Ryunosuke Koike, a Zen Buddhist priest, is something of a celebrity in Japan where his books on Buddhism, Zen and the art of living mindfully have sold more than a million copies. But you won’t find Koike doing the chat-show circuit — this is a guy who practises what he preaches.
His latest book, The Practice of Not Thinking, offers a variety of Buddhist techniques to help us feel calmer every day. But what can a youngish Japanese former monk — now master of a temple outside Kyoto — teach an Irish person? I spent a week putting his theories of mindful living into practice, to see how it went.
Sunday
I start with the book’s introduction. “All the failures that we ever experience may be attributed to excessive thinking, and in particular the negative thoughts that pop up in our mind,” it reads. What? No. I slam the book shut. All of my work revolves around thinking, whether as a writer or as a sub-editor who questions everything she reads. That’s my job. Maybe this isn’t the book for me.
It takes me a week to pick it up again and notice the word “excessive”. Oh. He’s talking about worrying, ruminating, speculating, and letting yourself get mithered, rather than simply cooly examining the facts.
Koike quickly gets to the point: “The problem is the mind has a habit of looking for stronger stimulation and can get out of control if we let it. Because negative thoughts have a much stronger impact on our brain than a mild, gentle sense of happiness, it’s hard to prevent that from happening.”
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Monday
Koike believes that focusing on the five senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch — can help us to calm down. As a one-time acting wannabe, I’m delighted to see that just modulating your voice can help. It’s not as simple as that, however. His point is that the stronger our desire to get someone’s attention, the more we tend to speak in a loud, rapid-fire voice. What about when you are irritated? The normal response is to complain or to repress our emotions, he says. His suggestion: “Instead of releasing your answer or holding it back, you can observe your own emotions.”
So rather than opening the window on this dry, airless day and shouting across the fence at the neighbour’s builders who seem to be using a dentist’s drill just metres from my head, I observe my emotions. I am “letting the noise and dust get to me”. Does it work? Kind of, but it doesn’t stop the noise.
Tuesday
I’m falling down badly already in one area, which Koike calls the Japanese disease. It’s an Irish one too: saying thank you too much. But how much is too much? I often open emails with the words “thank you, thanks or thanks a million” and close them with “Many thanks”. Gratitude is flavour of the moment in personal development and social media marketing, hence the appearance of the humblebrag. The problem is “it’s stressful to say something if you don’t mean it”. But maybe I do mean it? Hmm. Instead of saying thank you, he advises choosing the words that best describe your reaction. So when my friend gives me a gift, rather than write her a message saying, “Thanks. The book is great.” I send a few sentences saying what I liked about it. I feel a greater depth of appreciation for it. She ignores my message, having already moved on to something else. Yet I don’t mind.
Wednesday
Breathing deeply is in, but making a lot of noise is out, whether it’s opening a door, putting things down on a surface or washing up. My lifelong habit of holding my breath when I’m focusing is not going to be broken in a week, but I’m already pretty good at not slamming doors or dropping large blocks — unlike those builders. The key is to slow down even when cooking, but not to tune out background noise or your own thoughts by listening to music. Without John Creedon to distract me from the self-imposed chore of cooking from scratch, I’m bored. The problem is that “blocking out ambient sounds to listen to music will condition your mind to always search for stimulation”. This is a recurring theme of the book: that too much stimulation drives a need for even more stimulation. It rings true. I felt calmer without my radio mates, but a little lonely and out of touch too. So I’m not going to give them up.
Thursday
Lunch is a more muted affair now that “idle chit chat” is off the menu. “The irrelevant information will leave a mark on the listener’s mind and increase the noise that disturbs their thinking, while also creating lasting duplicates of useless thoughts that take up space in the speaker’s mind,” writes Koike. He’s so right. Yet, I can’t stop the flow of verbiage that follows my daily post-lunch espresso. It might be time to cut down. Comedy doesn’t get the thumbs up either, but he may have this one wrong. Laughter seems to be triggered by “one of three poisons”, he writes: a sense of superiority; emotional identification with the aggressive stance of the comedian; or confusion caused by absurd words, actions, ignorance or doubt. What about the Irish favourite — slagging? Surely that comes from a feeling of inferiority. Still, that’s not a positive emotion. As the week wears on, a lot of jokes seem to fall into one of his categories.
Friday
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Ignoring the builders hasn’t become any easier, even though I’ve closed all the windows on one of the hottest days of the year. “A quick way to block out noise is to focus on the different senses of touch that your body is experiencing,” he writes. Much like Flann O’Brien and his bicycle, I feel like my butt has been becoming part of the chair since lockdown started. “One way is to focus your attention on the sense of touch at the tip of your fingers where they are in contact with your computer keyboard,” he writes. That’s easy, but not helpful. My fingers are sticky with suncream no matter how much I wash them. I close my eyes and hold my head in my hands momentarily, before reading on. Oh, good news: that’s apparently another top way to refocus.
Saturday
Nothing has changed . . . and everything has changed. I haven’t developed laser focus or become super-productive. I still rabbit on after a coffee and jump in with a joke before thinking. I still fiddle with my hair ten times a minute (did I mention that is officially not advisable?). Yet I feel calmer and more centred, though I’m wedded to my love of thinking things through. So will I continue with the practice?
I’ll have to think about it. (Of course I will.)
Not thinking, in practice
1. Speaking
The more effort you put into choosing your words, the sharper your mind will become, writes Ryunosuke Koike. Saying thank you too often will distort the mind.
2. Breathing
By becoming aware of the discomfort of shallow breathing, our breathing will start to change.
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3. Listening
If we concentrate on listening, we can stop unwanted thoughts from entering our minds. Open your ears to the sounds of the world and your world will change.
4. Smelling
When you’re annoyed by a bad odour, acknowledge that it’s only a smell and stop overreacting.
5. Touching
Pay attention to the sense of touch when you lose concentration. Focus on the objects that your fingers or your feet are touching. Notice the physical sensation of the air on your skin.
