Since 1990, I have learned Body-Psychotherapy and Body Work from many teachers who’re from Europe, the United States of America, and Brazil. As my studies progressed, I wanted to integrate the knowledge of Western culture into the knowledge of Eastern culture. Originally I was interested in Zen Buddhism and Japanese Animism. I needed to deepen my self in the Japanese way because I had to treat my clients with Japanese Character Structures.

I experienced inner silence, emptyness, fullness, and calmness as if the pond’s surface became a mirror when my Hara was opened, softened, filled with energy, and centered in 1994. Since then, I have felt a deep sense of “Japanese Spirituality” in my body and the therapy sessions. I searched for an environment and a traditional Japanese house where we could feel inner silence.

In 2009, I bought a traditional Japanese house built one hundred years ago on the mountainside of Niigata Prefecture. I wanted to feel how the environment influenced our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and energies in a traditional Japanese house. I thought that our ego structures unconsciously received a lot of influence from the environment, especially the structure of the houses where we lived. I choose the Joetsu region of Niigata Prefecture in Japan.

This area is not a tourist resort and remains Satoyama before modernization, especially since this mountainside is one of the heaviest snowfall areas in the world. the heavy snow leads us to inner silence naturally. I would like to call it “Echigo” instead of Joetsu (Echigo is the old name).

Daisetz Suzuki who was Japanese eminent Buddhist scholar wrote the book, “Japanese Spirituality” and he explained two streams of Buddhism which had deepened Japanese Spirituality, one was Zen Buddhism, the other was Pure Land Buddhism this book. He emphasized that Japanese spirituality could never happen in Kyoto and that it must happen by grounding the essence of the earth. He mentioned that Shinran Shonin who was a Founder of Jodo Shinshu (Pure Land Buddhism)  had deepened Japanese Spirituality by living in Echigo.

I put two Daisetz Suzuki’s “Japanese Spirituality” extracts on this site.

The Nature of the Earth

Japanese Spirituality and the Earth

Some famous Buddhist monks, Kenshin Uesugi, Hakuin, Ryokan, and Nichiren, had lived in Niigata Prefecture.

This is the reason why I chose this region to embody Japanese Spirituality.

I am sure this region still has Japanese spirituality, and I would like to share it with people interested in this essence.

Notice

Inner Silence Hermitage does not belong to any religious organization.

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