In WabiSabi, Nobuo Suzuki explains the two main reasons he owned things before giving up a consumerist lifestyle and adopting a zen way of life.

 

“If I have newer and better stuff, everything will be better. If I have all this, others will value me more.”

 

When Suzuki realised that he was thinking this way, and that neither statement was true, he decided to throw away most of his possessions and live a much simpler life.

 

We don’t have to do the same, but we can recognise his feelings. We all know that neither statement is true, and we all know that we have these feelings, those same emotions, gnawing at our stomachs if not written out as clearly as he did.

 

Today, if you do any shopping, try to bring some real zen mindfulness to the purchase. Ask yourself deeply if it is something that you will use, something you will need, something that will add to your existence.

 

This doesn’t have to take joy from shopping. The opposite can be true. You can do what we are supposed to do in shops, and reject 99.9999999% (recurring) of all the items, as they won’t change our lives. We can buy the things that sustain us and give us real joy.

 

We don’t need to aim for 100% success at this. Just pausing as we search is enough. Just recognising that we are buying, acknowledging what we are doing, and asking the right question is the improvement we are looking for.

 

We are looking to be “in the moment” of shopping: that does not mean being lost in the reverie of lights, advertising and promotions. It means knowing what we are doing, while we are doing it.