meditation

100 Ways To Live A Better Life – 64. Meditate Daily

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It’s the easiest thing you can do. True meditation acts like a mind emptier, leaving you open to the whole flow of the sensations and experiences you would otherwise ignore. You don’t even need a complicated technique, meditate as you see fit. In my experience, the biggest obstacle in experiencing the benefits of meditation is … Read more

100 Ways To Live A Better Life – 18. Train Your Focus

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Your focus is in fact your reality. Use it wisely. Train it constantly for it will enhance your reality in ways you never imagined. Keep your focus sharp as a razor blade and be prepared to experience life in fantastic shapes and colors. Let’s make this little exercise: take your eyes out of this blog … Read more

Assess Decide Do stages – Assess

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ADD comes from “Assess Decide Do” and it’s a life management framework, initially described in this introductory post. As opposed to the regular productivity approaches, a life management framework focuses on a higher level integration and rejects the task checking approach as the only metric for measuring productivity performance. In ADD, each individual can have … Read more

The Trip To Japan – Tea Ceremony

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I spent the night in Kyoto in a small backpackers hostel, near Gion. It was my first night at a backpackers hostel but I found the experience quite enjoyable. I met a few interesting people and I really got to rest my feet, after what I calculated to be more than 12-13 kilometers of walking in Kyoto.

In the morning, I started to walk again and just wandered around the wonderful traditional Japanese houses until 12:30. At 13:00 it was scheduled the first tea ceremony at the tea house I just discovered the other day. I was pretty determined not to miss this.

So, at 12:30 I was again at the entrance of the small tea house, looking for the schedule. Everything seemed identical with yesterday. Today was Thursday, so it was supposed to be opened. So, only half an hour until the event. Enough time for a small walk. I breathed deeply, turned on my heels and I was almost bumped into a young lady on a bicycle. Didn’t hear her coming and noticed she had a small flower in a flower pot.

I smiled and wanted to give a Ohayo Gozaimasu salute, when she asked in a crystal clear English: “Are you here for the Tea Ceremony?”. Definitely, my odds were much more positive than yesterday. “Yes” I answered with joy. “Well, I wait you here in half an hour” the young lady said.

Tea Ceremony House

After 30 minutes here I am, opening the door of the little house. Took off my shoes and made my entrance in a room  covered with tatamis, traditional Japanese mats. Inside there were another 3 persons, a lady in between ages and a young couple. I sat down and introduced myself. The lady proved to be from Australia, mate, and the young couple from Great Britain.

The house was made on wood, an old traditional house, almost identical with the ones I photographed the other day on Shimbashidori street. On one of the walls of the first room there was a small and simple floral arrangement. The room was continued with another one, on which there were some tea tools, like pots and other things I couldn’t name.

We chatted a little and then a young lady in kimono entered and saluted.

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