I have discovered that mindfulness is like facing Ramen Jiro

I understand it as:

"Mindfulness is one of the methodologies for practicing how to find the happiness that lies scattered in our daily lives."

That is how I understand it.

When a sudden evening shower hits while you are in a hurry,

do you get frustrated, thinking, "Damn, what am I supposed to do now?"

Or do you find happiness, thinking, "Oh, the smell of rain on the asphalt."

It is about picking up, picking up, and picking up all the tiny serotonin-based and oxytocin-based happinesses that are scattered throughout daily life.

I recognize that this constant practice is what "mindfulness" is.

Wait, when did I first learn about "mindfulness"???
(Getting sidetracked while writing an article like this is so ADHD...)

The first mention in my Gmail was a book introduction in the Zao Seminar mailing list on June 1, 2011.

It was actually within a thread of a post by one of my mentors (though it's a one-sided mentorship) who I am indebted to right now!!

Hmm, I feel a sense of destiny... but I think I completely ignored it at that time.

Well, the next time was on June 29, 2013, in an email newsletter from someone named Yuri Morita.

Perhaps the book I purchased on January 27, 2015, is when I first became properly interested in mindfulness.

"GO WILD: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization"

I keep a life log (well, what you might call a diary) on Evernote, and this book was the first mention of mindfulness.

And in 2017, I even bought a special issue of "Japanese Journal of Psychiatric Treatment" on mindfulness.

I have read it through many times.

I wrote this article on April 2, 2021.

It seems it didn't resonate with me at that time, haha.

I see, so it resonated with me later during my practice.

This article from July 2022 also boosted my motivation for mindfulness practice.

I bought this book during my temporary return to Japan in March 2025.

What was it again?

Ah,

Mindfulness is one of the methodologies for practicing how to find the happiness that lies scattered throughout daily life.

That is it.

Since I haven't been properly trained, what I practice daily is:

Breathing meditation

Walking meditation

Mindfulness Jiro

That is all.

I am not joking or trying to be funny; I seriously practice Ramen Jiro meditation once a week. (To be precise, it is Jiro-style ramen meditation...)

Once I return to my home country, I will learn it properly at a Vipassana meditation center.

What is Mindfulness Jiro?

First, on the day I decide to eat Ramen Jiro or Jiro-style ramen, I am constantly aware of my level of hunger from the morning. (From the moment I wake up, I gauge my stomach condition and decide what to eat for breakfast. I frequently check to see if I am properly hungry by lunchtime.)

It is ideal to have a solid sense of hunger when heading to the shop.

And, when lining up in the queue, I start with gratitude.

Oh, how happy I am to be able to enjoy Jiro-style ramen that is so delicious, even though I am not in Japan, that the line is so long. I wonder if it will be an hour today, or maybe an hour and a half. I hope it is not two hours.

I stand in line while savoring that gratitude.

I immerse myself in gratitude for waiting about 5 minutes, but I suppose it's unavoidable to touch my smartphone during a one-hour line and a 30-minute wait for the bowl to arrive...

Then, I enter the shop, choose my order, and wait at my seat again.

Once the bowl arrives, while taking a photo of it, I savor the glimmer of the fat, the hue of the meat, and the radiance of the noodles and soup.

Time to eat.

I intentionally direct my consciousness to the experience of eating Jiro-style ramen in this very moment, observing it without judgment, in a state of detachment.

To 'observe' here includes seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching the Jiro-style ramen, as well as observing the workings of the mind that arise from these experiences.

Of course, all sorts of worldly desires, anxieties, and distracting thoughts will bubble up.

I consciously acknowledge them, put them into words, and then let them go.

This process of 'metacognitively observing the anxieties and such that bubble up, and letting them go'

is what I understand to be the reason why mindfulness is said to be useful for stress coping.

I recognize that it is okay to 'evaluate' the ramen.

I interpret the 'without judgment' mentioned here as referring to evaluating the experience itself.

Like, 'Ah, eating ramen is bad for my health, isn't it?'

A record of one day's mindfulness Jiro practice.

I am also practicing tartar sauce mindfulness.

I think mindfulness has various effects, but the effect I feel most strongly is

the 'improvement in the ability to find the happiness scattered throughout daily life.'

That is what it is.

If I let my guard down,

'Life is so boring...'

Don't you think so?

We can eat and wear clothes without having to go hunting or gathering.

We have comfortable homes with air conditioning without having to dig in the dirt or chop down trees.

It's also easy not having to worry about being bitten by insects or snakes, or having to deal with our own waste.

There is no need to engage in power struggles where losing literally means losing your head.

For us Homo sapiens, who have evolved and adapted to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the current era is just too boring.

There are too few experiences that truly make our blood boil and our hearts race.

Because we no longer lack anything, humanity has become less aware, but happiness is actually rolling around everywhere.

We just don't notice it.

Thanks to smartphones, our ability to notice the boring happiness rolling around us might be even lower.

Whether it's sunny or raining, you can feel happiness and pick it up.

By practicing mindfulness, you might be able to make this expression.

Or so I've heard.