The Life of Nakamura Tempu (2)

AWAKING FROM THE WANDERING DREAM—
THE LIFE OF NAKAMURA TEMPU
(Part Two)

By H. E. Davey
Photos courtesy of Sawai Atsuhiro

Encounters with Celebrities and Philosophers
Shortly after Bruce’s seminar, an acquaintance gave him a letter of introduction to the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844—1923). He went to Paris to meet her in 1911. Bernhardt wasn’t only a great artist but an ardent student of philosophy as well. When he visited her mansion, he expected an old woman, but Bernhardt looked to be just 27 or 28 years old. She was, in fact, 66 years of age.

“You look very young. Are you really Sarah Bernhardt?”

“Yes, there’s no age for an actress,” she said smiling. Saburo received his first lesson in the effects of attitude on aging, and this “no age philosophy” afterwards was referenced in his classes.

He stayed a few months at her home, where stunning actresses and celebrities visited her salon, and where he often heard genuinely happy laughter. It was there that he realized the impact of laughter on health and mind-set. It would become one of his major teachings. (Years after, one of my teachers of Shin-shin-toitsu-do, Hirata Yoshihiko Sensei, sometimes started classes by leading us in three successive belly laughs, a procedure inherited from Nakamura Sensei.)

Bernhardt recommended a biography of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher who had an incurable lung disease from childhood. Kant endured immense pain and relentlessly complained to his parents. But his doctor finally advised, “Your illness, I’m sorry to say, cannot be cured. Your body’s suffering, but your mind is healthy and needn’t suffer. If you don’t think about your body, your mind will do what you want it to do.”

Kant then realized how he’d live his life—he would follow the inclination of his mind to do what he most wanted. And that was to study philosophy.

Saburo was moved by this tale, and its message was subsequently reflected in his Shin-shin-toitsu-do, “The Way of Mind and Body Unification.” Nakamura Sensei mentioned that he often recalled the story of Kant when struggling with long periods of meditation in India, the final stop in his search for health and spiritual realization.

While in Paris, he visited Lyon University through an introduction from Bernhardt. He studied with a French psychologist, who taught a method of autosuggestion using a mirror. (Nakamura Sensei’s version of this important habit-altering tool can be found in Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation.)

About this time, Saburo left France to meet Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (1867–1941). Driesch was a German biologist, who turned into a philosopher. He discovered that a segment of an early sea urchin embryo could develop into an undiminished, though smaller than usual, living being. This challenged prevailing mechanistic outlooks and led to Driesch’s theory of “vitalism,” explaining organic systems in terms of an enigmatic self-determining law instead of in purely physical or chemical terms. He was the author of The History and Theory of Vitalism, Theory of Order, Logic as a Task, and Theory of Reality. He taught philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, and later at Cologne and Leipzig. In 1933, Nazi intervention caused him to “retire.”

Saburo asked him about the relationship between body and mind, and how to make his mind stronger. The philosopher replied, “This is an age-old mystery. I’ll think about it, and you’ll think about it. If either of us find the answer, it will be a vast contribution to humanity.” Driesch’s comments were honest but not encouraging. Nakamura Sensei years after told students, “I thought if I opened this door, there’d be a garden of beautiful flowers. I found an immense ravine of despair.”

Saburo lost all hope. In May of 1911, he decided to return to Japan to see his mother and die a disappointed man. At Marseilles, he boarded a cargo ship for China. He pondered, “I wonder if I’ll die on the way home, lying in bed like a sea louse.”

When the vessel neared the Suez Canal, there came a report that an Italian gunboat ran aground at the Canal, and that they’d have to wait in Egypt for several days. They dropped anchor in Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile River.

A boiler man onboard from the Philippines befriended Saburo. “You and I are the only Asians on this boat. Why don’t we become friends and go see the pyramids?” Saburo wasn’t in the mood, but he went with him to Cairo, where they stayed at a hotel. The following morning Saburo vomited a hefty quantity of blood into the washbasin. Feeling dizzy, he couldn’t stand, so he lay lifelessly in bed. His companion saw the pyramids alone.

A Mysterious Stranger
Eventually an African hotel worker noticed him and said, “If you continue to go without eating, you’ll die.” A huge man, he carried an emaciated Saburo in his arms to the hotel restaurant. Nakamura Sensei later wrote that he ordered soup, but in his condition it tasted like sand.

He then noticed a gentleman dressed in purple sitting five or six tables away. His skin was brown, and he looked to be about sixty years old. In truth, he was closer to 100. Two men were standing behind him and waving an immense feather fan.

“Maybe he’s a chieftain somewhere,” Saburo thought.

The stranger looked at Saburo and smiled. Saburo, strangely moved by the man’s gaze, grinned back weakly. The old man commanded, “Come here!”

In an instant, Saburo found himself standing before him. He felt as if he was pulled by a strong magnet. The gentleman watched him intently for several minutes and then spoke in English.

“You have a serious illness, and you’ve given up on life. But my eyes tell me you’re not destined to die yet. Come with me tomorrow.”

“Certainly,” Saburo answered without thinking. He was surprised by his own words.

He told the story to the Filipino boiler man, who replied, “He could be trading slaves, and you could be sold!” He tried to stop Saburo from going with this peculiar person. The situation looked serious, and his friend started crying in apprehension and frustration. But Saburo’s mind was made up.

The next morning he went to the river bank behind the hotel, where he saw a ship with three sails moored. Onboard was his new benefactor, who simply said, “You’re saved.”

Saburo didn’t ask who he was, where he was taking him, or even how he could save him. Nakamura Sensei later said, “My silence seemed to interest and delight the gentleman in purple.”

At the Foot of the Himalayas
After a three-month journey through India, they reached a village in Nepal called Gorkhe, which was at the foot of the third peak of Mt. Kanchengjunga in the Himalayas. At 28,146 feet, Kanchengjunga is the third highest mountain in the world. It belongs to a mountain chain crossing India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Between China and India, Gorkhe resides in the Ramam river valley. It’s just a few miles from the Indian towns of Mirik, Simana Basti, and Shiliguri; dense forests and mountains surround it. Rhododendrons and magnolias grow wild throughout this area.

Gorkhe was an old historical place, where yogis (2) came to practice under the guidance of their guru, or teacher. The mysterious man was this guru, a yoga expert named Kaliapa (a.k.a. Cariapa and Kariappa). He stated that the British Royal Family invited him annually to see the King, and Saburo met Kaliapa by chance in Cairo, when he was returning to India. This encounter was a pivotal moment in history and not merely because it saved Saburo’s life. Nakamura Saburo became Nakamura Tempu Sensei, founder of Shin-shin-toitsu-do. Often affectionately referred to as Tempu Sensei, he, in turn, rescued countless Japanese from illness, while helping numerous others spiritually.

In this yoga village, an elderly man was assigned to care for Saburo, who was given a simple hut. As Saburo was by Indian belief the lowest class (caste) and Kaliapa the highest, Saburo was told not to talk directly to him.

Every morning the guru gave an audience to his students. Saburo and others prostrated themselves on the ground and were forbidden to look up. Days passed in this way, but Kaliapa didn’t teach him anything.

Saburo assumed his guru would call him immediately for instruction, but more than a month passed with no training. Had Kaliapa forgotten his promise at the Cairo hotel? Saburo couldn’t wait any longer, and one day when the guru came his way, he stood up suddenly and blurted, “I have a question!”

Kaliapa smiled broadly. Saburo knew then that he hadn’t forgotten his pledge.

“You told me in Cairo that you’d teach me. When will you do it?”

“I’m prepared to start anytime, but you’re not ready yet.”

“I am ready! I’ve come here for no other reason.”

“You don’t look ready. Let me explain—bring me a pot of cold water.”

Earthen pots of water were lying here and there. Saburo brought one to his guru. Next, Kaliapa ordered him to bring a pot of hot water. “Pour this hot water into the cold pot,” the teacher said, even though the pot was already full.

“The water will overflow, if I do,” said Saburo.

“How do you know that?”

“Why, it’s an easy thing to see,” Saburo stated indignantly.

“The same can be said of you. Your mind is full of other things. You’re thinking, ‘I’ve studied medicine in America, I’m from a developed country, and I’ve read a lot of philosophy books.’ You’re filled with pride. If you’re not empty, whatever I say won’t enter your mind. Right?”

He understood immediately and was taken aback.

“You seem to understand me now. All right. I’ll teach you from tomorrow morning. Come to my room with a mind like a newborn baby’s.”

First Steps on the Path
At last Saburo began yoga training. He studied various methods, with an emphasis on meditation and breathing exercises. But more than this, Kaliapa produced an atmosphere in which Saburo stopped searching for revelations in books, ideologies, or the beliefs of others. Kaliapa, using psychological approaches that Nakamura Sensei remembered as severe, energized him to seek firsthand awareness, which wasn’t reliant on any master or method.

Kaliapa taught him that the universe and human beings are one. We’re thus endowed with the energy of the universe (ki in Japanese, prana in Sanskrit). Consequently Kaliapa felt that we can learn from nature itself.

He informed Saburo that he relied too much on the knowledge of others, and that his illness was a blessing in disguise, because it compelled him to contemplate the nature of his being. Nonetheless, to progress further in life, it was time to forget about dying. Kaliapa noted that as it was impossible to predict when he’d be no more, Saburo should cease agonizing about death and live every day fully.

Kaliapa also noted that the body mirrors the brain and feelings. Figuratively, the mind is the origin of a stream, and the body is like the downstream flow. Kaliapa stressed that if the body falls sick, the mind must stay positive or our bodily state further weakens. He even indicated the condition of specific organs was a sign of associated emotional difficulties.

He taught Saburo that an important step for maintaining a positive condition in the mind, body, and organs was understanding kumbhaka, a psychophysical state he said was akin to a spiritual body, which could endure hardships in the harsh Himalayan Mountains. His teacher only gave hints about how to accomplish this: “Keep your body like a bottle full of water with even pressure around it. This is kumbhaka.”

Yogis entered a shallow stream and sat in the water in meditation to grasp kumbhaka. Gorkhe’s elevation is 4094 feet, and the water was icy, coming from melted Himalayan snow. With the lower body in the torrent, they attempted to adopt a posture utilizing kumbhaka, which let them endure extreme cold, and which is fully detailed in Japanese Yoga: the Way of Dynamic Meditation. Once a day, Saburo practiced this with the other yogis. His guru told him an old man, then nearly 90, had been doing it for years, but he still couldn’t remain composed in the frigid conditions. Saburo, however, after some weeks could tolerate the ice-cold stream.

“Now you’re getting it,” Kaliapa shouted as Saburo sat in the water. But once he left the brook, his guru cried, “No, not yet!”

Saburo wondered what wasn’t yet good enough for his mentor. He continued practicing in the waterway, and a few days later, after he stepped out of the stream, Kaliapa said happily, “Now you have it. You’re the fastest to master kumbhaka.”

Although Saburo was happy about his progress, he wasn’t too excited about what he was eating. He felt meals were meager at the yoga village—sometimes just millet (a grain) or barnyard grass dipped in water and served on fig leaves. One day he complained to his teacher, “I’m suffering from tuberculosis. When I was in Europe, I ate nutritious food like meat and eggs every day. Meals are poor here. Can they sustain my body?”

Kaliapa indicated that a vegetarian diet was more than acceptable for maintaining health. Saburo in time realized how important this statement was.

After some months, he stopped vomiting blood. His chronic fever dropped, and he gained weight. At first he thought, “This clean, fresh air must be good for me.” But years after he decided the vegetarian food improved his health. Throughout his life, he encouraged his students to follow a vegetarian, or at least semi-vegetarian, diet.

Once he understood kumbhaka, his guru began taking him to a waterfall deep in the mountain to meditate. Kaliapa riding a donkey and Saburo on foot went up the mountain daily. There was a flat rock near the basin of the waterfall. On their first visit, Kaliapa pointed at the rock and said, “Sit there and think about why you were born.” Once he was in the lotus position, his guru’s favored seated meditation posture, Kaliapa left.

Saburo sat and thought for hours. In the evening, his teacher abruptly appeared and asked for an answer to the question. His answer was wrong. Kaliapa suddenly struck him!

At that shocking instant, Saburo realized that we’re born with a great mission to work in unison with the universe. He later remembered feeling one with the universe and receiving its wisdom. Nakamura Sensei’s realization ultimately led him to declare that people are “lords of creation,” since only humankind is conscious of being born and the certainty that we’ll pass away. Even more, while plants and animals are one with the universe, just like human beings, only humanity can consciously recognize this and act upon it. Within the human race are reflexive attributes shared with plants, and an emotional nature similar to animals. But divergent from plants and beasts, humanity has an aptitude for logic seldom duplicated by animals. This capacity for rational thought can usher people away from their natural condition. But it also gives us the ability to consciously grasp our intrinsic harmony with the universe, a faculty which Nakamura Sensei called uchu-rei, the “universal mind,” or reiseishin, the “spiritual mind,” of a genuine human being.

He told this, in essence, to Kaliapa. And this time, his teacher replied, “Well done.”

The Voice of Heaven
Despite his realization, Saburo and Kaliapa continued visiting the waterfall for meditation. At first, Saburo was annoyed by the thundering cascade, complaining to his teacher, “That sound’s terrible and deafening; it drives me crazy. Can I sit somewhere more peaceful?”

Kaliapa replied, “I’ve thought deeply about this, and I’ve chosen that flat rock for your meditation.”

“Why?”

“To help you hear the Voice of Heaven.”

“The Voice of Heaven?”

“Yes.”

“The heavens have a voice?”

Saburo respected his guru, but he had doubts about this “Voice of Heaven” idea. Coming from a more urbane, educated society, he thought he was in a less sophisticated country. He asked cynically, “Have you ever heard the Voice of Heaven?”

“Yes, all the time. I’m hearing it even as we speak.”

This made no sense to Saburo. Kaliapa elaborated, “If you’re disturbed by the waterfall, you can’t hear it. Nor can you hear the Voices of the Earth.”

“You mean there are Voices of the Earth, too?”

Kaliapa explained, “Beasts howling, insects chirping, birds singing, the sound of the wind—these are all Voices of the Earth.”

“I already hear them.”

“Can you hear them by the waterfall’s basin?”

Saburo blurted, “No, it’s impossible! Near that overpowering sound, you can’t hear anything.”

“Think negatively and you really can’t hear them. Try to hear the Voices of the Earth today. Actually try first, and then see whether you hear them or not.”

He tried, but the roar thundered over him, and he couldn’t listen to a thing. But a few hours later, as he was closing his eyes and sitting calmly on his rock, he faintly heard chirping, “Twee, twee, twee.” He opened his eyes to see petite colorful birds flying from one stone to another. At first, it seemed like a hallucination, but suddenly he clearly heard a bird singing in unison with the movement of its hooked beak. After that, he noticed whenever he strained to listen to them, he couldn’t hear the birds. But when he did nothing, his mind grew unruffled and empty, and he could eavesdrop on their twittering. It was a key realization, one you’ll also find valuable when you study meditation in upcoming chapters. In short, the more we try to calm the mind, the more we unsettle it.

After days of sitting alone, motionless by the Himalayan cascade, Saburo perceived cicadas chirping, the wind rustling foliage, and even the howls of panthers and wolves deep in the woods. He happily reported this to Kaliapa.

“That’s wonderful. Now also listen for the Voice of Heaven.”

Saburo tried hard to perceive this Voice. However, he couldn’t hear anything. He didn’t have a single clue to go on, so he eventually asked Kaliapa, “What does the Voice sound like?”

“Did you also hear the Voices of the Earth, when you tried to hear the Voice of the Heaven?”

“What?”

Kaliapa clarified, “You can naturally hear the Voice of Heaven if you’re not attached to the Voices of the Earth that enter your ears.”

Saburo was puzzled, but kept struggling to notice the Voice of Heaven. “I’ll really ignore the Voices of the Earth,” he thought. But the more he tried, the more the natural sounds stuck in his mind. Saburo then understood if we strain to not think about something, we are thinking about it. Real meditation involves doing nothing and resting in complete naturalness.

Day after day he listened for the Voice of Heaven to no avail. He was irritated, but his ego wouldn’t let him ask Kaliapa another question. Frustration mounting, he began grinding his teeth.

He sat statue-like for long hours, absolutely motionless in meditation, beside the falls. And each day he experienced immense pain in his legs and back, to say little of his psychological torment. Once, he contemplated throwing himself into the basin of water at the bottom of the cataract. “How many days have passed like this?” he wondered.

One day, sitting with his eyes closed, he felt something lick his knee. He opened his eyes and saw an animal the size of a large dog. Saburo quickly realized this was no oversized puppy. It was a black panther.

Saburo stared at the panther. The panther stared at Saburo.

Looking into its glaring eyes, his mind emptied itself just as when he first heard the Voices of the Earth during meditation. He did nothing, and the big cat leisurely wandered down to a stream. After it departed, Kaliapa appeared and rushed to him, “Did you see the panther?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes I am, sir.”

Saburo was told Himalayan black panthers are the world’s most fierce and dangerous. On the way back home that evening, his guru asked, “Did you feel fear when you met the panther?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then you’ll hear the Voice of Heaven soon. When your eyes and the panther’s met, you did and thought nothing. That natural, unforced, innocent feeling is extremely important. Don’t forget that feeling!”

Three more months passed, but Heaven wasn’t talking. He told Kaliapa, “It’s really hard to hear this Voice.”

“If you think negatively, it is hard. Right now birds and cicadas are singing. But when you listen to me, your mind perceives them, yet it isn’t attached to them or distracted by them. You can only truly hear me when you aren’t mentally stuck on the other sounds in your environment. That’s why you can listen to me, right? That’s it. It’s the same thing. It’s simple.”

Saburo tried again and again to hear the Voice of Heaven, and it nearly drove him insane. Humiliated, his burden was nearing its limit.

“No more! I’m done. I give up.”

He stood up shouting, “What’s the use? I’ve lived my whole life without hearing that Voice. The hell with it!”

He threw himself face up on the grass. Opening his eyes halfway, he gently looked at the sky.

Flecks of clouds floated by, and he was slowly attracted to the changing form of each cloud. Although he still heard the sounds around him, unconsciously he found himself, once again, doing and thinking nothing.

Instantly, he experienced a state beyond thought, beyond personal ego, beyond suffering. He later wrote at that split second, in a moment outside of time, he penetrated deeply into the ultimate nature of life.

Kaliapa ambled up to the waterfall aboard his faithful donkey. However this particular sunset he found a transformed student. Saburo said to him as they left the mountain, “I was watching the clouds, and suddenly my thoughts about myself disappeared . . . just a vast void, brimming with energy. It’s indescribable, but I didn’t hear any Voice.”

“You’ve heard it at last!”

“What do you mean?”

“The Voice of Heaven is the Voice of the Universe. It’s a voiceless voice, a soundless sound—absolute stillness.”

“I see . . . well, I have another question. What will happen, now that I’ve heard the Voice?”

Kaliapa answered, “From this moment, your life will be guided by, and filled with, the immeasurable energy of the universe.”

“Energy of the universe?”

“Soon the signs of its presence will be clearly evident to you.”

Tears welled up in Saburo’s eyes. He thought, “I studied medicine at Columbia, but I couldn’t see this truth. Now the universe, trying to save a fool like me, whispers its secrets through this old man.” He cried in joy.

It was 1912. At 36 years old he experienced satori, or spiritual realization. And his illness was long gone. It never returned.


About the Author: H. E. Davey Sensei is the Director of the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts, located in the San Francisco Bay Area (http://www.senninfoundation.com/). In 2001, he wrote the first and only book in English about Nakamura Tempu Sensei and his system of Japanese yoga and meditation. The book is out of print, but autographed BRAND NEW copies can be purchased exclusively from the Sennin Foundation Center. Supplies are limited, and if you’d like to read more about how Japanese yoga can help you improve your health and realize your full potential, order a copy of Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation here:

http://www.senninfoundation.com/davey_yoga.html

The Life of Nakamura Tempu (1)

AWAKING FROM THE WANDERING DREAM—
THE LIFE OF NAKAMURA TEMPU
(Part One)

By H. E. Davey
Photos courtesy of Sawai Atsuhiro


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 (1)

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. A synthetic method, it’s also influenced by Japanese meditative and healing arts, martial arts, as well as Western psychology, medicine, and science. Shin-shin-toitsu-do is widely practiced throughout Japan. And 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, who led an equally remarkable life, created it. He was known in Japan as Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and this is his story.

The Birth of Nakamura Saburo
Nakamura Sensei’s father Sukeoki was a samurai (a bushi warrior) 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 Sensei’s mother, a charming woman, strong and reliable, was born in Tokyo.

For much of Japanese history, the Emperor reigned, but he didn’t actually rule. A feudal military regime, lead by the bushi caste, governed Japan with an iron fist.

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 Sensei’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 Sensei 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 family, and his family was fond of Saburo. They taught him conversational English on a daily basis. He excelled in English, a skill that served him well during his later travels in the USA, Europe, and India.

He was a wild child, and hoping that some discipline would settle little Saburo down, his parents enrolled him 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 gentleperson he became, a respected spiritual teacher who espoused world peace.

In junior high school, Saburo led the school judo club. When his squad defeated another school’s team in a tournament, the losers bore a grudge against him since he was the winning club’s headman. They ambushed him when 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 until Saburo snatched away the knife and plunged it into his adversary’s belly.

The boy died. Saburo went to prison. He was subsequently released after being declared innocent, having acted in self-defense. He obviously hated being bullied and losing to others.

While problematic in childhood, he later felt that, as he matured, aspects of this attitude helped him overcome several difficulties which arose in his life. In time, this inclination mutated into a search for perfection that caused him to take immense satisfaction in doing anything and everything thoroughly. Still later as a teacher, his perfectionism 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 (1894-95). He engaged in secret service activities in Manchuria and China a few months before the Sino-Japanese War. He studied Chinese intensely for one year in preparation for entering Mongolia and China.

When the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) broke out, he applied for a job as an undercover agent and got it—even though there were 2000 applicants. Saburo was chosen because his history indicated that he was courageous, and because he excelled at judo, kendo (a modern sport based on swordsmanship), and Zuihen Ryu batto-jutsu, an ancient form of swordsmanship. (His ties to Toyama Mitsuru, a political leader, also likely helped during the selection process.)

He worked as a spy in Manchuria with his partner Hashizume, a Japanese person born in Manchuria, but who looked Chinese. During the Russo-Japanese War their team blew up bridges and railways, slipped into the headquarters of the enemy to steal documents, and fought with bandits using swords. Saburo, in particular, was a lethal weapon when he had a sword in his hands. Despite his skill, he was captured by a Cossack cavalry and 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 Saburo’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?”

Saburo 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.”

Before he was to be executed, Saburo 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.”

When the shooters were about to fire, a hand grenade exploded. It marked the timely arrival of Hashizume. He was told of Saburo’s plight by a Chinese girl Saburo once saved from bandits. The commotion caused by the explosion allowed him to run away, albeit with a stake stuck to his back. It was a narrow escape. Later, this incident became a play performed in Japanese theaters.

Tuberculosis and the Search for a New Life
Japan won the Russo-Japanese War. However, Saburo’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 his parents’ house in Tokyo. (He was one of only nine people that returned home alive out of his group of 113 military personnel.) 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, and 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. In fact, the doctor who made this diagnosis gave him only six months to live.

Despite Saburo’s knowledge of Japanese healing methods, his condition worsened. This created not only a problem in his body but also in his mind. Along with tuberculosis came an existential crisis that was worse. Years later, he wrote that 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. He began reading about religion and philosophy, constantly pondering the meaning of life. He met religious authorities, Christian and Zen Buddhist, 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, who couldn’t actually teach them. When Saburo became the celebrated meditation teacher Tempu, his first priority was inventing easily understood principles and techniques of mind-body unification. He helped people with immense compassion, remembering what he went through during his illness.

Even with our modern ease of transportation, most of us wouldn’t travel internationally while seriously ill, but this wasn’t the case with Saburo. He visited the United States in 1909 to meet Orison Swett Marden, a doctor and author of books on personal growth. While in the U.S., Saburo received Western medical care, which initially seemed to cure him. Pleased with the potency of these treatments, Nakamura Sensei attended Columbia University, where he studied medicine.

But his illness returned, and he was crushed. After the long journey by ship, crossing the Pacific Ocean to seek answers about human mortality and to treat his disease, he was coughing up blood again.

Despite training in Japanese spiritual paths, since his tuberculosis diagnosis he’d become completely preoccupied with his body. Understanding this and maybe sensing that he had gone as far as he could with “body-oriented remedies,” he investigated 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 from conscientiously observing ordinary events, Nakamura Sensei thought a remedy might lie within his psyche, and it might be unearthed in daily life.

After medical training in New York, he felt the secrets of life weren’t confined to Japanese spiritual approaches. As a result, he eventually succeeded in contacting Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924), an important philosopher and the author of How to Get What You Want. Marden, a Harvard trained M.D., is considered by some to be the initiator of the modern human potential movement in the USA. Marden's first work, Pushing to the Front, published in 1894, sold well. In 1897, he founded Success Magazine, which reached the large circulation (for that era) of almost a half-million. His periodical ran into monetary difficulties and ceased publication in 1912. In 1918, he created a new Success, which was swiftly growing in circulation when Marden passed away in 1924. His numerous books express the need for optimism and self-assurance. He had roughly two million words waiting in unpublished manuscripts when he died. Despite his prolific and pioneering efforts in the psychosomatic field, Marden’s method provided no cure for Nakamura Sensei’s disease.

Nakamura Sensei then heard of a metaphysician, who’d successfully treated an ailment of Edison’s, applying psychosomatic medicine. None of it worked for him. Yet 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 an expensive psychology seminar lead by H. Addington Bruce called “Mental Activities and the Nervous System.” Bruce authored books like Adventurings in the Psychical, The Riddle of Personality, Scientific Mental Healing, and Sleep and Sleeplessness. From roughly 1903 and until America's entry into World War I, he wrote copious articles and books about psychology. During an era when extensive differences existed between psychologists as to subject matter and techniques of study, he developed a progressive portrayal of psychology, which emphasized the subconscious and the power of suggestion. Unlike more materialistic premises adopted by many academic psychologists, Bruce's pushing of 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.

Having probably read Bruce’s books, it’s easy to see why Saburo wanted to attend a seminar with such a well-known lecturer. At the conference, the speaker concluded: “If you have an illness, forget it. That’s the secret to curing a disease.” Saburo 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, and they quarreled. Saburo grew angry; he got up and kicked the door before leaving the room. 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. Even today many people teach various subjects in just that way, and this became a catalyst for his practical approach to teaching mind and body unification.

Inasmuch as he was 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.

About the Author: H. E. Davey Sensei is the Director of the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts, located in the San Francisco Bay Area (http://www.senninfoundation.com/). In 2001, he wrote the first and only book in English about Nakamura Tempu Sensei and his system of Japanese yoga and meditation. The book is out of print, but autographed BRAND NEW copies can be purchased exclusively from the Sennin Foundation Center. Supplies are limited, and if you’d like to read more about how Japanese yoga can help you improve your health and realize your full potential, order a copy of Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation here: http://www.senninfoundation.com/davey_yoga.html