A piece of wisdom from
March 15, 2025 · Saturday
The quote
“In the old way, when one person in the family fell ill, the whole family came together to clean — because illness was understood to live in the broken relationships, not in the body alone.”
— Mary Kawena Pukui · Hoʻoponopono
The concept
Sisu
The Finnish word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone.
Two hundred days of darkness a year. Forty below in winter. Russia next door. The Finns had to invent a word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone, and they named it sisu. Sisu is not grit. Not resilience. Not courage.…
A practice for today
Walk one slow block today and observe the lesson of Sisu. The Finnish word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone.
From the Bhagavad Gita
Verse 7.7
मत्तः परतरं नान्यत्किञ्चिदस्ति धनञ्जय। मयि सर्वमिदं प्रोतं सूत्रे मणिगणा इव॥
“There is nothing higher than I, O Dhananjaya. All this is strung on me as pearls on a thread.”
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