The last few days of this week had me doing some more reflective tasks, with Zen training on Friday and a walk through Roppongi on Saturday. Growing up, meditation and mindfulness were a huge part of my life, acting as a way to combat performance anxiety at high-level sport, but in recent years I’ve fallen out of practice.
These experiences gave me a great way to reconnect with these habits, and provided insight into the Japanese way of life and importance of the clarity of thoughts. It was also a great way to close out our first week and do some reflection on our experiences of the past week.
Zen training #
Friday morning, we headed out to Kita-Kamakura (the old capital of Japan) to participate in 3 guided Zen training sessions with a Buddhist monk at the Engaku-Ji temple. These sessions required us to sit cross-legged, straight-backed, and to focus on clearing our mind for 10-15 minutes at a time, over 3 sessions.
I found emptying my mind to be extremely difficult, in part as I kept being distracted by back pain while trying to maintain good posture… All in all, I left the session feeling refreshed and lighter. Strolling through the temple gardens was a nice way to reconnect with reality.
Modern Art Museum & Roppongi #
On Saturday I visited an antique golf store (The Divot) in a suburb called Sendagaya. From here I decided to walk through to Roppongi and use it as a chance to reflect on the week that has been. Over the last week, I’ve observed that people living in Tokyo have a way of staying calm in such a crazy place, and there’s never a sense of panic even when it seems chaotic (like getting pushed into trains in rush hour).
I think that the urban design of Tokyo is designed to promote calmness and reflection wherever possible, with galleries and museums containing open & inviting architecture and birdsongs being played in underground subway stations (link), and an abundance of parks, temples, and shrines. This lifestyle feels different from what we have in Perth. In Tokyo, it feels important to be able to find zen in the chaos, while Perth is often referred to as sleepy or slow, which is a different circumstance.
Applications in Cyber #
Cyber security is a super rapidly evolving industry, with new data breaches, exploits, and technologies discovered every week. The amount of information we need to divulge in order to stay up to date in our industry can be disorientating and overwhelming.
If we paid more attention to mindfulness & meditation, it could increase our focus on divulging this information and reduce the stress associated with being part of a swiftly-changing ecosystem.
With any job, the key is always prioritisation, “what’s most important and when do I need to deal with it”. When tasks increase to a point that can be seen as unmanageable, I’ve found that it can be advantageous to apply breathwork covered in our Zen training and do a reset!