Nitobe Wrote It for the West. I’m Writing It for Now.
A prologue to the Bushido Virtue Series: on what the code was, what it became, and why it still shapes the country I live in
On Beauty That Refuses to Be Defined
The Tao Te Ching and Why Beauty Must Be a Way, Not a Discipline
Nine Years of Cleaning My Own Classroom
Why Japanese children clean their schools, and why I, who did it, still call it a quiet kind of brainwashing
My Grandfather’s Unspoken Dead
Inside an Osaka temple, ten thousand flames burn for the dead. It took me fifty years to understand which ones my grandfather was carrying
Katazuke: The Japanese Word for Tidying That Also Means Settling Things
On putting what’s out of place back where it belongs — including the parts of yourself you would rather not keep
The Stone at the Heart of Shimogamo Shrine and Japan
A growing stone and the meaning behind a line in Japan’s national anthem
Gate After Gate, and Still No Other Side
On Obon, I walked through real gates all day in Kyoto — the one in my head, after decades of Zen, I still can’t say I’ve crossed
Wu-Wei in a Pile of Osaka Castle Leaves I Never Finished Sweeping
I sat with Lao Tzu’s hardest idea for years. It reached me over a broom
Kibarashi: The Japanese Word for Cleaning When You Should Be Working
A diversion only clears your head when you forget it was supposed to.
Somen: The Japanese Summer Noodle that Never Changes
A simple 1,200-year-old dish that Japanese have come to love