, would be like, should we sing the song? It was been barris to say it. I am starting to wonder whether it's a bit of a superstition, maybe, for some of them now. But if we don't sing the song, something bad will happen. But there's something lovely about it that is just this moment where we're acknowledging we're on a journey together. We're heading away from home. We're going to the next place. And we always, it's always funny when we try, when we're in the song, you have to say, where you're going. And everyone says something slightly different, which is always an amusing point in the song. So that's something that I think is lovely. And I genuinely would love that. I would maybe one day, I might create that, like, songs or little cans around these little things that we do every day, or these moments in our shared experiences, where we just mark them sometimes with Isabel, who I rummage treats with, well, just they sit before a meal in silence, just 30 seconds silence, just a quiet pause to sort of do whatever you want to in that time. Just be aware or be thankful for the food. But the most recent one that I've started doing in the last few years is bowing to trees. (laughs) - Well, nice. - So when I walk in woods on my own, I love trees. I love woodland. I have a really strong connection to woodland and feel a deep sense of connection to myself and to kind of that benevolence beyond me as well. And I think it may even start at Ashburne. Ashburne and Place, where I run this street, they have this ancient woodland with these overgrown oaks, which are over 600 years old. You know, they're just amazing. I know, it's extraordinary. And when I walked round, I used to just go and touch them. And then I'd see a really old oak and I, or old beech or any tree that was particularly old. And I would go and I'd stand next to it. I'd lean my back up against it. Or some people would, you know, to call them tree huggers, don't they? You might cuddle it, but I'd often lean my back against it. And I'd just take a moment with a tree. And I noticed, because I've gone there for the last four years, they're like friends. They're like these incredible presences that I walk back. I always do my circuit around the woodland before the tree begins. And now I just found myself intuitively just a little nod of my head every time I saw one of these old trees, just like a greeting, so it's like a pause and a bow. And it went, it came from it was just because there's nobody else around. Obviously I'm sharing this now with the podcast and everybody's hearing about it. But in the moment, what I'm allowing myself to do is trust my intuition, trust my kind of, what is my response to this beauty and this kind of ancientness and this presence in this space without worrying about what people think or overanalyzing it. And that's been my gentle natural response. And even this time I was doing a bit of the, you know, how penguins, is it a myth or is it true? How they do the forehead thing? You know, they just lean in with the forehead to greet each other. Oh, yeah. So I found myself doing that this time, just leaning in and just having a moment with my forehead against these trees. You know, that is a very life-giving ritual for me, because it's really not only is it honouring the tree, I feel like it's honouring the earth, it's honouring all life, really. And just celebrating this moment right now. And that's been a ritual that I've developed, and it happens now anywhere I walk on my own usually. I don't tend to do it when I'm with other people, but it's very precious and very profound. And I can't really tell you why, like I can't give you a rational argument for that, but it is so full and it's meaningful and it does something. And maybe that's the thing about this Herokos sharing, is that sometimes we don't necessarily need to be able to explain or rationalize things for them to be extraordinary and valuable. And you think about all the indigenous wisdom that was sort of written off as sort of just rubbish. And of course, science now shows, oh, actually, you know, forest bathing, for example, they've done research. And they know now that scientifically, it does something to our nervous system, it literally changes the way our bodies are working. The same with sea swimming. You know, sea swimming. People would always see swim, you know, didn't have wetsuits, did they? Just getting a sea, you know, and then we all put on the wetsuits, so we don't go in the sea. And now people are going back into the sea. And the science is showing, well, goodness, you swim in the sea, you know, your anxiety levels can go down, it can help with depression, it can help with stiffness and swelling, you know, all these different things. But they were sort of written off, well, that's just, you know, but people knew these things were good. People knew it's good. But just because you can't give a kind of scientific rational argument about something, we shouldn't write it off. And I think we need to learn to trust again, our bodies and to trust our intuition. And going for a walk is a good place to start. Yeah, absolutely. Very good. So there you go. A short but sweet conversation with Heroko Yoda, thanks to Heroko. And thanks to you, Anna Robinson, very much enjoyed the conversation. Oh, it's been great, Tim. I'm hoping that up next we'll be looking at the gospel of Mary Magdalene and the axe of Paul and Thecler with Meghan Watson, but it's been postponed twice. I'm not entirely sure if that's going to happen in time. So who knows what's going to be up next, just tune in to find out. So until then, beloved listener, goodbye. Goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING]