Zen Calendar 2023

You’re absolutely right. My wife calls it ‘bonsai culture’, Japanese people ‘love’ nature, but only when it is rigidly controlled and presented in certain forms. Meanwhile, the dolphin hunts continue, animal experimentation for cosmetics is still the norm, Japanese zoos are the saddest places on earth, etc etc

However, on the other hand, it has to be said, that Japan is the only country in the world where natural forest cover is actually growing! Thanks to population decline and the abandonment of villages! So not all bad!

And I love your generous way of looking at today’s proverb, which demonstrates your own large and generous heart.

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That’s probably a good way to put it. :thinking:

心は大きく豊かに

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ooooooh that’s lovely :laughing: I might steal that one at some point!

I re-read a few articles that were tangentially related to this, but i’ll have to check some more tomorrow. I don’t feel I have a real picture of how their ideas relate to our ‘bonsai culture’ yet. There’s some assumptions I made back when I first read these, which was before I started to learn japanese/study japanese history, that I don’t think were wrong per se, but could definitely use another closer pass now that I have a lot more context to work with.

I’m having a hard time exactly putting words to it, but thinking about these proverbs has definitely given me a lot to chew on. Definitely counts as not forgetting to do my 反省, though :laughing:

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Monday, January the 30th:

感謝の心を持つ

感謝持つ

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I was starting to wonder whether proverbs ever contained verbs. I’m quite grateful that this one has one.

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Perhaps ‘proverb’ is the wrong word? What else could we call these? (My English is getting worse and worse!)

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perhaps ‘aphorisms’ or ‘adages’ ? I think proverb probably works well enough, though

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Nice! Thank you! Perhaps I ought to fix the opening post! Thank you @javerend !

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Another option might be “sayings”.

But I can see why you are reconsidering the term “proverb”. With the general lack of verbs in some of these, they’re more like “anti-verbs”.

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I’ve added a note to the second post! Thank you!

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Hah, me too. Been wondering if there’s a verb shortage in Japan, so they need to conserve them for when it really counts.

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My attempt:

感謝の心を持つ
Have a grateful heart

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Tuesday, January the 31st:

最後まで努力を

最後まで努力

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Put all your effort in until the end

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What do you mean I've been reading too many murder mysteries lately?

Edit:

For Detective Conan fans

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Or maybe the meaning could also be

Don’t give up!

:thinking:

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竹馬の友また会おうよ

竹馬の友また会おう

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Wednesday, February the 1st:

すべてに根気よく

すべてに根気よく

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Persevere through everything

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Hmm, I prefer the patience meaning on this one.

We already had 最後まで努力を, after all.

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