Learning of life, Seimei (生命)

Japanese character for Soul

This week of June 25th, was the last time Yoseido Shiatsu Academy’s 3rd year shiatsu students had practiced Shiatsu on patients at St. Luc Hospital. Those who came for a year on a twice-a-month basis should report on how they lived working on all of their patients.

Of course, shiatsu is a preventive method, so it’s not really its purpose the removing of pain or the symptom, but it’s very important to feel how the patients will face their disease, anxiety, fear, including physical pain, especially the patients who are being treated for a serious disease like cancer.

The life of each individual is very precious, we realize this when we are in front of someone who has a very serious illness, in such a situation, when we see the patient who breathes with difficulty, every breath we take when we are in good health we never think such a thing will happen to us. Often these 3rd year students of Shiatsu will face the really sick in front of them, they realize, life is so fragile and so delicate and precious.

This metaphysical aspect plays a very important role in posing the question of better understanding the meaning of life. The shiatsu meridian pioneer Shizuto Masunaga, the one who wrote the shiatsu meridian book, used the vocabulary, Seimei Kiyokan (生命 共 感), it’s sometimes hard to translate that word, but we can say that it’s like feeling the vital soul of others.

In Buddhism Kannô dokô (感 応 道 交) is said to mean the depth of belief that brings us closer to the spirit of the Buddha. We are human beings who have feelings, more exactly a soul that shares with other souls. When we do shiatsu we discover that there are many points that indicate all these points of different souls. So in shiatsu we try to feel our soul as well as the physical body. Often the students who had shiatsu with the sick people in the hospital, felt this direct contact of their souls.

In the Eastern concept, there is the physical body, the mind, intellectual capacity, and the soul that exists since one was born. It is of great importance in this part of the soul that our sense of destiny, inspiration comes.