Katakana

Katakana, the sister script, is identical in sound to hiragana and uses the same five vowels.
Only the shapes are different.

It is the script Japanese uses for words borrowed from other languages and for the sounds of things.

When you travel, katakana is the script that most often rewards you, because once you can sound it out, you discover that many of the words are borrowed English hiding under Japanese pronunciation.

The word "hotel" is written in katakana,
"taxi" is written in katakana,
"ramen" (which is really Chinese noodles) on a shop sign is often written in katakana,
"Terebi" is television,
"Kōhī" is coffee,
"Toire" is toilet.

Because the sounds are identical to hiragana, the five vowels carry over without change.

Where hiragana is round and flowing, katakana is angular and sharp, built from short straight strokes.

Here is the full set of katakana, laid out exactly as the hiragana chart, so you can see that only the shapes have changed.

	a	i	u	e	o
—	ア a	イ i	ウ u	エ e	オ o
k	カ ka	キ ki	ク ku	ケ ke	コ ko
s	サ sa	シ shi	ス su	セ se	ソ so
t	タ ta	チ chi	ツ tsu	テ te	ト to
n	ナ na	ニ ni	ヌ nu	ネ ne	ノ no
h	ハ ha	ヒ hi	フ fu	ヘ he	ホ ho
m	マ ma	ミ mi	ム mu	メ me	モ mo
y	ヤ ya		ユ yu		ヨ yo
r	ラ ra	リ ri	ル ru	レ re	ロ ro
w	ワ wa				ヲ wo
n	ン n

The same two marks appear here as well.
The dakuten strokes soften a consonant, so カ ka becomes ガ ga.
The handaku circle turns the h row into a p, so ハ ha becomes パ pa.

A long vowel is not written by repeating the vowel but by a single horizontal bar, called chōonpu.
So the long oo in a borrowed word is a bar, and rāmen appears as ラーメン, with the bar holding the a long.
When you see that bar, simply hold the vowel before it.

Between the two kana charts you now have every basic sound in the language, and every one of them rests on the same five pure vowels.

Visiting Japanese schools

Probably the most important reason to practice the Japanese language nihongoにほんご ・ 日本語にほんご is to visit actual schools in Japan.

I know this sounds far-fetched for a white-belt teenager in an American or European town, but it is a real possibility.

Many schools welcome black-belt kuro obiくろおび ・ 黒帯くろおび practitioners to visit their school dōjōどうじょう ・ 道場どうじょう for two weeks to improve their art. Remember, it would be polite to wear the white belt shiro obiしろおび ・ 白帯しろおび as you arrive, out of respect for the school and the "beginner's mind", shoshinしょしん ・ 初心しょしん attitude.

I think everyone should dream of such a visit and strive to make it happen.

Why We Use Japanese in the Dojo?

I have been practicing martial arts in Poland, Okinawa, Japan, Chicago, and Washington State.

Three continents, three national languages, a single set of commands in Japanese. 

Similarly, when using the first computer I purchased (Atari 800XL), I never changed the system settings to the local Polish language. Somehow, even back then, I knew that if I wanted to take computers seriously, I needed to learn in the language of origin. To this day, when I see family or friends struggling with Polish menus, I helplessly shrug my shoulders despite being an architect and a director-level software developer.

It is called lingua franca in trade business, or lingua latina in intellectual circles. 

Europe has had Latin and especially Greek for the past three thousand years. Scientists, clergy, and lawyers use Latin names to be precise in biology and medicine, and even in everyday writing (e.g., for "et cetera", "et al.", and thousands of other words). Everybody knows enough Greek to understand what "geo-logy" or "anthropo-morphic" means.

The worldwide community of Japanese martial arts practitioners uses Japanese. 

This is not because Japanese is particularly easy, nor does anyone expect practitioners to become fluent.

We learn Japanese so we can distinguish the nuanced difference between, for example, the two "hook-punch swings", kagi-tsuki and furi-tsuki. OK, I am showing off.

The alternative, which is translating everything into the local language, would shatter the single most important thing that connects us to each other and to the source: the integrity of the common art.

Until this point, I have avoided using Japanese names in my writing, except for commonly known terms like "karate" or "dojo". 

However, as I am writing this publication, I want to learn and practice just enough Japanese to build a common language for the art.

Please expect to see notation such as this, and I will explain the rest as we progress.

- <ruby>kagi-tsuki<rt>かぎつき</rt></ruby> ・ <ruby>鉤突き<rt>かぎつき</rt></ruby> 

- <ruby>furi-tsuki<rt>ふりつき</rt></ruby> ・ <ruby>振り突き<rt>ふりつき</rt></ruby>

Real values, not GDP

Every civilization reveals its values in what it measures. 

Rome counted legions and grain. 

Medieval Europe counted souls and acres. 

The modern world counts money in motion, the sum of every transaction within its borders, and calls it the health of a nation. The number is Gross Domestic Product. Simon Kuznets, the economist who built the modern version of that metric for the US Congress in 1934, warned in his own report that "the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income". 

I find that warning remarkable, since it came from the man who invented the tool, before anyone had even started to misuse it. We built our politics, our foreign policy, our schools, and our private definitions of success on the number anyway. A country that grows is succeeding. A country that contracts is failing. A person who earns more this year than last is moving in the right direction. The logic runs so deep that most people never notice it is a choice, not a healthy fact.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) counts the antidepressants sold and the therapy sessions booked. 

It counts the security systems installed in neighborhoods where neighbors no longer know each other.

It counts the fast food that makes us sick, the traffic, the divorces, the medical bills for diseases produced by the way we live. 

What it cannot count is the meal cooked from a garden and shared without a receipt. The friendship that made the therapy unnecessary. The morning walk or run that kept the doctor away. An hour of practice in a dōjō that produced nothing sellable and changed everything.

Research on the exact income threshold has moved over the years. A flat dollar figure that ignores what a dollar actually buys where you live is its own kind of category error, the same mistake GDP makes at a national scale, repeated at a personal one.

None of this is an argument against prosperity, and I want to be direct about that before it reads as one. I grew up under a communist socialism which failed in every country that tried it, including my native Poland, and failed darkly and miserably. 

I have no interest in experiencing poverty again, real or romanticized, as a virtue. I have worked my whole career in software to become an architect and director at a comfortable salary. The point is not that money is bad or that more of it is worthless. The point is that past basic financial security, GDP counts none of the five things that actually determine whether a day felt worth living (purpose, physical vitality, genuine community, time that belongs to you, and a relationship with the natural world that gives back as much as it takes), and a government can count every growth target while folk quietly lose all that matters.

The Japanese have a word for the convergence of those things: ikigai 生き甲斐いきがい, the reason you get up in the morning, the specific overlap of what you love, what you are good at, what the world actually needs, and what can sustain you economically. 

Okinawa, where I lived for three years and where this book's own training lineage runs, has produced more centenarians (or people who actively live over 100) per capita than almost anywhere on earth. I write about what that place actually taught me in a later chapter. The short version here: the researchers who study Okinawan longevity did not find a miracle diet or a rare gene. They found people who had never separated living from meaning in the first place, something ikigai names directly and GDP cannot name at all.

Other attempts to measure what is worth exist. 

Bhutan's Gross National Happiness index tracks psychological wellbeing, time use, cultural resilience, and governance alongside income. 

The OECD Better Life Index adds housing, social connection, and work-life balance to its picture of a country. 

The Happy Planet Index weights life expectancy and reported well-being against the ecological footprint, which exposes an uncomfortable fact: some of the world's richest societies by GDP are buying their comfort at an ecological cost that their own children will pay. 

None of these indices is perfect. Together they sketch something GDP was never built to see: a picture of people actually flourishing, not merely transacting.

This book is my own account of chasing that convergence, approached from an unusual direction. Not through economics or policy, but through the healthy mind and body, through the discipline, through the slow discovery that via practice, fine art, and a still mind can be three depths of the same practice rather than three separate hobbies. 

I call the three stages warrior, artist, and sage, and the rest of this book is the specific, sometimes narrow, path.

My introduction to Japanese culture

 My introduction to Japanese culture

My relationship with Japanese culture dates back to early childhood. In retrospect, it is neither random nor surprising.

I grew up on Japanese cartoons, which were a dramatic improvement over depressing socialist television Poland had to offer in the 1970s.

As I write this in 2026, my three daughters also love watching Japanese cartoons.
The kawaii 可愛いかわいい culture is even stronger now than it was in 1990s Japan. The boy heroes are still swinging katana swords.

When I was a teenager, I practiced a very traditional Shotokan karate; Japanese culture was as important to us as the physical training.

I remember that when I was young, I watched the TV series Shogun, which exposed me to the nuances of Japanese culture.

Consequently, I left Poland, joined my already established family in America, enlisted in the U.S. Marines, and, at my own request, was sent to Okinawa, Japan, where I lived (mostly off-base) for three very formative years.

I studied "Cultural Anthropology of East Asia" in the Asian division of the University of Maryland with professors who were absolutely dedicated to their subject.

The word "culture" would later become a life's passion in the context of Japanese, East Asian, Slavic, and Proto-Indo-European (PIE) studies.

The word "Anthropology", in other words, means a "Behavioral Science" of humans.

temple

Tonight, I was writing a chapter for my new book, and I thought I would share it.

On Saturday mornings, I often found myself at a nearby Buddhist temple, Fukusen-ji 福泉寺, at dawn. The temple sat on a bluff overlooking the bay on the East side of Okinawa Island. The building sat slightly away from the coastal road, with a steep stairway leading up the bluff. 

Tamashii

Tamashii 魂 is usually translated as “soul,” but in Japanese practice it is less about an inner, metaphysical essence and more about a way of being present in action. When people speak of doing something “with tamashii,” they are not talking about emotion or passion alone. They are pointing to a form of moral and technical alignment, where intention, effort, and execution are inseparable.

In the context of doing things right, tamashii refers to the seriousness with which a task is taken, regardless of scale or audience. It is the refusal to treat any action as trivial. Whether polishing a floor, writing a line of code, forging a blade, or serving tea, the act is approached as complete in itself. Nothing is deferred to later. There is no shortcut justified by invisibility. The work carries the worker’s name, even if no one ever sees it.

This is why tamashii is often discussed alongside craft rather than belief. A sword with tamashii is not one imbued with mysticism, but one made without compromise. The smith did not rush cooling, did not accept a minor flaw, did not say “good enough.” Over time, this attitude becomes visible in the object. The result feels right, balanced, trustworthy. That feeling is not magic. It is accumulated care.

Tamashii also implies accountability beyond rules. Rules can be followed mechanically. Tamashii requires judgment. It asks, “Is this correct?” not “Is this permitted?” In Japanese workplaces and dojos, this distinction matters. Someone may technically meet requirements yet still be told their work lacks tamashii. What is missing is sincerity of effort, awareness of impact, or respect for the lineage of the task itself.

There is a quiet ethical dimension here. To act with tamashii is to acknowledge that actions shape the self. You are not only producing an outcome, you are becoming the kind of person who does things a certain way. Cutting corners is not just a practical decision, it is a formative one. Over time, habits harden. Tamashii resists that erosion by insisting on care even when tired, unseen, or under pressure.

In martial arts, this shows up as consistency rather than intensity. A strike done with tamashii is not the hardest strike, but the most correct one, aligned body, breath, timing, and intent. Power emerges as a byproduct of correctness. The same principle applies outside the dojo. When the process is right, results follow naturally. When the process is compromised, results become fragile.

Importantly, tamashii is not perfectionism. Perfectionism is anxious and self-referential. Tamashii is calm. It accepts human limitation but refuses indifference. Mistakes can happen, but care must be evident. The difference is felt immediately by others, especially those trained in the same discipline.

In modern contexts, tamashii often survives quietly. It appears in engineers who document systems for the next person, writers who revise for clarity rather than praise, parents who keep small promises, even when inconvenient. These acts are rarely celebrated, but they build trust. Over time, people learn who can be relied on. That reputation is not built on claims, but on repeated, unglamorous correctness.

So when tamashii is invoked in relation to doing things right, it is not a poetic flourish. It is a practical standard. Do the thing fully. Respect the work. Leave no residue of laziness or excuse. Let the quality of attention be visible in the result. That is tamashii in action, not as an abstract soul, but as a lived discipline.

Keizoku

Keizoku (継続) means continuity, or sustained effort over time.  It is not loud persistence or visible struggle, but quiet repetition that compounds almost unnoticed.  In Japanese practice, keizoku shows up in daily training, careful habits, and small actions done even when motivation fades.  Progress is trusted to time rather than force.  What matters is not intensity, but returning again and again, calmly, without drama.  This is how skill deepens, character settles, and change becomes permanent.

Ima

Attention placed fully on the present dissolves anxiety about outcomes.

This phrase reminds you to act clearly now, without borrowing stress from the future.

Ambition narrows awareness.

Presence widens it.  

Momotaro

 Easy to understand Japanese story.

Kamakura

 

shijū ichi 始 終 一

Literal meaning:

• 始 (shi), beginning
• 終 (jū), end
• 一 (ichi), one

Taken together, the phrase points to a single, unbroken continuity from beginning to end. The start and the finish are not separate. They are held within one line, one mind, one action.

This idea appears often in Zen and in martial traditions, even when the exact phrase varies. You may know the fuller expression 始終一貫 (shijū ikkan), meaning consistency from start to finish. Here, the calligrapher has stripped the idea down further, removing explanation and leaving only the spine of the thought.

In practice, this speaks directly to budō, kata, and daily discipline. A movement is already complete at its start. The bow, the first step, the final posture, all belong to the same act. There is no rushing toward the end and no attachment to the beginning.

Visually, the brushwork reinforces the message. The strokes are confident but not decorative. The spacing is generous, allowing each character to breathe. This is not meant to impress. It is meant to remind.

Placed in a tokonoma or dōjō, this scroll quietly instructs without words. Begin correctly. Continue without wavering. Finish as you began. All of it is one.

Kaya 蚊帳

"Disillusioned with this world,

I retreat my heart into a veil of net." 

Itō yo o noita kokoro zo kaya no naka

厭ふ世を退いた心ぞ蚊帳の中

Goshu, d. 1788

厭ふ（いとう, itō）
to loathe, to feel disillusioned with

世（よ, yo）
the world, society, human affairs

を（o）
object marker

退いた（のいた, noita）
to withdraw, to step back, to retreat

心（こころ, kokoro）
heart, mind, inner feeling

ぞ（zo）
classical emphatic particle

蚊帳（かや, kaya）
mosquito net

の（no）
possessive or locative particle

中（なか, naka）
inside, within

厭ふ

This is a classical verb in the 四段活用 (yodan conjugation). The dictionary form ends in -ふ rather than modern -う. In modern Japanese it corresponds to 厭う (いとう). Here it is in the attributive form, modifying 世. Classical Japanese often uses the attributive where modern Japanese would still use a plain form.




世を

世 is the object of 厭ふ. The particle を already functions exactly as in modern Japanese, marking the direct object.




退いた

This is the past (完了) form of 退く. In classical usage, 退く can mean “to withdraw oneself,” not necessarily a physical stepping back. The past form is used attributively to modify 心. In classical Japanese, past forms commonly act as adjectives, meaning “a heart that has withdrawn.”




心

The subject noun of the sentence. Classical Japanese frequently omits an explicit subject marker like が. The noun simply stands as the topic or subject.




ぞ

This is the key classical element. ぞ is a 強意の係助詞, an emphatic binding particle. When ぞ appears, it triggers 係り結び. That means the sentence must end in a predicative form that matches the emphatic particle.




蚊帳の中

This is the predicate phrase. の is the genitive particle, as in modern Japanese. 中 functions as a locative noun. Because of ぞ, the sentence ends in 中, a nominal form, rather than a verb or adjective. This satisfies 係り結び

In modern Japanese word order, the structure would feel like:

「世を厭い、退いた心は蚊帳の中だ。」

Yo o itoi, shirizoita kokoro wa kaya no nakada.

Hideki Wada

Because people die in the blink of an eye

あっという間に人は死ぬから

和田秀樹

 

jita kei 自他敬

 自他敬

jita kei

Literal meaning:

Self and others, respect.

Natural interpretation:

Respect yourself, and respect others.

This phrase is commonly used in Okinawan and Japanese martial arts contexts. It expresses an ethical foundation rather than a technique: cultivation of dignity, humility, and mutual respect.

Machida-sensei

 

 

soups

Many online videos warn about vegetables you should never eat, especially those rich in oxalates. The tone is dramatic. The reality is much more benign.

I grew up with Polish soups like barszcz (beet soup) and pomidorowa (tomato soup), and now I often cook Japanese bowls like miso shiru (味噌汁) or soba (蕎麦). My soups are based on broth, slow cooking, and simple balance. They do not fit the fear-based approach that thrives on the internet.

The research on oxalates has a solid foundation, but it does not condemn these foods. The risk mainly applies to people who already form kidney stones or who eat high-oxalate foods without enough minerals.

When vegetables like beets meet warm broth, the story changes. A good bone base carries calcium and magnesium. These bind oxalates in the gut, lower absorption, and make the meal gentle on the kidneys. Traditional cooking understood this long before anyone named the chemistry.

In Poland, soups start with bones, water, and herbs. In Japan, miso and soba are made with dashi (出汁), fermented and fresh plants, seaweed, and mushrooms. A bowl of warm broth does more for health than any YouTube warning list. It keeps fluid moving through the body, supports digestion, and brings minerals that soften the sharper vegetables.

So when I hear strict rules about what never to eat, I remind myself that a good soup supports a long life better than anxiety ever will.

07.b The Fifteen-Minute Interval Habits

More than twenty years ago, I wrote a short blog post on shaping habits in fifteen-minute intervals. Back then, I was aware of the Pomodoro technique. The idea was interesting, but it did not fit my philosophy. The rotary kitchen timer rang like an alarm. It broke concentration. It told me to get up and walk. It was a device designed to interrupt, not to deepen attention. It certainly did not feel like Zen (禅).

Years earlier, in 1996, while studying Buddhism (or bukkyō, 仏教) in Okinawa (沖縄), I had learned that Zen (禅) favors presence without force, attention that is steady rather than agitated, a practice that does not shout at you. I did not yet understand how to apply that to daily work, but the seed was planted.

Initially, the fifteenth minute was a quarter of the hour "bubble" in the time-tracking app I used. Even today, I time my TODO habits in "quarters".

This practice has stayed with me because it makes life manageable. Fifteen minutes is long enough to make real progress but short enough to begin without hesitation. It removes the weight of significant goals. It keeps the day from spiraling into worry about the future or regret about the past. Presence fits inside a quarter hour.

Only much later did I find a better companion for the fifteen-minute rhythm. It is a small, quiet hourglass that sits on my desk today. It measures fifteen minutes of sand, but more importantly, it measures my intention. It does not ring. It does not command. It simply flows. Sometimes I notice it. Sometimes I forget it completely, and it runs long past empty. That is the beauty of it. The hourglass never pulls me out of flow, or what Japanese thinkers might call mushin (無心), a mind not entangled. It is a witness, not a supervisor. A presence, not a device. 

When I flip it over, I begin with one thing. Reading, writing, studying, programming, sharpening my mental and physical tools. For fifteen minutes, I commit to staying inside that small frame. Nothing dramatic. No pressure to finish. The task simply receives full attention for that interval. If the sand runs out and I am still absorbed, I continue. If I feel scattered, I have it as a reminder. 

Returning to the hourglass restores clarity of mind and focus on the task. It becomes a physical expression of ichigyō zammai (一行三昧), the Japanese pattern of complete absorption in a single line, a single act. It also pairs naturally with the Stoic way of doing what is right in front of you, nothing more.

The fifteen-minute practice is still the most reliable way I know to build flow and steady habits. You turn the glass, begin, remain with the moment, and let the sand complete its journey. Then you choose again. Over time, these small intervals shape a life that feels grounded, attentive, and quietly productive.

Habits are shaped by practice, and practice is enforced by a system; this one stayed with me for 20 years. 

Shibui

 

03.c Aruki-kata (歩き方), The Quiet Art of Walking

When I visited my parents recently, I noticed how much time they spend sitting. They live in a clean, walkable neighbourhood with fresh air and nature around them, yet most of the day is spent in easy chairs passively watching TV. It is stillness, but not the kind that strengthens the body or exercises the mind. 

In Japan, the idea of movement is part of the system and habits. People walk to the train station, to the store, to school, and to visit friends. Even when the distance is not short, walking is the default. This habit begins early and continues into old age. There is no special meaning to it. It is just daily life. The Japanese call this natural way of walking aruki kata (歩き方), the manner of walking. The idea is simple: keep the body in motion whenever possible.

When I lived in Japan, I learned that the art of movement is different from that in the West, where we sit or move as little as possible, then go to the gym and stress the body. In Okinawa, movement was part of everything. People walked to the fields or along the coast. Elderly men and women walked slowly in the mornings, greeting neighbors. They did not schedule fitness. They simply lived in a way that kept them strong. Even today, when I read about Okinawan longevity, I am reminded that their long lives were shaped not only by intense training but also by everyday movement, sunlight, simple food, and community.

Walking has a cultural weight in Japan. The train system supports this lifestyle. You walk to the station, travel as far as you need, then walk the rest of the way. This creates a rhythm in which the body never falls into deep inactivity. The steps are small, but they accumulate. It is one of the reasons older Japanese adults maintain balance, coordination, and mental clarity far longer than people who rely on cars and long hours of sitting.

When I look at my parents, I can see how the lack of movement affects their posture, breathing, and overall cardiovascular strength. Passive sitting offers temporary comfort but slowly erodes the body. Without intentional motion, the body forgets what it is capable of. Even gentle daily walks would help. A ten-minute walk after breakfast, a quiet loop around the neighborhood at sunset. The body does not need intensity. It needs consistency.

In my own life, walking has become a form of active meditation. I wrote earlier about the monks of Mount Hiei, but the principle does not belong only to them. Steady steps, calm breathing, and a quiet mind can be practiced anywhere. The forest trails in the Pacific Northwest give me the same feeling I once had in Okinawa. Moss, rain, silence. A place where walking becomes time to think and rejuvenate.

If there is a lesson here, it is that longevity is less about supplements or perfect diets than about daily rhythm. Standing up. Moving. Using the legs, balancing. Breathing fresh air, watching sunrises and sunsets.

I hope my parents will rediscover this and form new habits. A short walk each day is not a significant change, but it can shift the entire atmosphere of a life. Strength returns slowly. Mood improves. The world feels larger than the space between a chair and a television. It is a gentle way to return to being part of the world instead of merely observing it.

Walking is the simplest practice I know. It requires no equipment, preparation, or instruction. Just a path and a few clear minutes. It is a good way to begin again.