Tokyo Mindfulness Newsletter #21
Starting the new year with a calm mind and open heart
Hey it’s Misha from Tokyo Mindfulness. Happy New Year!
I hope you had a nice chance to reset during the holidays. If you didn’t, that’s okay, because there will be plenty of opportunities to re-center with events and retreats this year :)
I spent some time with my mom who came to visit from the U.S. As the saying goes, “if you think you are enlightened, just go spend a weekend with your family.” There were disagreements — and we also had a fun time and some beautiful conversations.
We are just getting back from a family ski trip from up north in Niigata. There was plenty of snow and it’s only three hours from Tokyo. I recommend Joetsu Ski Resort where we stayed.
Check out our latest event info and resources below! 👇
🌴🧘♀️ What to expect this year
Online events: Experimenting with biweekly 90 minute sessions for those who can’t make it out to our in-person sessions
Themed meditations: Specific themes like “listening without judgment” coming up this month
Weekend retreats: Many of you seem to enjoy the weekend retreats outside of Tokyo, so expect to see more of that! (Yamanashi, Nikko, etc.)
Okinawa retreat: April we are planning a retreat on the beautiful island of Ishigaki with yoga and meditation (max 8 people). Ping me if you want to get on the list!
Partnerships: There are lots of cool events around Tokyo aligned with our values and we’ll aim to promote more of these. For example the Ecstatic Dance meetup happening every month which I attended and had a blast dancing my socks off. (one coming up this Friday the 10th!)
📅 Upcoming Events
I’m working on a book right now (“The Three Truths”) so January will be a slow start, with just a handful of events. February we will pick back up with a more regular schedule, including retreats and eye gazing.
Friday Jan 10th, 230pm-430pm @ Brighton Studio Daikanyama: Daytime Meditation: Opening 2025 With a Heart That is Ready for Anything 🌟
Thursday Jan 16th, 2pm-4pm @ Brighton Studio Daikanyama: Daytime Meditation: "Listening Without Judgment" (Meditation + Tea)
Thursday Jan 30th, 7pm-9pm, @ Brighton Studio Daikanyama: Evening Meditation: Mindfulness of Breath w/ Marco (Sharing + Tea!)
BTW we have some limited Tokyo Mindfulness swag — blue bracelets which can serve as reminder to pause and become aware of what’s happening right now. I will give these away over the next few events!
📚 What I read recently
Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World
I’ve been into Marshall Rosenberg recently, the founder of Nonviolent Communication. Even if you have been meditating for years, this doesn’t mean you have the tools to communicate in a peaceful and effective way — this is a skill to be learned. What I love about this book is that he really draws on a lot of spiritual wisdom and offers specific techniques to communicate with anyone in a non-reactive way, even in the most heated situations. This book is a good place to start!
👀 Videos I watched recently
Continuing with the theme of non-violent communication, here is a short YouTube video I dug up from Rosenberg on resolving conflict. The key is connecting at a heart-to-heart level, aka, connecting at the level of needs.
🎧 Podcasts I binged
The best podcast I have listened to in a long time, which follows the incredible story of non-verbal autistic individuals with telepathic and psy abilities. Topped the charts, surpassing Joe Rogan for a bit. People are ready for this. Well worth the listen and it will dispel any skepticism you have.1
🍎 Nutritional testing in Tokyo
I have been working on balancing out iron and zinc deficiencies in my diet. As part of the process to get to the root cause, I am testing for allergens like gluten, dairy sensitivity, and heavy metal toxicity. Resources are hard to find but here are two that provide comprehensive testing (in Japanese) that are shipped to your house.
Allergen testing : Ambrosia testing kits that test for hundreds of allergies: https://www.ambrosia-kk.com/. Typically blood tests.
Heavy metal toxicity: Testing for mercury, arsenic, etc. (hair test):
🏠 Latest LinkedIn post
Extracting Buddhist wisdom from painful encounters with Japanese doorways. Check out my post here. (If you have attended a retreat you’ve probably heard me tell this story)
✍️ What I wrote recently
What is required to live life without an agenda is holding space for what’s alive in the moment and responding skillfully. Love flows when it’s free of control and expectation. It doesn’t seek to arrive; it simply moves with life.
🗣️ Recent testimonials for Tokyo Mindfulness
A testimonial from Sarah who attended our retreat in Yamanashi:
…"The meditations were guided in a way that beginners to those who have practiced for a while all would be able to benefit. While there is a specific theme, the range is broad, and I appreciated Misha's ability to make it all seem simple, while paying attention to the subtleties.
The retreat was a great opportunity to be in community while honoring my own space. I felt a sense of deeper connection within and with oneness, an appreciation of the Japanese elements built in, and more clarity and empowerment to continue my journey.
For English-speakers in Tokyo area or those visiting/working and passing through looking for practices and support to build or deepen your meditation practice or try something to support your wellbeing, I'd recommend checking out Tokyo Mindfulness.”
📜 Poems that struck a chord
When you see water
When you see water in a stream you say: oh, this is stream water; When you see water in the river you say: oh, this is water of the river; When you see ocean water you say: This is the ocean’s water! But actually water is always only itself and does not belong to any of these containers though it creates them. And so it is with you.
By: Alice Walker
Get Off the Treadmill — Make 2025 Your Year of Transformation
👉 Unstuck. Aligned. Empowered. We spend a lot of time stuck in habit-patterns of daily activities that aren’t contributing to our personal growth or happiness. We are aware of this but don’t know how to get off the treadmill.
This year, make the shift you’ve been longing for. I offer 1-1 coaching to help you get unstuck, deepen your presence, and find alignment on your spiritual or healing journey. My approach blends Western and Buddhist psychology, rooted in self-compassion and self-awareness.
Ready to begin? Drop me a message and let’s chat.
Thanks for reading and see you at the next event! ❤️ 🙏
With metta,
Misha
Just riffing on this podcast a bit: This is not an original viewpoint and many people believe this, but my current view on consciousness which is reflected in this podcast: I see the self as a useful, constructed illusion created by evolution for our survival — to protect our bodies etc. I see consciousness as an ever-present, foundational field in the universe that is boundless and timeless. Our minds and sense organs are very much like receptors, embodying this consciousness, allowing us to be aware.
The more we dissolve that constructed sense of self, the more likely we gain access to that universal consciousness that is non local and ever present. This to me explains a lot, like NDE experiences where people can see the entire operating room or know things they couldn’t possibly know; it explains the telepathy discussed in this podcast; it explains the synchronicity and the hunches; and also why the more “spiritual” you get, that is, dissolving self, the more likely these things start happening to you.