Tags：Medical and HealthChubu

On November 23rd, a symposium “What in the future is worth living – find a way of life that is kind to yourself and others,” was held at the MOA Museum of Art Noh Theater, and about 500 young people, students, and their parents crowded into the venue. More than 2,000 people gathered at the live broadcast at 74 locations all over Japan.

 

You can watch the details of the symposium in the archive video (the video is here).

 

 

This symposium is held in the hope that young people will face themselves, find what they want to do and what they need to do, and realize a future that is worth living in, in an era of chaos caused by the corona crisis, wars, and natural disasters. Dr. Yasuchika Kawano, a psychiatrist who is also the chief priest of Rinkoji Temple of the Kenchoji school of the Rinzai sect, was in charge of the progress, and two people, public health nurse Keiko Suzuki and graduate student Mayu Nakajima, made presentations.

 

Ms. Suzuki talked candidly about her time and worries when she was in elementary school, as well as her dissatisfaction and frustration with her university life as a nurse, and the stress at the nursing site. Ms. Nakajima talked about her past when she thought it was “not good” to put her own convenience first and acted on it when she was in high school, but she still couldn’t change her actions and ended up feeling self-loathing.

 

 

As an opportunity to overcome their worries and struggles, they introduced encounters with communities where friends of the same generation gather, and the existence of “gratitude notes” to write down good events and share them with friends. Ms. Suzuki said that she is now re-employed as a public health nurse, and that she feels the joy and reward of working in preventive medicine that she has longed for. Ms. Nakajima began to be able to look at the good points of others, and even at her part-time job, she was able to interact with people around her based on gratitude, revealing the feeling of the other person’s words and actions changing.

 

Dr. Kawano explained how the two presenters changed positively from a state of worries and suffering based on psychological terminology and Buddhist teachings. He said that, in line with the subtitle, “How to live kind to yourself and others,” by valuing gratitude for everyday life while facing and acknowledging themselves, both speakers have become able to be close to others with altruism, and the joy of others have led to their own joy. At the end of the session, participants and live streamers were invited to practice mindfulness meditation to strengthen their gratitude to those who have been indebted to them in the past, those who are indebted to them now, and themselves.

 

 

One of the participants who attended the Noh Theater in person commented, “I wanted to be the same in the presentation, where I overcame my worries and sufferings and became able to show gratitude and kindness to others. As a way of acknowledging myself, I learned about the “51 percent rule” to praise myself for my hard work, and the “self-compassion” that Dr. Kawano taught me,” and “I found the “gratitude notes” very interesting. By not only thinking in my heart, but also moving to concrete actions such as writing, my way of thinking will change. I heard that sharing them with my loved ones will give me the strength to continue, and I can discover points of gratitude that I didn’t realize on my own, thus I want to talk to my friends and work with them.”