Life's Bamboo Basket
September 3, 2024
Jensen Huang, founder of Nvidia, one of the world's most valuable companies, delivered the commencement speech at Caltech.
In his address, Huang recounted a family trip to Kyoto, Japan, where they visited the moss garden of the Silver Temple. There, he encountered a lone gardener meticulously tending to the garden, "picking at the moss with a bamboo tweezer and putting it in the bamboo basket." Curious, Huang asked, "What are you doing?"
"I'm picking dead moss. I'm taking care of my garden," the gardener replied.
"But your garden is so big," Huang observed.
"I have cared for my garden for 25 years. I have plenty of time."
Huang described this encounter as "the most profound learning of his life." He reflected, "This gardener has dedicated himself to his craft and to doing his life's work. And when you do that, you have plenty of time."
For the gardener, taking care of the garden was his Ikigai (生き甲斐).
"Ikigai" means purpose, value, and the meaning of life. While this may sound grandiose, Japanese philosophy emphasizes perfecting small tasks in daily life to achieve Ikigai, hence, "picking at the moss with a bamboo tweezer and putting it in the bamboo basket."
Ikigai also refers to what one looks forward to in life. Mieko Kamiya (神谷美惠子), a psychiatrist who wrote About Ikigai in 1966, explains, "Ikigai is what allows you to look forward to the future, even if you're miserable right now."
In Japanese culture, a fulfilling life is seen as the sum of small joys in everyday existence. Life doesn't have to be exciting and fun every day. As long as we gather small wins in our bamboo basket every day, life will turn out to be a beautiful, if modest, garden.