My family and I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and did the morning routine of new year’s morning. We went for a walk and sent a good prayer for our new year. After my husband left for work, I did a 40-minute Yoga Nidra mediation, followed by my morning routine of a jogging on the treadmill and a dry heating session in the home sauna. I was ready to welcome an upcoming new year with the refreshed body, mind, and spirit.
This year started with a female rain. The rain continued all day long. It was a cleansing process to the Mother Earth after our 2-years hectic pandemic terms. Hopefully things of this year will get much better than the previous two years.
The year 2023 is 癸卯. 癸 is the last turn meaning one cycle ends and moves to a new cycle. 卯 is a rabbit. As a rabbit represents, it means “prosperous.”
In the evening at 5 p.m., I attended the online Reiki gathering. There were more people than usual and we had 53 attendees. the gathering started with a 108-Joya-no-kane meditation. The teacher explained about 除夜の鐘 as the temple’s bells of New Year’s Eve. It is the Buddhism teaching and now has become one of the Japanese traditional events at the end of the year. In the Buddhism teaching, humans have created lots of impurities in the daily life. Ringing the bell for 108 times is to bring up the impurifications and purify them, so that we can welcome a new year with a purified body. We ring the bell 107 times during the previous year and the last one, the 108th bell, is rung at the right after the new year has begun. The impurifications are called Bon-nou 煩悩. There are three foundations of Bon-nou; (1) being greedy and craving for a certain food, (2) anger, and (3) ignorance for nor being awaken spiritually.
three wisdom 