japanese-yoga

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 ofmind 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.

Because all actions and expressionsstem from the mind, it is vital to know themind as well as decide in what way we__l use it. Everyone has heard of psychosomatic illness, and most of us acknowledge that psychosomatic sicknesses can and do occur. But whatabout psychosomatic wellness?

Memorizing someone else__ explanation of the truth isn__ the same as seeing the truth for yourself. It is what it is__he memorization of second-hand knowledge. It is not your experience. It is not your knowledge. And no matter how much material is learned by rote, and no matter how eloquently we can speak about the memorized information, we__e clinging to a description of something that__ not ours. What__ more, the description is never the item itself. By holding onto our impression of certain descriptions, we frequently are unable to see the real thing when it__ right before our eyes. We are conditioned by memorizing and believing concepts__he truth of which we__e never genuinely seen for ourselves.

Nakamura Tempu Sensei viewed the mind as a segment of the body that could not be seen and the body as the element of the mind that was observable. He also likened the mind and body to a stream, with the mind as the source flowing down to the body. Whatever we drop in the stream will be carried down by the current. In like manner, our thoughts will influence the body and our well being.