The Philosophy of Ma. Why leaders travel to Japan — and what they find there

In the West, we are frightened of empty space. We fill our calendars before they are empty, reach for our phones in the first seconds of silence, as if stillness were a problem to be solved.Japan has a word for what we are afraid of. They call it Ma — the meaningful interval, the pause that gives shape to everything around it.

In this first episode, I explore the Japanese philosophy of Ma: what it feels like in the moss gardens of Kyoto, the ryokan, and the samurai dojo — and why the leaders who travel to Japan so often return describing the same thing: a quality of stillness that was, until then, impossible to find.