Sources · Research · Culture
The world behind Ikigai
Ikigai does not appear from nowhere. It grows from a particular way of seeing the world — one shaped by Shinto, by Japanese aesthetics, by centuries of attention to the small and the ordinary. This page traces that background, from culture and philosophy to the researchers who studied it seriously.
All sources referenced in the books by Haruto Miyazaki are listed here with links where available.
Part one
Shinto and the Japanese worldview
Before Ikigai, there is Shinto — Japan’s indigenous spiritual tradition. Not a religion in the Western sense, but a way of relating to the world: every place, object and living thing carries a kami (spirit or divine energy). This shapes how Japanese culture thinks about attention, presence and the value of small things.
Shinto
Japan’s oldest spiritual tradition. The world is inhabited by kami — spirits in nature, objects, places and ancestors. Attention and ritual maintain the relationship between humans and this living world.
Kokugakuin Encyclopedia of Shinto →Kami
The spirits or sacred forces present in natural phenomena, places, animals and ancestors. The kami of a river, a mountain or a craftsperson’s tools are all treated with respect and attention.
Kokugakuin: Kami →Musubi
The Shinto concept of creative life force — the generative power that brings things into being and sustains growth. A foundational idea behind the Japanese valuing of craft, nature and daily renewal.
Kokugakuin: Musubi →Misogi
Ritual purification through water — a Shinto practice of cleansing and renewal. The idea that each day can begin freshly, without the weight of what came before.
Kokugakuin: Misogi →Part two
Japanese concepts of attention and meaning
Out of the Shinto worldview grew a set of aesthetic and philosophical concepts that shape how Japanese culture approaches everyday life — and which provide the cultural soil for Ikigai.
Ma
Negative space — the meaningful pause between sounds, the gap between objects, the silence in a conversation. Ma is not emptiness but potential. It shapes Japanese architecture, music, theatre and everyday rhythm.
Japan Foundation: Japanese culture →Mono no aware
The bittersweet awareness of impermanence — the gentle sadness that arises when we notice something beautiful will not last. Cherry blossoms are its most famous symbol. It encourages full presence in the moment.
NHK World: Japanology Plus →Wabi-sabi
The beauty of imperfection, incompleteness and transience. A cracked bowl repaired with gold (kintsugi), a weathered wooden surface, a moss-covered stone — all carry a quiet beauty that perfection cannot.
The Met: Wabi-sabi aesthetics →Kodawari
Devoted, uncompromising attention to one thing — the pursuit of a craft, a technique, a standard that no one else may even notice. Jiro Ono and his sushi is the most cited example.
Japan Times: Culture →Komorebi
The interplay of light and shadow when sunlight filters through leaves. A word for a fleeting, gentle beauty — the kind of thing that earns attention in Japanese culture because it is there and then gone.
NHK World →Ikigai
The felt sense that life is worth living — that today has direction and meaning. Not a formula or a career framework, but a quality of attention to what already carries you. The natural arrival point of all the concepts above.
National Diet Library of Japan →Part three
Mieko Kamiya — the first serious study
In 1966, Japanese psychiatrist Mieko Kamiya published Ikigai-ni-tsuite (生きがいについて) — the first systematic study of what makes life feel worth living. She worked for years at Nagashima Aiseien, a leprosy sanatorium in the Seto Inland Sea, and asked why some patients — stripped of almost everything — could still find reasons to wake each morning.
Overview of her life, work at Nagashima Aiseien, and the lasting influence of Ikigai-ni-tsuite (生きがいについて, Misuzu Shobo, Tokyo, 1966).
Japan’s national library holds the original Japanese texts. Search for 生きがいについて (Ikigai ni tsuite) or 神谷美恵子 (Kamiya Mieko) in the NDL Digital Collections.
Nick Kemp’s Ikigai Tribe provides accessible explanations of Kamiya’s original seven dimensions of Ikigai-kan in English — one of the few English-language resources drawn from primary Japanese sources.
Part four
How Ikigai lives — contemporary Japanese culture
The book draws on several real people and communities as examples of Ikigai lived in practice — not as abstract philosophy but as daily attention and devotion.
Jiro Ono
Sushi master · Kodawari
The subject of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011). A lifelong devotion to one craft — a living example of Kodawari and Ikigai through work.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (IMDB) →Taira Toshiko
Textile artist · Bashōfu weaving
Okinawan Living National Treasure who wove Bashōfu (banana fibre cloth) until late in life. Her craft held meaning, rhythm and direction — a quiet Ikigai made visible through hands.
Japan Living National Treasures →Okinawa — Moai
Community · Longevity · Blue Zones
Okinawa is one of the world’s longest-lived populations. The Moai — small groups of lifelong mutual support — are central to how connection and Ikigai are maintained across a lifetime.
Blue Zones: Okinawa →Sei Shōnagon
Court lady · ~1000 AD · The Pillow Book
Her Makura no Sōshi (枕草子) is an early example of the Japanese practice of noticing what gives a day its weight — lists of things that move her, that feel alive, that matter. Ikigai before the word existed.
British Library: The Pillow Book →Part five
The research — what science has found
From the 1960s onward, Japanese researchers began studying Ikigai empirically. By the time the English-speaking world discovered Ikigai around 2016, there were already fifty years of Japanese scholarship that almost no one outside Japan had encountered. These are the key studies referenced in the books.
A longitudinal study of over 43,000 Japanese adults. Those who reported a strong sense of Ikigai had significantly lower mortality rates over the seven-year follow-up period. One of the most cited studies in Ikigai research.
Published in The Lancet Regional Health — Western Pacific. An outcome-wide analysis linking Ikigai to a broad range of health and wellbeing outcomes in older Japanese adults.
A systematic review of existing research on Ikigai and its relationship to physical health, mental wellbeing, and longevity. Useful overview of the field.
A comprehensive review of where Ikigai research stands in 2025, covering ageing, health and wellbeing across cultures. Age and Ageing, 54(Supplement_4).
Examines how the pandemic affected people’s sense of Ikigai in Japan — and what this reveals about which sources of meaning proved most durable under social disruption.
Japanese physician Itami Jiro applied Ikigai therapeutically with cancer patients, observing that a sense of purpose affected how patients engaged with their illness. Published as Ikigai Ryoho de Gan ni Katsu (1988) and in ISLIS Journal 18(1), 2000.
Examines how digital behaviours interact with Ikigai, happiness and loneliness in contemporary Japan. npj Mental Health Research, 3, 63.
Part six
Further reading
Books referenced or drawn upon in the Ikigai project — for readers who want to go deeper into any of the themes.
Neuroscientist Mogi’s accessible introduction to Ikigai through Japanese daily life and neuroscience. The source of the “five pillars” framework. Quercus, London.
Research on the world’s longest-lived populations, including Okinawa. National Geographic Society. The study that brought Ikigai to Western attention.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development — the longest running study on happiness and wellbeing. Confirms the centrality of relationships to a meaningful life. Simon & Schuster.
Frankl’s account of finding meaning under extreme conditions — a philosophical parallel to Kamiya’s work, arriving from a different cultural direction.
A counter-argument to passion-first career thinking — argues for skill and mastery as the foundation of meaningful work. Business Plus.
How excessive choice can undermine satisfaction and direction. Relevant to why the Japanese concept of devoted attention to fewer things carries such weight.
Part seven
Japanese culture — curated resources
Quality external resources for readers who want to explore Japanese culture, philosophy and daily life more deeply.
Maintained by Kokugakuin University, Tokyo. The most authoritative English-language reference on Shinto concepts, rituals and history.
kokugakuin.ac.jp →NHK’s English-language documentary series exploring Japanese culture, aesthetics and daily life in depth. Free to watch online.
nhk.or.jp →Japan’s official cultural exchange organisation. Resources on Japanese arts, language, literature and cross-cultural dialogue.
jpf.go.jp →Japan’s national library. The NDL Digital Collections include historical texts, periodicals and scholarly works — including original Japanese sources on Ikigai.
ndl.go.jp →One of the few English-language resources grounded in the original Japanese scholarship on Ikigai, rather than the Western four-circle diagram. Interviews, essays and Kamiya’s dimensions explained.
ikigaitribe.com →Dan Buettner’s research on Okinawa as one of the world’s Blue Zones — longest-lived populations and the role of Ikigai, Moai and daily purpose.
bluezones.com →The Metropolitan Museum’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History covers Japanese aesthetic traditions including Wabi-sabi, tea ceremony and the relationship between art and philosophy.
metmuseum.org →Japan’s government agency for cultural heritage. Lists of Living National Treasures (including traditional craftspeople like Taira Toshiko), intangible cultural properties and cultural policy.
bunka.go.jp →