Television replayed The Last Samurai and you don't know which time it was. Each time a different contemplation. This time, you pay more attention to the scene where Captain Nathan Algren practices sword fights and loses continuously. Witnessing that scene, Nobutada Katsumoto, son of the Samurai leader, gave a short advice: "Too many minds" (Too many minds). Because thinking about the sword, thinking about the opponent, thinking about the eyes around... Algren lost because he was too "noisy".
You think more about that advice and see that it is not only for Algren but seems to be talking about ourselves in the modern rhythm of life.
Try to observe morning cafes, how many people are actually enjoying the bitter taste of coffee? Or most just sip, thinking about the upcoming work time, about a 9-minute meeting, and annoyed by a status on social media... Our minds are like a computer opening too many tabs at once. And then, the stories we talk to each other are also things that create noise, but superficial. Sometimes the feeling is that everything is known, everything can be said, but in the end it has no value to me.
Life is inherently not as complicated as we imagine. Because a skilled carpenter only needs to pay attention to wood chisels and fibers, a mother only needs to focus on cooking dishes with love, a football player ignores the eyes around is enough to immerse themselves in their inherent skills and thinking... When you reduce the thoughts about the result, reduce the worry of how others evaluate you, you suddenly find everything goes strangely smoothly.
The silence of the mind is not understood from the perspective of the emptiness of laziness, but is the concentration of a person who has understood themselves. Isn't the lake calm, isn't it when it is full of ripples because of too much "wind", that you can see the full moon? Sometimes, to go further in work or to find joy in ordinary things, what we need is not to learn new skills, but to turn off unnecessary tabs in our heads.
Living simply, perhaps starting from reducing a little "thinking". Like a spiritual purification, to feel life more quietly. In an era where AI is learning to think like humans, humans themselves also need to learn how to let their mind rest like a natural entity.
