How it works

A private place to read slowly, sit, and write. Seventy-two books, one for each of the seventy-two seasons of the old Japanese calendar, arranged as a year-long journey, with a morning and an evening practice around them.

Begin opens Setting Out, the first of eleven paths. Continue takes you back to the last book you were sitting with, on the card you left open, and shows its season. The quote above them changes every day and is drawn from the library.

The old Japanese calendar does not stop at four seasons. It divides the year into twenty-four solar terms of about fifteen days, and each of those into three small seasons of about five days, called kō. There are seventy-two of them, and each is named for something happening in nature: east wind melts the ice, first cherry blossoms, evening cicadas sing, first frost, bears start hibernating in their dens. The names came from China and were rewritten for Japan's own climate by the court astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai in 1685.

The Temple has seventy-two books, and each one is given one kō, in order. The journey begins in spring, with the east wind melting the ice, and ends in the last days of winter, when the hens start laying and the year turns back toward spring. You will see each book's season under its title, and each path's stretch of the year on its page. Shoko also shows the kō the real calendar is in today.

The seasons set a pace rather than a rule, and you choose the pace in Settings. Weekdays gives each book a working week, Monday to Friday, with weekends as rest days: about seventeen months in all. Every day gives each book five days, and the journey takes a year. My own pace has no calendar at all. Eighteen books make a season, and the end of each of spring, summer, autumn and winter is marked. The point of the old calendar is not to keep up with it; it is to notice that every few days, something in the world has quietly changed, and so have you.

The library holds seventy-two books on eleven paths, in order, from Setting Out to The Return. Each path opens with the road so far, a few lines recalling what you have already walked, has its own meditation, and ends by pointing you to the next. Nothing is locked. You can open any book at any time, but the order is meant to be walked: every path prepares the ground for the one after it.

Every book opens as a grid of cards. Start with How it works and Along the road, which reminds you what you carry into this book from the ones before it. Then move through The one thing, The teaching, The frameworks, The practice, Sit and Write. In conversation with and To go further point onward. Each card opens on its own. Move between them with the arrows at the bottom, or go back to the grid. The last card leads to the next book on the path.

Anything on a book page can be kept. What you keep waits for you in Hikidashi.

Any teaching can be read aloud. Heart, the default voice, is a natural voice from the free Kokoro service, so it needs a connection and takes a few seconds to start. If it cannot be reached, the reading carries on in your device’s own voice. Download reading, on a book, voices the whole book ahead of time so it plays without pauses. You can change the voice in Settings below.

The Sit card plays a recorded guided meditation chosen for that book, from UCLA Mindful and Palouse Mindfulness. Below it you can choose the Temple’s own spoken sit instead, timed for five, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes.

Write your pages, as much or as little as comes, then close them. Set one line for how you intend to be today.

A few questions, one at a time, to set the day down. Every seventh night asks what you are noticing across the week.

Everything you have written, by month: mornings, nights, notes from your reading, and the weeks. Choose what to see from the menu on the right. When an entry is open, the menu folds into the small icon beside 日記.

Everything you have kept sits at the top. Below it is every idea in the library, so you can find any of them quickly.

A letter to the end of the road. On the Setting Out page you can write to the person who will reach The Return. It is sealed when you write it, and it opens when you begin the last path.

The wheel of the year. Shoko shows your journey as a ring of seventy-two seasons, each one filling with its season's colour as you finish its book. The colours of the whole app shift with the season you are walking through.

Season reflections. At the end of each season of the journey, Yūgure asks one deeper question about the stretch you have just walked. Your answers are kept in Nikki under seasons.

The morning email. If you want one, choose an hour in Settings. Each morning you get today's season outside, the book you are on, and a reminder that Akebono is waiting.

Your writing is yours. Nikki can export everything you have written as a single file. The Temple also keeps a copy of itself on your device, so it opens without a connection; anything you write offline is saved when you are back online.

Tick each card with the button at its foot as you finish it. When every card is ticked the book is marked finished, or you can mark it yourself at the top of the grid. Shoko shows how far you have come on each path and on the whole journey, with the next book waiting, and keeps your milestones: your first card, your first book, every path completed, the end of each season of your year, and the mornings and evenings you keep. A milestone appears on screen the moment you reach it.

You sign in with your email once on each device. Everything you write, every card you tick and every book you finish is saved to your own Google Drive and follows you between your phone and your computer.

Signed in

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A letter to the end of the road

Before you begin, write to the person who will reach The Return. What are you carrying? What do you hope will change? What do you want to remember about who you are today? It will be sealed, and it opens when you begin the last path.

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Your letter

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How it works

The way through

A path is a short shelf of books, read in order. Each one opens onto the next, and none of them is meant to be finished in a sitting. Take one book at a time, and give it a day, or a week, before you move on.

The paths are in order too. Together they make one journey: from Setting Out, with a call to leave home and a practice to carry you, inward through the body, the mind and stillness, into discipline and work, out toward other people, down through grief, up to the old maps of the heavens and the real sky, and finally to The Return — where you find that what you set out to look for was where you began. Walk them in order the first time. After that, go back to whatever you need.

There are seventy-two books, and each one is given one of the seventy-two seasons of the old Japanese calendar, the kō, small seasons of about five days, each named for something happening in nature. The journey begins at the first, when the east wind melts the ice, and ends at the last, when hens start laying eggs and the year turns back to spring. Give each book its five days, and the journey takes a year.

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Each book, in order

01

The one thing. Read the sentence first. If it is all you take from the book today, that is enough.

02

The teaching. Read it, or listen. Every section can be read aloud: tap listen beside its name, or tap any paragraph to hear from there.

03

The frameworks. Go through the ideas one at a time. Keep the ones that land; what you keep waits for you in Hikidashi 引き出し.

04

The practice. These are for today, not for later. Do one, even a small one.

05

Sit. After the listening, take the guided sit, or the spoken one at the length you have.

06

Write. A few honest lines for each prompt, then save them to your journal.

07

Follow the threads. Along the road reminds you what earlier books you carry into this one. In conversation with shows the books this one builds on and argues with. To go further points past the library.

Tick each card as you finish it, using the button at its foot. When every card is ticked, the book is marked finished, or you can mark it finished yourself from the top of the grid. Your progress shows on the path page and in Shoko, and milestones mark the road. Come back to any book whenever you like; returning is the point.

Along the road

What you carry here

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What it asks of you. Something to sit with for the day.

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Then write

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In conversation with

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To go further

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Find it quickly

Everything you have kept, then every idea in the library. Keep anything from a book page and it sits at the top.

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One line

how I intend to be today

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Keep it in Nikki

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because

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The seventh night

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This is where the day is set down.

Nikki 日記

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Everything I have written

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