What is "ikebana" and what I would like to convey through IKERU.

What is "ikebana"? The short answer would be "Japanese traditional flower arrangement", but it is more than that. It is not only about how to arrange flowers but also about how to prepare our mind when facing flowers. Ikebana's literal meaning is "let flowers live" and, in order to let flower live, you have to let your egos go - otherwise you cannot listen to the voice of flowers or you cannot see the flow of branches.

As we call it "tradition", ikebana has a long history. Ikebana is originated in primitive but important human activities. One is humans' desire to appreciate the beauty of nature even when we do not get out in nature. The oldest Japanese "essay", which was written around 1000 AD, described how people back then enjoyed seeing beautiful wisteria branches inside by putting them in a big jar. Another is humans' practice of serving flowers and tree branches to get connected to something great. In Buddhism, people serve flowers to the Buddha and in Shintoism tree branches are used as pathway for god to come to the earth.

Then, around 16th century, these activities started to turn into more creative collaboration between flowers and humans. Various ways of flower-human collaboration were then developed as "ikebana" and a wide range of "schools" were established to disseminate the philosophy, basic structures and techniques of what each school believed as ikebana. There was no single and fixed definition of ikebana - some schools emphasized that the role of humans should be limited to let flowers live, while other schools valued the creativity and artistic expression on the side of humans.

And even today, despite great societal, economic, political and cultural changes of Japan over the past hundreds of years including the drastic Westernization and modernization after the late 19th century and the WWII that devastated almost the entire nation, Ikebana is still one of the most widely practiced and appreciated Japanese cultural traditions. I believe the reason why ikebana has survived is that, at the core it contains the primitive humans' desires such as appreciating nature and getting connected to something great, while it allows humans to be creative and mindful at the same time.

I have practiced ikebana for over 20 years and, for me, the essence of ikebana lies in the state of people's mind, rather than in how the actual ikebana work looks like. I do not mean that how it looks is not important - it is actually very important - but, without the proper state of mind, your ikebana work will be somehow distorted. Through IKERU programs such as lessons for individuals and workshops for companies and schools, I would like to let people experience this state of mind and feel how beautiful and powerful human-flower collaboration can be.