Anne Hoff: Tsuguo, you have a strong background in Buddhism and religious studies besides being a Rolfer and doing other kinds of bodywork. That’s an interesting combination and I’m wondering how these influence each other in your life and in your practice. But to start, tell us about your background with Buddhism, as that came first.

Tsuguo Hirata: First of all, thank you Anne for this honor of being interviewed for the Journal. Before talking about my involvement to Buddhism, I want to say that I trained in karate during senior high school. I wanted to be physically strong and was influenced by karate comics and the real-life story of the famous karate school founder. However, in the spring of my second year I got in a motorbike accident and my left lower leg was broken into pieces. After two and a half months of treatment, my concern turned to becoming a spiritually strong man who was not afraid of death, and I read books on Buddhism and Indian philosophy and searched for the best training such as yoga and meditation.

Tsuguo Hirata

Anne Hoff

I then majored in Buddhism and Indian philosophy at university in Kyoto. My concern at that time was how I could become enlightened and what enlightenment is. In Japan, as well as in Asia, we have many schools and branches of Buddhism. I was checking into each school’s advocates and its areas of superiority to others, but this generated confusion. I asked my questions to students ahead of me and to my professors, but their study of Buddhism was strictly intellectual study of ancient texts, starting from language study. I almost gave up on finding excellent Japanese Buddhism teachers. So I spent my time reading books about the great teachers of the past: Kukai, the founder of Japan’s Shingon-Mantrayana sect of Buddhism, Tibetan yogis such as Milarepa, and Indian yogis such as Yogananda. But I could not get peace of mind just from mental speculation. Honestly, I didn’t have good teachers or an acharya (realized teacher) for taking the path of Buddhism at that time. I wrote my graduation thesis on Ramana Maharishi, Ramakrishna, and Sri Aurobindo, and their influence on the subsequent hippie movement in California.

Then, after graduation, I spent twenty years being a businessman in the computer industry, keeping my innermost concerns for Buddhism inside. Towards the end of that career I attended Tibetan Buddhist retreats overseas and Zen retreats in Japan. Then in 2000, at the age of forty-three, I started learning Rolfing® Structural Integration [SI] in Boulder, quitting my company because I was totally bored with a corporate career.

AH: It sounds like you had a midlife crisis, as we call it in English. Something in you woke up and you returned to your true interests, your true self. Tell us how you came to be a Rolfer and what other kinds of bodywork you practice.

TH: That’s a good description, midlife crisis: that applies to my life at that time. In learning Rolfing SI, I was searching for the possibility of changing an ordinary person into a kind of ‘superman’ who could recover from injuries and dysfunctions. From Rolfing sessions, I felt good about my own body’s changes and my increased awareness of body and movement. I saw the effectiveness of the work during my training; however, I was not totally content with Rolfing SI alone. I started to feel subtle pain and bodily discomfort, especially in the area of my old injury in the left lower leg. Some of the best Rolfing instructors did very good work on me, but there was something fundamental that hadn’t changed.

So I started to learn biodynamics through Tom Shaver, DO, as well as visceral manipulation, and nerve/artery manipulation from the Barral Institute. Besides that, I learned esoteric healing through the International Network for Energy Healing, as well as embryology and Somatic Experiencing®. These taught me that the body is not only made of anatomy, the physical solid stuff, but also includes the subtle body, fluid body, emotional body, electromagnetic body, and mental body (including consciousness, memory, beliefs, and concepts). The more I learn various types of bodywork, the more I ask myself, “As a practitioner, what kind of changes do I want? As a client, what kind of changes do I expect?” We can enhance our touch sensitivity, our perception too. Deeper, serious change will happen at very subtle levels of the body and can be perceived in a still calm mind state.

AH: Now I see the path of Buddhism/ consciousness studies intersecting with the bodywork!

TH: Yes. As I studied subtle levels of touch and searched for more effective touch from the physical side, I noticed that what we gain and realize through Buddhist training is very close to what I was searching for as a bodyworker or in working with clients’ minds or beliefs. Buddhism teaches that our existence is made of body, speech, and mind. Our body, speech, and mind are working together incessantly; however, we do not know the integrity and the integrated state of Body, Speech, and Mind. Buddhist training has various kinds of practices to calm body and mind, to observe body and mind, and to integrate body, speech, and mind. On the other hand, after a good Rolfing session, the client’s body looks radiant, divine, and integrated, his mind has stilled, his perception becomes refined. Clients feel their body as fresh and new, they start to see and feel their world with new eyes. At that moment, or later on, they can rethink how they handle their potential.

In Mantrayana Vajrayana practice, we establish a calm and pure mind through visualization practice and observing prana (the life force moving in the body) and thus begin to control the life force. In visualization practice we have to use our mind’s creative ability with sharpness, clarity, and precision, projecting an insubstantial inner world that we explore and scrutinize with subjective inner perception. As a practitioner, I can apply this experience to my subjective experience of touch, to explore and scrutinze my touch perception clearly and consciously. It is helpful to distinguish between clear sensation and unclear sensation, as well as to catch the changes in gradation.

Also through Buddhist training, I have become more sensitive to pain and discomfort in both my body and in my client’s body, and my touch has become more sensitive as well as more calm and subtle. So I can sum it up by saying that Buddhist training cultivates a bright and clear mind, and that strongly and directly affects my touch as attention, awareness, and the precise observation of process.

AH: I think this is a very valuable point. Meditation trains the mind in various ways. It can train the consciousness to be one-pointed, able to discriminate clearly and track in a precise nuanced way. It can also train the mind to open to spacious consciousness that is neutral and sensitively aware to the totality of the field. There’s no doubt that these are useful states for bodyworkers to cultivate. Tell us a bit about your practice.tension in the body parts. He uses his bones as electromagnetic conductors.

AH: That sounds fascinating. I hope you will share more about the ninja arts in a future article. I have another question about your practice. Do you share any Buddhist or meditation ideas with your clients, or just let the way it has integrated into your touch have whatever effect it has on the client?

TH: That depends on the situation and the client. If a client shows interest in yoga exercise or meditation. I introduce some yogic breathing. If he relates that his brain functioning seems to be deteriorating (e.g., memory or perception difficulties), I recommend mantra recitation and visualizing a (written) character to enhance mental clarity and also coordinate the mind with the visual and auditory capacity. I have also experimented with visualizing a divine character and reciting a mantra while touching to monitor the affect on the troubled area of the client’s body, and this does support change in the client’s body.

Figure 1: A Japanese scroll for meditation/ visualization practice. The ancient Sanskrit character representing the character ‘A’ (sounds like ‘ah’) in the white moon translates as ‘the unborn nature of our mind’ or the mind essence. The white moon is a representation of purity of both mind and heart. The lotus is a symbol of supporting power and cultivates creative power for the mind and heart.

AH: Are clients open to this? I think if you did that in the U.S., you’d be considered ‘new age’ and ‘flakey’ by many people. But Japan has a long Buddhist history – even though most Japanese do not practice Buddhism except to visit temples on particular occasions – so I suspect there would be more respect for such practices.

TH: Even in Japan I would be called a ‘flakey’ guy if I pushed these things on ordinary people in my sessions. I have introduced these Buddhist practices to just a couple of my long-term Rolfing clients, and I will introduce this idea to interested Rolfing colleagues in the future. I think it’s worth consideration as Buddhist practices have been devised, developed, and experientially ‘tested’ over two thousand years. As a biodynamics practioner, I was taught that the slightest intention and strong attention affect both the practioner’s touch and the client’s body.

AH: What are your current interests concerning Rolfing SI other than the topics we’ve discussed?

TH: These days I am interested in fluid work. Tissues need living fluid to recover qualitatively. This past January I took Jane Stark, DOMP’s workshop, “A Fluidic Approach to the Treatment of Connective Tissue,” where I studied the relationship between fluid and fascia from a different perspective than I knew from biodynamics. I’m interested also in the relationship between fluid in the body and gravity. In our work and experience as Rolfers, I believe we will learn more about the role and function of gravity on our structure. I believe that gravity is affecting our fluids, bones, and fascia, and that we will come to understand another level of Ida Rolf aphorism ‘gravity is the therapist’. I appreciate this opportunity and hope that this article will be of some benefit to the Rolfing community.

AH: Thank you, Tsuguo. You bring a very unique background and perspective to our work!

Tsuguo Hirata graduated from Kyoto University in Japan in 1981, majoring in Buddhism and Indian philosophy. After spending almost twenty years as a businessman in computerrelated industry, he began Rolfing training in Boulder in 2000 and was certified in 2001. He became a Certified Advanced Rolfer in 2005 after completing Advanced Training in Europe. His Rolfing practice is in Tokyo, Japan.

Anne Hoff is a Certified Advanced Rolfer in Seattle, Washington. She is also a teacher of the Diamond Approach®, a modern spiritual path, and interested in the interface of consciousness and physical embodiment.

Body, Speech, and Mind[:]