The Base of Community Welfare
The Secret behind the Chiiki no Chanoma (1)
At the Chiiki no Chanoma which Ms. Kawada runs, the people who gather there are full of energy and cheer. As compared with this Living Room, at the nursing home I go to, they let us do karaoke, TV exercises and play games from time to time. However, there I feel like I am treated like a child and thus cannot enjoy the activities, and cannot be enthusiastic as I am expected to be by the institution. In the Living Room of Ms. Kawada I do not see such activities as karaoke, exercise and games. Why then are the people stimulated and their abilities naturally drawn out, and why are they full of vim and vigor? I presume that there are certain ways or means to draw out each person’s natural spontaneity and capability through interactions among the persons in the Living Room. Ms. Kawada always says that anybody can create a Chiiki no Chanoma. True enough, it has quickly spread in the prefecture and throughout the entire Japan. It seems that Ms. Kawada thinks that the time has come to share the secret behind the Chiiki no Chanoma. Now she is planning to open a Living Room School to show others how to create a Chiiki no Chanoma the way she did. I shall also be involved in this Living Room School and I am so excited to have this opportunity to learn a lot from Ms. Kawada.
Secret behind the Chiiki no Chanoma (2)
I think that the secret behind why the people at Ms. Kawada’s Living Room quickly becomes exuberant might be found in the amount of time spent and the interaction done in the Living Room. I found a passage that might prove my perception correct. It is written in “The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living” by Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. His Holiness the Dalai Lama mentions in this book that it is the interaction with other people that becomes the Field of Merit, and that, through close relationships with one another, people become empowered to live their lives with fulfillment; and through what a person shares, he gives others the power to live joyfully. I think this is the passage that explains the secret behind the Chiiki no Chanoma and the term “human bath” that came to my mind while actually feeling it during my first visit to the Chiiki no Chanoma.
