Practice Gratitude With Japanese Naikan

Japanese Naikan is the process of self reflection. It was originally created by a Yoshimoto Ishin, a businessman and Buddhist practitioner of the Jodo Shinshu sect in Japan. He lived from 1916-1988.

Translated from Japanese, Naikan means “inside looking”. The core practice of Naikan is to ask yourself three questions, while contemplating your interdependence with the world around you. The questions can be anything related to family, friends, pets, work, things, our higher self, etc.

1. Question 1: “What have I received from … ?
2. Question 2: “What have I given to … ?
3. Question 3: “What troubles and difficulties have I caused … ?

To practice Naikan take some time at the end of your day and spend 20 minutes or so reflecting on your day while you ask yourself the three questions.

Create a radical shift in your perspective with Naikan

The practice of Naikan will help you to create a radical shift in your belief system and further your practice of gratitude.

The first question will help you to reflect on the gifts you receive every day from people, pets and the universe. Question two will enable you to practice gratitude for those gifts, however small they are. This question also helps us to remember that we shouldn’t take gifts as granted. Instead we should stop and pay forward, wherever we can.

Question three reminds us that we should not dwell on the misfortunes we experience but rather seek to find solutions on those we have helped to cause for others. Naikan’s founder Ishin recommends we spend some 60% of our Naikan practice with the third question.

It will make us more humble and appreciative of other people. Naikan is a bit like a Zen approach to paying forward and practice an attitude of gratitude.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Everyday Gratefulness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.