Reading Notes: Quotes & Practices

In our unconscious, we hold the basic conviction that death, for us, is simply impossible.

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

I've started reviewing my end-of-life notes and asset list once a year, around my birthday.

We cannot look at the sun all the time, nor can we look at death all the time.

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

When a health check turns up a worrying number, I no longer rush to a conclusion — I make time for a slow pulse reading at the acupuncture clinic instead.

Why not me instead of that old man Jones …

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

On days I feel a low-grade irritation, I make a point of choosing something small I still control — this week's planting, tonight's dinner.

Acceptance is almost devoid of feeling. It is as if the pain had gone, the struggle is over, and there comes a time for "the final rest before the long journey," as one patient phrased it.

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Every autumn I deadhead the roses in my garden, quietly letting go of what has already bloomed.

The barbed wire imprisons the blooming flowers too — yet they open. So I too shall never simply die.

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Now that I notice memory and focus slipping, writing things down before I forget has become my own form of hope.

"At forty, I had no doubts; at fifty, I knew the will of heaven" is a well-known line from the Analects. I take it to mean this: recognising the task heaven has given you, and living the rest of your life through it, informed by everything you have already been through.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

I've started rereading ageing not as loss but as a turn to hand over what I've spent a lifetime building.

By your fifties, you want more than food reaching your stomach — you want to savour "rich time" alongside it.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

The time that light eating frees up now goes toward savouring the plate in front of me, not worrying about what's next.

The more carefully I think about what memory actually is, the more I conclude that it is a person's very identity.

60-sai kara no Jinsei wo Tanoshimu Gijutsu　Shoichi Watanabe

I've fallen into the habit of noting down small daily things, including keeping a record of the garden.

"I do not yet know life; how could I know death?"

60-sai kara no Jinsei wo Tanoshimu Gijutsu　Shoichi Watanabe

Rather than fear death, I try to spend what's left tasting life I haven't yet finished learning.

Language alone is what makes a human being human.

60-sai kara no Jinsei wo Tanoshimu Gijutsu　Shoichi Watanabe

I keep this blog in Japanese, a garden journal in English, and read the morning news aloud in both.

Learn in youth and you will accomplish something in your prime; learn in your prime and you will not decline in old age; learn in old age and you will not decay even in death.

60-sai kara no Jinsei wo Tanoshimu Gijutsu　Shoichi Watanabe

Keeping this record in two languages is my way of holding onto the container that is "myself" a little longer.

At first Freddie thought every leaf was shaped the same, but before long he noticed that no two leaves were exactly alike.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

I no longer feel alarmed when I don't age the way a friend my age does — no two leaves fall the same way.

"Life" is preparing new leaves in places you cannot see — in the soil, in the roots, inside the tree itself. Nature's design never misses a single detail as it keeps "life" changing, without end.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

I've stopped expecting replies, hoping the record itself can simply become a small light for someone.

How much fun that was. How happy that was.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

I've come to think the answer lies less in what was accomplished and more in how much happiness those days held.

Imperturbability means coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances, calmness amid storm, clearness of judgment in moments of grave peril.

Aequanimitas　William Osler

On the days the market drops, I close the screen and go out to the garden — one breath between the feeling and my face.

The load of to-morrow, added to that of yesterday, carried to-day makes the strongest falter.

Aequanimitas　William Osler

A small morning moxibustion has become the signal that today's door is open, keeping yesterday and tomorrow out.

"Character," which partakes of both, in Plutarch's words, is "long-standing habit."

Aequanimitas　William Osler

The asparagus bed, which yields nothing for two years before rewarding a third, has become my picture of long-standing habit.

A liberal education may be had at a very slight cost of time and money.

Aequanimitas　William Osler

I leave a tab on the open page and start the next morning from it, letting the blog carry what memory can't.

The facts speak only when the historian calls on them.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

I now write three lines before bed about the day, so they earn the right to be called on later.

History is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

I've set aside one day a month to reread my own old records and see how their meaning has shifted.

For the historian, the only absolute is change.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

I log a stiff grip as just that day's reading and hold off judgement until I can see several months together.

History is progress through the transmission of acquired skills from one generation to another.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

I keep writing here so that even as memory fades, what's written down can still be passed on.

And yet — it moves.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

I try to keep tending a body and a life that keep moving, staying in dialogue rather than issuing a fixed verdict.

There is more tough, resilient will inside happiness than people tend to think.

On Happiness　Alain

On mornings my joints feel stiff, I put the kettle on and apply a small moxa cone rather than blaming my mood.

Every jug has two handles. In the same way, every event has two points of view.

On Happiness　Alain

I've started choosing which "handle" to hold on a given day, rather than gripping the painful one out of habit.

A bruised apple. It ends up tasting better than an unblemished one.

The Power of a 90-Year-Old　Shigehiko Toyama

I try to treat the unsteadiness of letting go of a title as pressure that draws something new out, not just a bad feeling.

Crying, laughing — it stands to reason these are effective ways of releasing stress.

The Power of a 90-Year-Old　Shigehiko Toyama

I let feelings out in the garden rather than tidying them away, watching the asparagus grow without rushing the result.

Most people go through life without ever thinking deeply about that.

The Power of a 90-Year-Old　Shigehiko Toyama

Keeping this blog has become another mirror for me, one that doesn't need a reply to be worth keeping.

When you're at a crossroads in life, and at exactly the right moment you pick up exactly the right book and find exactly the right answer, do you really think that's a coincidence?

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

Keeping a record of what I read here has come to feel like a way of continuing to edit my own life.

Save your time and deposit it in the time-savings bank, and interest will earn interest, giving you many times more time than you'd otherwise have — the temptation of the grey men.

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

I now keep the time I spend tending roses deliberately separate from efficiency, refusing to hand it to the grey men.

The current financial system is something people built barely a few hundred years ago, so once we recognise its limits and irrationalities, it can be changed.

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

I think of the "thousand-year moxa" — accumulating small stimuli over a long stretch of time, the way compound interest never does.

"You must never think of the whole street at once … only of the next step, the next breath, the next sweep of the broom."

Momo　Michael Ende

I now limit my morning list to three items and sit down to write just one section at a time.

"You must wait as a seed waits in the earth, through one whole turn of the earth around the sun."

Momo　Michael Ende

I think of the asparagus that takes three years to harvest, and try to keep going through the years nothing shows.

"Surely this was the flower of all flowers, a miracle without equal!" "And yet this flower too passed its prime, scattered, and sank into the dark water …"

Momo　Michael Ende

I try to remember that no day comes twice, the way no flower at the source of time blooms the same way twice.

"We have calendars and clocks to measure time, but that means little … because time is life itself."

Momo　Michael Ende

I use a small moxa cone and let its warmth, not the clock, tell me when three minutes are up.

katami tote / nani nokosuramu / haru wa hana / natsu hototogisu / aki wa momijiba (What shall I leave behind? Blossoms in spring, the cuckoo in summer, crimson leaves in autumn.)

In the Autumn of Life　Hermann Heuvers

I write down the seedlings I killed and the investment calls I got wrong, not only the things that went well, in my growing diary.

On a haiku by Nozawa Bonchō, describing a single dark river cutting through an otherwise unbroken field of snow

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

I try to take a moment, deliberately, to notice the invisible things I usually take for granted: that I woke up breathing, that my heart is beating.

On a haiku by Ozaki Hōsai, describing a moment of receiving something with two bare hands, no vessel at all

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

On my morning walk, when I notice a flower or exchange a small greeting with a neighbour, I try to simply receive it, without analysing it first.

On a haiku by Kubota Mantarō, describing a quiet late-life evening spent alone before a pot of simmering tofu

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

I've tried to sit with the dim light of ageing rather than dismiss it, holding the irritation and a small light at the same time.

On a haiku by Murakami Kijō, describing lying down in freshly changed bedding while listening to spring rain

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

I try not to let a day slip past in a blur, but to receive each day fresh, like clean bedding.

On the death poem of Sōma Senshi, a physician-poet who, at 68 and nearing the end of his own life, imagined becoming a single speck of light dust filling a mild winter sky

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

When I catch myself irritated by joint pain or waking several times in the night, I try to step back and think, this belongs to the soil part of me.

People who drink miso soup three or more times a day have a forty percent lower rate of breast cancer than those who drink it once a day or less.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

When something is billed as "good for you," I now ask myself first whether people have actually eaten it for decades.

"The ordinary meal" is the food shaped, over long years, by the rich natural climate and terrain of Japan — its fūdo.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

I grill the courgettes from my garden with nothing but salt and olive oil — my own version of light eating.

Elderly people there get far more physical activity from farm work than from sport. However old they are, they seem to be in good health, out working the rice paddies and fields.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

A gym habit never stuck, but tending courgettes and herbs in the garden gets me moving every morning.

Fermentation is the work of giving life.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

I've come to see this morning's miso soup as sustained by the borrowed work of microorganisms I never see.

Growing vegetables suits exactly the generation that has worked hard to survive this far.

Jissen: Gojissai kara no Shoshoku Chōjuhō　Hideo Makiuchi

I grow vegetables in my own garden, savouring a "memory on the tongue" shop-bought produce never quite has.

Sickness is an impediment to the body, but not to the will... Whenever anything befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and ask what power you have to deal with it.

60-sai kara no Jinsei wo Tanoshimu Gijutsu　Shoichi Watanabe

On a morning my knee aches, I try to stop at "the knee is out of order" and not let the thought spiral further.

The thinning of that region of the brain that comes with age may be slowed by forty minutes of quiet meditation a day.

60-sai kara no Jinsei wo Tanoshimu Gijutsu　Shoichi Watanabe

I walk the rose beds slowly in the morning, letting my mind settle into something close to walking Zen.

They also learned it was best to stay still during sunbathing.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

I now make a point of sitting for ten or fifteen minutes some mornings doing nothing but receiving the light.

Rather like a car on a road full of traffic lights — never quite able to pick up speed.

The Power of a 90-Year-Old　Shigehiko Toyama

I've come to see a minor cold as the body's own signal, close to the Eastern-medicine idea of catching imbalance early.

Don't forget I have another son.

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

I've come to see saving for retirement as its own kind of bargain, and now sort insurance and paperwork quietly instead of hoarding the worry.

The world is always changing. Nothing stays the same. ... Dying is just one of the changes.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

On days the market falls hard, I try to recall this line and give myself one breath before acting.

Belief in progress means belief not in any automatic or inevitable process, but in the progressive development of human potentialities.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

I now record what living has actually cost and estimate the year ahead from that, rather than chasing a number set from outside.

Happiness is, in essence, a kind of poetry, and poetry means action. People rarely care much for happiness that simply falls into their lap. What they want is happiness they've made themselves.

On Happiness　Alain

I keep my own monthly investment records and tend the roses by hand, finding more satisfaction in the process than in the balance.

Someone who doesn't walk a path — the ground behind them, once they've walked it, becomes the path.

The Power of a 90-Year-Old　Shigehiko Toyama

Rather than worrying over the numbers, I focus on shrinking the worry itself, letting the path form as I walk it.

The point is that money is a thing that always forces growth.

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

Before an investment decision, I now pause to ask whether the growth is actually needed, or has become the goal itself.

You were the first to notice that the idea of aging money lies behind my book "Momo."

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

I've come to see money as something that can age, echoing Japan's own sense of impermanence.

Have you ever actually picked up a banknote and looked at what's written on it? … If there's nothing written on it, then it's up to you to write in the vision.

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

I've started holding my money worry as a question of what meaning I want money to carry, not just a number.

"Timesaving is the road to happiness!" "Save time — for a richer life!"

Momo　Michael Ende

I check investment prices only once a quarter now, moving the goal from growing the total to reducing the worry.

On a haiku by Matsuo Bashō, describing a weary traveller borrowing a night's lodging beneath a wisteria in bloom

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

I keep managing my actual finances calmly and practically, but I try to let my heart take on only today's portion, without borrowing tomorrow's worry in advance.

One should never tell a patient not to be sad.

On Death and Dying　Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

I've come to think that simply sitting beside someone's sadness helps more than trying to cheer them up.

"Freddie, that's a leaf's job too."

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

I hand spare rose cuttings to neighbours and write about life here for English-speaking readers — small jobs, like sending a breeze.

"Goodbye, Freddie." Daniel wore a look of quiet satisfaction and drifted away, slowly and calmly.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages　Leo Buscaglia

When I hear of someone's passing, I now find myself wondering whether it carried that same quiet satisfaction.

Happiness lies in the absorption in some vocation which satisfies the soul.

Aequanimitas　William Osler

Spare seedlings go to the neighbours, and small things seen on my travels get written up for readers far away.

One of the first essentials in securing a good-natured equanimity is not to expect too much of the people amongst whom you dwell.

Aequanimitas　William Osler

Lowering my expectations of the people around me has come to feel like seeing them at their actual size.

The individual apart from society would be both speechless and mindless.

What Is History?　E. H. Carr

Noticing how much of my own thinking is really a recombination of things I received has become a quiet relief.

A true musician is someone who enjoys music; a true statesman is someone who enjoys politics. Pleasure is the mark of capability.

On Happiness　Alain

Writing this blog in both languages, bridging a little of each country to the other, feels like Alain's idea of action itself.

Happiness, I think, always presupposes some anxiety, some passion — a point of pain, so to speak, that wakes us up to ourselves.

On Happiness　Alain

I deliberately keep a few small deadlines in my life, since being asked for nothing is what leaves me feeling flattest.

Economic life is, by its very nature, something built on social solidarity.

Ende's Legacy: Questioning Money at Its Root　Michael Ende

I notice how neighbours trade surplus vegetables for nothing, a kind of solidarity no spreadsheet ever shows.

"What little Momo could do, and nothing more, was listen to other people. … But people who can truly listen are rare."

Momo　Michael Ende

I've started listening to my wife all the way to the end before offering a solution, and staying quiet after.

"If people knew what death is, they would no longer be afraid of it."

Momo　Michael Ende

I try to listen to people all the way to the end, one small way of not taking their time from them.

On a haiku by Taneda Santōka, describing himself surrendering to the very centre of an overflowing hot spring

From East to West: The Heart of Haiku, the Light of Scripture　Hiromu Murai

Before I see someone difficult, I try to remind myself silently: the same rain and sun fall on them as on me.