[1] Introduction: An Attempt to Be Healthy in Both Mind and Body

It is said that meditation improves the quality and efficiency of work, and there are even major companies that actually utilize meditation.

I couldn't believe it at first, thinking, 'Really?', but
it seems that is indeed the case, and it was recently featured on the NHK program 'Ashita ga Kawaru Torisetsu Show,' so I watched it with interest.

For me, there was some eye-opening information,
my understanding of 'mindfulness,' which I hadn't fully grasped before, improved,
and since I had recently had an experience that linked perfectly with what 'mindfulness' means, I found it very interesting,
and I ended up watching it over and over again to make sure I understood it thoroughly.

In conclusion,
meditation, Zazen, yoga, and mindfulness all have the same goal despite the different terms,
and the purpose of all of them is to 'focus your consciousness on yourself here and now.'

If you can 'focus your consciousness on yourself here and now,' you can clear away the distracting thoughts (especially worries and anxieties) that tire out your brain, allowing you to stay healthy in both mind and body.

What is particularly interesting is
the idea that you can achieve the same effects as meditation, Zazen, or yoga just by being a little mindful during daily activities,
and the keys to this are 'living carefully' and the 'five senses.'

My experience that linked to this also had to do with 'living carefully':
while I was driving in the morning, the warning light for 'low tire pressure' came on,
and usually I would have put it off, thinking it was a hassle and I'd do it when I had time,
but that day I had some space in my heart and time, so I filled the tires with air immediately,
and doing that made me feel surprisingly refreshed and good,
and I deeply felt that a life with space in both time and heart, where you don't have to put things off, is wonderful,
…it was just a trivial matter, but

I linked it to the idea that 'living carefully' is synonymous with having space in both time and heart.
That is how it connected for me.

And in the program, they introduced several specific daily activities for 'focusing your consciousness on yourself here and now.'

Now, if we consider what 'focusing your consciousness on yourself here and now' means in terms of Sanmeigaku,
I think it means 'realizing the Day Stem (yourself) standing in the Month Branch (the current reality),' but since taking the Month Branch into account makes things a bit complicated,
if we broaden the scope a little and think of it as 'feeling the existence of the Day Stem (yourself) with certainty,'
I realized that by using the Five Elements of the Day Stem, I might be able to pick out even more effective activities from the many daily activities,
and I thought it might also deepen my own learning of the Five Element classification,
so I decided to think of a few ideas here.

Although it will be irregular from now on, I plan to write about small daily activities that lead to a healthy life in both mind and body, taking into account the Day Stem, imbalances in the destiny chart, and the Five Element classification of Sanmeigaku, under the title 'Mindfulness by Sanmeigaku Five Elements.'