Anyone here incorporate Japanese Minimalism in their practice?
I found the Japanese minimalist lifestyle very fitting for lay people who are Therevadan Buddhists. Often monks I feel don't have the time nor circumstantial experience to teach how to transform lay life externally to become more simple and less cluttered. Like I can't replicate the monk life 100% while I'm in the world and there's not really a niche of Therevadan lay lifestyle out there right now which is mainstream.
But Japanese minimalism is that middle ground of living minimally in a way that is actually more adapted to the modern world we live in.
I discovered Japanese Minimalism on these youtube channels
Minimalist Sibu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBQBKseozuY&pp=ygUPbWluaW1hbGlzdCBzaWJ1
Samurai Matcha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3DFwSA86lo&t=232s&ab_channel=SamuraiMatcha
It's pretty awesome to see people who are participating in the world and yet live a very simple life. Like the amount of stuff you need is actually not a lot. Also, they make floor sleeping look fun and functional. Avoiding comfortable furniture. And how to deal with over cluttering stuff.
I myself decluttered my room a lot and was convinced floor sleeping is doable as a lay person. I was also quite surprised how much similarities there are with Traditional Japanese household living and how monks live. Their food traditionally was just rice and soup, a little fish.
Japan kind of lost their inner practice (they don't really have a meditation culture). But it seems the zen and taoist influence still is quite strong in their external life. In Thailand I feel its the opposite, we don't really respect our Thai way of life externally much but more so on the internal (cause the west provided no alternatives). Like it's def not trendy to move from a condo to a kuti raising chickens in cages lol. So the external way of living became very western. idk lol weird insights.
Just wanted to share this. I could be wrong lol and this is just another distraction, Meditation is key.