As we approach the end of the year, it’s a good time to follow the Japanese tradition of inclining our awareness towards new beginnings, and this time, Kendo suggests taking a particularly meditative perspective.

In seated Zen meditation, Zazen, we let everything fall away – body, mind, everything – so that all that remains is an eternal, timeless peace. Whilst exquisite in itself, this process has the effect of breaking un-necessary connections to potentially negative energies, and consequently opening the vision to new possibilities, which may otherwise have been obscured by unproductive (and actually unnecessary) worries.

Such persisting connections to worry are very real examples of attachment, which Buddhism encourages us to let go of: let go of attachment, and you let go of suffering. It’s more subtle than these words convey, though – even having an enduring opinion about ourselves or our situations or the world around us can effectively freeze us in a state where our greatest asset – the dynamism of intuition – is excluded, shut out, unable to penetrate the walls of worry which we erect.

Kendo states that understanding this dynamic can make meditation an immensely more powerful process – once we come back from the oasis of meditative peace, our minds have been “re-booted”, and are not weighed down with ongoing trails of concern, and this is the important part – allow those things which are important in life to rise in profile in your awareness, but you don’t need to take up the attitudes towards them which have formed over time – allow your clean and clear consciousness to re-assess them on their own merits, in this new clear light. One can hardly avoid the pressing immediacies of life, but by casting off the negative ways in which they attach themselves to us, we see them anew, gain a fresh perspective on them, and new possibilities present themselves to us.

The New Year is traditionally an opportunity to look at life anew, but those who meditate enjoy this liberating and empowering process regularly, and consequently, their lives are blessed by optimism, inspiration, and opportunity. Kendo would recommend that even if you don’t meditate, consider the example of the New Year’s “new broom” approach to our whole lives as being a process which we can use much more frequently, and the benefits of doing so will yield astonishingly positive results, in every area of our lives. (…you should seriously consider meditating, though!)

Here’s to a great New Year for all, and a newly enlightened and empowered outlook on life every day!