Shin Shin Toitsu Do

The teachings of Tempu — Awaking from the wandering dream — The life of Nakamura Tempu
"Now I am completely awakened from the wandering dream, and I stand at the entrance to a new, enlightened existence. My eyes are open to see a brilliant life in the future. My heart is filled with inexpressible and infinite joy."
(Nakamura Tempu)

Since the early 1920s a unique spiritual path has existed in Japan. This distinctly Japanese version of yoga is called Shin-shin-toitsu-do, and it combines seated meditation, moving meditation, breathing exercises, and other disciplines to help practitioners realize unification of mind and body. Besides yoga, it is a synthesis of methods, influenced by Japanese meditation, healing arts, and martial arts; along with Western psychology, medicine, and science. Shin-shin-toitsu-do is widely practiced throughout Japan, although it is almost unknown in other countries. Through its principles of mind and body coordination people have an opportunity to realize their full potential in everyday life.
A remarkable man created this path, and he led an equally remarkable life. He was known in Japan as Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and this is his story.

The Birth of Nakamura Saburo — His father, Sukeoki, was a samurai and a son of a prominent feudal lord in Kyushu. Descended from the Tachibana family of the Yanagawa Clan, Sukeoki was a progressive man who introduced European ideas into his country. Chou, Nakamura's mother, was born in Tokyo.
For much of Japanese history, the Emperor reigned without actually ruling. A feudal military regime, lead by the bushi (samurai) caste, governed Japan with an iron fist. Then, in the late 1800s, Emperor Meiji and his followers wrenched Japan from the hold of the bushi in a bloody civil war. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 the bushi were no longer in power, and their class, with its special rights and privileges, was abolished. Nakamura's ex-bushi father was given a high-ranking post in Tokyo with the Department of the Mint in the Finance Ministry. While working for the Mint he invented an exceptionally strong paper made of silk and traditional Japanese paper, which was used to manufacture the new government's bank notes. The family lived well in a Tokyo suburb not far from the paper factory. Nakamura was born in this house in 1876 and originally named Nakamura Saburo.
A British engineer who specialized in printing was employed by the Mint. He lived near the Nakamura household, and his family was fond of Saburo. They taught him conversational English on a daily basis. Saburo excelled in English, a skill that would serve him well during his later travels in the USA, Europe, and India.
He was a wild child. Hoping that some discipline would settle little Saburo down, he was registered in martial arts classes at age six. It didn't work. Once during a schoolyard fight, he became so furious that he broke a child's fingers and tore off another's earlobe. This is quite a contrast with the gentle person he became, a respected spiritual teacher who espoused world peace.

At 13, he enrolled in a middle and high school called Shuyukan where English was taught on a regular basis. In this school, Saburo led the school judo club as team captain. So, when his squad defeated another school in a tournament the losers bore a grudge against him. They ambushed him as he was coming home from school; ten of the boys beat him severely.
The next morning Saburo visited each of their homes and confronted them. Apologies were forcefully extracted. Finally, he visited the house of the losing team's leader and upon entering the residence found the teenager. Fearing for his life, the boy rushed into his kitchen, grabbed a knife, and attacked Saburo. They grappled and the knife ended up in his adversary's belly. The boy died, and Nakamura went to prison. He was subsequently released after it was declared that he acted in self-defense.
While Nakamura later regretted the violent episodes of his childhood, he eventually felt that his youthful determination to never be overcome by others or life events helped him rise above several difficulties that arose in his life. In time, this inclination mutated into a search for excellence that caused him to take immense satisfaction in doing anything and everything thoroughly. Still later, as a teacher his thoroughness could be seen in his quest for genuine truth through science and philosophy.

A Secret Agent is Born and Nearly Dies — Nakamura Saburo played an active role as a military intelligence agent in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). He engaged in secret service activities in Manchuria and China a few months before this war broke out. As part of his military service, he studied Chinese intensely for one year.
During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) he got a job as an undercover agent. Nakamura was chosen because his history indicated that he was courageous and because he excelled at judo, kendo, and Zuihen Ryu batto-jutsu, an ancient form of swordsmanship. (His political ties also likely helped during the selection process.) Training for this elite army unit wasn't the same as graduating. The vast majority of trainees dropped out of the program because they couldn't handle the physical and psychological pressure.
Nakamura soon shipped out to Manchuria, which was essentially under Russian control. He worked as a spy there with his Japanese partner Hashizume Wataru. Hashizume was born in Manchuria, and he spoke and looked Chinese. During the Russo-Japanese War their team fought with bandits, with both sides using swords. Nakamura was lethal with a sword in his hands. During his time in Manchuria he even acquired a bit of Russian language skill, adding it to his linguistic lexicon.

Nakamura and his subordinates blew up bridges and railways, and even slipped into a Russian army headquarters to eavesdrop and steal documents. Despite his espionage skill he was captured by a Cossack cavalry, interrogated for a month, and finally sentenced to die. He later wrote that, to his surprise, he wasn't afraid to face death. In fact, he had a sound night's sleep before his scheduled execution. That morning he was served a substantial Russian breakfast, which he ate to his heart's content. The official who was to observe the execution joined him at breakfast. Impressed by Nakamura's composure he said, "You look like a young boy. I'm sorry I have to execute you. Do you have anything to say before you die?"
"No, nothing."
"Strange, you don't look sad or frightened. Why?"
Nakamura said, "I'm not sad, but I do regret something."
"What do you regret?"
"My mother can't see me now."
The Russian official exclaimed, "I don't understand Japanese people! Would your mother be happy to see you die?"
"No, but she'd be proud that I'm dying for my country and that I'm facing adversity with dignity."
Before he was to be executed, Nakamura refused a blindfold. Tied to a wooden post, he told the three gunmen, "I want to see where your bullets hit me. Don't miss my heart and leave the job half done."
When the gunmen were about to fire, a hand grenade exploded marking the timely arrival of Nakamura's partner Hashizume. The commotion caused by the explosion allowed them to flee. It was a narrow escape. In the 1930s, this incident became a popular play performed in Japanese theaters.

Tuberculosis and the Search for a New Life — Japan won the Russo-Japanese War. However, Nakamura's life in Manchuria was less than wonderful. He drank polluted water, ate rotten food, and worked in disguise, wearing old laborer's clothes. At 29 years old he returned to bis parents' house in Tokyo. (He was one of only nine people that returned home alive out of his group of 113.) After his return, Chairman Nezu Kaichiro asked him to join the Dai Nippon Flour Mill as an executive.
His employment was cut short when he began coughing frequently. After vomiting blood, he was diagnosed with severe tuberculosis, which he probably contracted during the war. Death was advancing and there was no cure in those days. The doctor who made this diagnosis gave him only six months to live.
Despite Nakamura's knowledge of Japanese healing methods his tuberculosis advanced, leading to an existential crisis that was worse than the illness. When he'd been sentenced to die he wasn't afraid, but this time it was different. Feeling his physical and emotional deterioration, he grew angry with himself. Unable to work, he began reading voraciously about religion and philosophy, constantly pondering the meaning of life. He met with Christian and Zen Buddhist authorities, but none of them could help him find peace of mind.

Looking for clear, pragmatic principles or methods that could guide him, he didn't find them in organized religion. What he did find, he subsequently recalled, were people preaching certain ideas that they couldn't actually teach. Remembering his illness, when Nakamura became the meditation teacher Tempu his first priority was helping people by inventing easily understood principles and techniques of mind-body unification.
Even with modern transportation, most people wouldn't travel internationally while seriously ill, but in 1909 Nakamura visited the United States to meet Orison Swett Marden, a Harvard trained doctor and author of books on personal growth. Marden's popular writings promoted the idea that faith and inspired visualization were as effective for curing disease as medical intervention, a concept that motivated Nakamura to leave Japan. Nakamura eventually succeeded in contacting Marden, who is considered by some to be the founder of the modern human potential movement in the USA. Marden's first work, Pushing to the Front, published in 1894, sold well in the U.S. and Japan. His numerous books express the need for optimism and self-assurance. Despite his prolific and pioneering efforts in psychosomatic healing, Marden's method provided no cure for Nakamura's disease. Marden's only real advice was to keep reading his books until Nakamura had memorized them.

While in the U.S. Nakamura received Western medical care, which initially seemed to cure him. Nakamura also studied medicine at Columbia University. His illness returned, however. Nakamura was crushed. After the long journey by ship, crossing the Pacific Ocean to seek answers about human mortality, he was coughing up blood again.
Despite his training in Japanese spiritual paths, since his tuberculosis diagnosis he'd become completely preoccupied with his body. Eventually realizing this, he continued investigating the mind as a mechanism of healing. Encouraged by Thomas Edison's assertion that his famous discoveries weren't due to what he'd learned in school but came instead from conscientiously observing ordinary events, Nakamura thought a remedy might lie within his psyche and be unearthed in daily life.
After medical training in New York, he felt the secrets of life weren't confined to Japanese approaches. Nakamura then heard of a metaphysician who'd successfully treated an ailment of Edison's with psychosomatic medicine. None of it worked for him, but from these mind-body theories he developed a spiritual outlook and non-materialistic attitude that influenced him for the remainder of his days.

In 1911, he sailed across the Atlantic to Britain, where he attended a psychology seminar lead by H. Addington Bruce called "Mental Activities and the Nervous System." Bruce authored copious articles and books about psychology. Unlike more materialistic premises adopted by various academic psychologists, Bruce's emphasis on the significance of environmental and spiritual factors in psychology lent scientific credence to new psychological approaches. It foretold psychology's change in the 1920s towards a greater stress on the effects of one's environment on the mind and a greater concern with the unconscious.
At the conference, Bruce concluded, "If you have an illness, forget it. That's the secret to curing a disease." Nakamura wasn't satisfied with Bruce's explanation, so he visited him.
"I'm at a loss. I can't seem to forget my illness. Please show me how to forget it."
"Well, you just need to keep trying," the seminar leader said.
"I've tried many times, but. .. ."
Bruce didn't have another answer. The two quarreled and Nakamura left in a huff. He later recalled thinking that lecturing people without first showing them how to do what you're asking of them was as effective as not speaking at all. This experience became a catalyst for his practical approach to teaching mind-body unification.
While in Europe he resolved to keep investigating the young European science of psychology, common themes from which he later adapted to his teachings. His research into psychology and philosophy spread across France, Germany, and Belgium—with tuberculosis haunting his every step.

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