Long hours, long days that run into night. Years spent sweeping father’s sawdust from workshop floors.One year passes, five years, ten…Now you are ready to begin your life as Shokunin. Humility is a result of this process. So is unbending pride in an impossibly difficult job well done. Shokunin. Your father did this work and his father before him back 300 years. perhaps in this same valley, beside this same river in Kyoto where it all began.
Or perhaps Shokunin, you start today, seeking a teacher in a world that no longer has a place for such arduous endeavors. Shokunin, how do you keep this going?How do you keep the deep connection with wood, or bamboo, or clay alive? Shokunin, how do you fulfill the dreams of your neighbors and pursue the demands of the rest of the modern world? Shokunin, please take us to the quieter world where we can work again with only our hearts and our hands.
