I just noticed that it was my 350th post yesterday. I also noticed that the day before yesterday, June 15th, was a special day in Japan. It was called Ichiryumanbaibi and Tenshabi, one of the three luckiest days this year, and whatever you do on that day will always succeed. Ichiryumanbaibi means if you plant one seed, it will come back as ten thousand seeds. Well, I did Shinrinyoku that day and shot this video.
In other words, I planted a seed of bio-harmonizing, the Japanese bio-hacking, and it will come back as ten thousand seeds. So, probably bio-harmonizing will be popular worldwide and millions of people will practice it. Yes, just like the millions of stars in the macro universe and the millions of microbiomes in the micro-universe of the gut, the people on earth will be as one in harmony.
Today, I would like to share with you another Japanese bio-hacking method, Ikigai.
How could Ikigai be a bio-hacking method?
It isn’t a diet.
It isn’t a fasting technique.
It isn’t an exercise.
And it isn’t any kind of healing method.
Well, I think it is the core of bio-hacking and bio-harmonizing.
First of all, what does Ikigai mean?
It has two meanings.
1, A small joy in daily life
2, A life purpose or a reason for living
Especially, the second meaning of Ikigai is crucial in bio-hacking and bio-harmonizing. One of the reasons people practice bio-hacking is to live long, isn’t it? To live till 150 or 200. Expanding your lifespan is the goal of bio-hacking yourself.
But why do you want to live long?
What is your life purpose?
Without having it what is the point of staying around longer?
Let’s look at it from a perspective of success philosophy or achieving your goals. Who do you think has a higher chance of reaching your goal of living till 150 years old with a healthy body, someone who has an Ikigai or someone who doesn’t?
Tony Robbins says that one of the most important elements of becoming successful is knowing why you want to achieve your goals. Every goal needs a reason. If your goal is to live until 150, you need to know why.
In the Ikigai Diet, finding your Ikigai is the core. You want to live long or stay healthy because you want to fulfill your Ikigai.
Ikigai comes first, and you want to optimize your body and mind so that you can be most effective to accomplish your life mission.
If your goal of bio-hacking isn’t longevity, but just to perform better, do you still need an Ikigai?
Yes, I think so. Well, why do you want to perform better? Because it helps you work more efficiently at work? In that case, why do you need to work more efficiently? Why do you do what you do? Is it something you have always wanted to do? What is it that you really want?
The reason why Tony Robbins says that you need why is that your goal needs to be congruent with what you truly want. Not something that you are conditioned to believe.
People who promote longevity mostly think living long is always better. Well, Dr. Tamotsu Yoshimori, who was a co-researcher of Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, by discovering the mechanism of autophagy, doesn’t think so.
He thinks that having a limited lifespan can benefit humanity as species to survive. We might all have had the ability to be immortal but over the course of our evolution, many creatures have chosen to be mortal, because it gives us a higher chance of survival as species. If everybody becomes immortal, the population will continue to grow and there may be food shortages.
He also makes an interesting analogy about autophagy by comparing it to Shikinen Sengu, which is a Japanese Shinto custom that every 20 years we rebuild the shrine from scratch and replace it with the old one. Autophagy is a process where old cells die and are replaced with new cells.
Death and rebirth, that is an essential concept in most eastern spiritual teachings.
By the way, Dr. Yoshimori is a scientist, he is not a religious person, well, not I know of.
Anyway, he doesn’t necessarily support the idea of expanding your lifespan. One thing he agrees with other longevity experts is that people should stay healthy until they die. In other words, people shouldn’t get unnecessary diseases such as lifestyle diseases.
Well, that makes us think more about why we want to live until 150 or longer, doesn’t it?
By having an Ikigai, you also get a lot of support from the macro universe and micro universe if your Ikigai is aligned with them. That is how I felt in the forest during my Shinrinyoku. We are all connected and nothing is more powerful than harmonizing yourself with them to stay alive and vigorous for the rest of your life.
How to find an Ikigai that is in alignment with Gaia. I will share it with you in the next post.
The Ikigai Diet: The Secret Japanese Diet to Health and Longevity
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