Fall down seven times, get up eight times
Daruma dolls are the embodiment of the Japanese proverb, 七転び八起き, Nanakorobi, yaoki. Fall down seven times, get up eight times. They are a receptacle for our wishes, and they remind us to never give up striving to achieve our goals.
Daruma modeled after an ancient Buddhist priest
Daruma dolls are modeled after the 5th-century founder of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma. It is said that he entered a cave near the famous Chinese Shaolin monastery where he meditated facing a wall for nine years. So dedicated was he that when he fell asleep while meditating, his anger drove him to cut off his eyelids. They fell to the ground, and tea bushes sprouted. Green tea was thereafter used by practitioners of Zen to keep themselves awake during meditation.
In the 12th century, along with Zen, Buddhist priest Eisai brought tea seeds to Japan where he cultivated the plants and, by and by, green tea’s popularity grew. But I digress.
Now lacking eyelids, Bodhidharma continued his meditation. As the years passed, his arms and legs fell off from disuse, and that leaves us with the shape of a Daruma doll.
The Daruma is rounded, so if it rocks over, it uprights itself. When we fail in our attempts to reach our goal, we should not give up, but we should be like a Daruma doll, righting ourselves and keeping on. As the proverb says:
Fall down seven times, get up eight times.
Daruma dolls
Papier-mâché Daruma dolls, just like we see today, began to be produced in the Edo era (1603-1867). They were painted red, as that has long been believed to be the color that wards off evil and disease. To make Daruma even more auspicious, the eyebrows and beard were sometimes painted in the shape of a tortoise or a crane, both symbols of long life. Sometimes other symbolic shapes were added to his features.
As the years passed, some Daruma were painted white — another lucky color. Then in the 20th century, things got wild. There were gold, green, and yellow Daruma — and today, anything goes. I have even seen Daruma dolls in the shape of Amabie, Japan’s Covid-19 guardian yōkai, or supernatural being.
When we buy a Daruma, the eyes are blank. As we set our goal, usually one that can be achieved within a year, we paint the left eye. When we reach our goal, we paint the right eye. The bigger the goal, the larger the Daruma we should use.
When we make our first visit to a shrine at the start of the new year, hatsumōde, we bring along our Daruma dolls to be burnt by the Shinto priest along with our household protection amulets and the last year’s omamori charms. Even if we did not achieve our goal, we still burn the old Daruma and buy a new one for a fresh start in the new year.
How about getting a Daruma doll to mark your goals for the coming year? Every day, as you look into its incomplete face, your determination will be renewed to keep on track.
And it seems you don’t need to visit Japan to buy your own. Daruma dolls are being sold on none other than Amazon.*
*This affiliate link means that if you were to buy something on Amazon through that link, I would get a small portion of the sale price at no extra cost to you.
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