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Shin-shin-toitsu-do includes a wide variety of stretching exercises, breathing methods, forms of seated meditation and moving meditation, massage-like healing arts, techniques of auto-suggestion, and mind and body coordination drills, as well as principles for the unification of mind and body. These principles of mind and body coordination are regarded as universal laws that express the workings of nature on human life. As such, they can be applied directly to an endless number of everyday activities and tasks. It is not uncommon when studying Japanese yoga to encounter classes and seminars that deal with the direct application of these universal principles to office work, sales, management, sports, art, music, public speaking, and a host of other topics. How to use these precepts of mind and body integration to realize our full potential in any action is the goal. All drills, exercises, and practices of Shin-shin-toitsu-do are based on the same principles, thus linking intelligently a diversity of arts. But more than this, they serve as vehicles for grasping and cultivating the principles of mind and body coordination. And it is these principles that can be put to use directly, unobtrusively, and immediately in our daily lives. ↗
#meditation #mind-and-body-unification #tempu-nakamura #yoga #art
Emotional baggage,” which is carried over from the past, colors our perceptions. Likewise, past conclusions and beliefs, based on reasoning that may or may not have been accurate, also tint our perception of reality. Retaining our capacity for reason is common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment. Emotional reactions can be unreasonable, and reason can be flawed. It’s difficult to have deep confidence in either one, especially when they’re often at war with each other. But the universal mind exists in the instant, in a moment beyond time, and it sees the universe as it literally is. It’s the universe perceiving itself. It is, moreover, something we can have absolute confidence in, and with that confidence, we can maintain a genuinely positive attitude. ↗
Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency. ↗
#dharma #focus #frogs #meditation #urgency
Although contemplating the nature of the body highlights its less attractive features, the purpose of the exercise is not to demonize the body. While it is certainly true that at times the discourses describe the human body in rather negative terms, some of these instances occur in a particular context in which the point being made is that the speakers in question have overcome all attachment to their body. In contrast, the Kāyagatāsati Sutta takes the physical bliss of absorption attainment as an object for body contemplation. This passage clearly demonstrates that contemplation of the body is not necessarily linked to repugnance and loathing. The purpose of contemplating the nature of the body is to bring its unattractive aspects to the forefront of one's attention, thereby placing the attractive aspects previously emphasized in a more balanced context. The aim is a balanced and detached attitude towards the body. With such a balanced attitude, one sees the body merely as a product of conditions, a product with which one need not identify. ↗
#body-image #buddhism #contemplation #detachment #meditation
I rolled my eyes. “I feel like a zoo animal.” Travis watched me for a moment, noted those staring, and then stood up. “I CAN’T!” he yelled. I stared in awe as the entire room jerked their heads in his direction. Travis bobbed his head a couple of times to a beat in his head. Shepley closed his eyes. “Oh, no.” Travis smiled. “get no….sa…tis…faction,” he sang, “I can’t get no….sat-is-fac-tion. ‘Cuz I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…,” he climbed onto the table as everyone stared, “I CAN’T GET NO!” He pointed to the football players at the end of the table and they smiled, “I CAN’T GET NO!” they yelled in unison. The whole room clapped to the beat, then. Travis’ sang into his fist, “When I’m drivin’ in my car, and a man comes on the…ra-di-o…he’s tellin’ me more and more…about some useless in-for-ma-tion! Supposed to fire my im-agin-a-tion! I CAN’T GET NO! ↗
I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friend that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted. But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain. ↗
The greatest teacher in healing is nature itself. To be out in the nature is like being surrounded and embraced by love. Trees are also very beautiful people, who have their own innate wisdom and who are already in oneness with Existence. And the sky whispers its silent message that, beyond everything, there is only one sky. A female meditator describes it like there is a basic meditative quality in nature. She says: "There is nothing in nature that questions each others existence like people do. Everything is allowed to exist and everything is allowed to be exactly as it is – and seasons come and go. It is not strange that people love to be out in nature and experiences that they come in harmony with themselves, because, in nature, there is nothing that tries to change them. There is a quality in the air, which can be called a meditative quality". ↗
Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life. It’s time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds…Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy. ↗
Meditation is one of the most serious things; you do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody "I love you", when you are considering your children, when you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, worshipping the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world; watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again - you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life. ↗
What are the path of love and the path of meditation? There are basically two different paths to enlightenment. These two paths are The path of love and The path of meditation. The path of love is the female path to enlightenment and The path of meditation is the male path to enlightenment. The path of love is the path of love, joy, relationships, devotion and surrender. The path of meditation is the path of meditation, silence, aloneness and freedom. These two paths has different ways, but they have the same goal. Through love and surrender the person that walks The path of love discovers the inner silence. Through meditation and aloneness the person that walks The path of meditation discovers the inner source of love. These two paths are like climbing the mountain of enlightenment through different routes, but the two paths are meeting on the summit of the mountain - and discover an inner integration between love and meditation, between relating and aloneness. Before I accept to work with a student now, I make an intuitive and clairvoyant evaluation about which spiritual paths that the student has walked before in previous lives. This intuitive assessment gives information about the spiritual level that the student has attained, and it also makes it easier to guide the person spiritually if he has followed a certain path in the past. A female student of mine laughed recently when I told her that she had followed The path of love in several past lives. She commented: "You have told me three times now that I have walked the path of love and silence, but with my head I still do not understand it." But this overall assessment of her spiritual growth uptil now, and of the spiritual paths that she had walked, made all the pieces of her life puzzle fit together - and brought a new, creative light to all her life choices in her current life. A male student of mine, who was a Tibetan monk in a previous life, walks The path of meditation, and I notice how I change my language and the methods that I recommend when I guide him along the path of meditation. I now work with students who walk both The path of love and The path of meditation, which also allows me to discover a deeper integration of love and meditation on my path to enlightenment. ↗
