Welcome to the ToDo Institute's Library of Japanese Psychology and Purposeful Living. Please take your shoes off (Japanese style) and come in and browse through a wide variety of resources designed to help you meet some of the most challenging situations you may encounter.

Our work is primarily grounded in methods of Japanese psychology (particularly Morita and Naikan therapies) and if you have experience with Western psychology you will find these approaches quite different. For many people, the blending of the psychological, the spiritual, and the practical is a refreshing and useful contrast to the traditional methods offered in the West.

Our library is set up so that ToDo Institute members have full access to all our resources, over 100 articles, and non-members have limited access to the underlined articles listed in the right margin. If you'd like to become a member, click on "Become a Member" in the left margin of this page for more information and a list of the benefits. We are a non-profit organization and your membership helps support projects like this library and work with disadvantaged groups like prisoners, cancer patients, people with mental illness, and others.

As you read articles you are also invited to post comments and responses to the articles. At the end of each library article is a simple method for you to post your comments, which are then available to other library visitors.

So enjoy your visit and let us know if we can be of further assistance.

todo@together.net

Best wishes,

Gregg Krech
Director, ToDo Institute

Soon we will be lifting our heads towards the sky to witness the dazzling display of fireworks that marks the celebration of Independence Day. It's a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our good fortune of being born, through no effort of our own, on the soil of a country which offers us a great deal of freedom. We can easily take this freedom for granted. We mostly go where we want to go, say what we want to say, worship the way we want to worship -- and pay little attention to this gift of freedom. But freedom is different from independence. (To listen to this podcast, click the link below)


MP3 File

by Victoria Register Freeman

I am basically a can-do kind of person. When my husband of eighteen years said he preferred our next door neighbor as a companion, I used up several tons of Kleenex and lost three dress sizes. Ultimately, with the help of many friends, I figured out how to get my tires balanced and use the TV remote. When a remodeling contractor gave me a five figure estimate for removing a wall prior to remodeling, I borrowed his ten pound sledge hammer and had the wall on the curb in 72 grocery bags three weeks later. But last summer I faced a task that did not seem doable – to clean out and rent my father’s home.

The home, which I checked on regularly, is located on the banks of the Suwanee River. It had stood vacant for the eighteen months since my father’s stroke left him partially paralyzed and mute. In some ways it was a museum to his memory. The cracked leather flight jacket was still draped over the back of one of the ladder back chairs. The camouflage overalls, hats and shirts were still in the laundry basket where he had placed them the morning of the stroke. Waist high stacks of Senior Golfer magazine sat by the T.V. chair as did equally large stacks of NRA Today. Most horizontal surfaces sported baseball caps with logos ranging from Pebble Beach Golf to Shirley’s Bar-B-Que. One entire garbage can was filled with . . .

by Peter Smith

In 1999, Peter participated in a course on Naikan reflection with the ToDo Institute. During that time he reflected on a number of his relationships, including his relationship with his mother. He wrote the following essay, describing how this reflection impacted on his relationship with her.

Last summer, due to economic circumstances, I lived with my mother and father. I was very nervous about this as the majority of the time my mother does not want me to live at home and I rarely want to live there as well. Just to put things in context, my mother is an alcoholic, addict, and, as I was growing up, was a rabid feminist who hated men and yet was utterly dependent on them at the same time. I am just as stubborn in many ways. I don’t put up with a lot of nonsense from her and neither does she from me.

In June, I began doing daily Naikan reflection on my relationship with my mother and went year by year, circumstance by circumstance. I was absolutely amazed by the generosity of my mother throughout my life. My former therapy taught me to hate her and blame my problems on her. Yet with Naikan, I saw a very scared woman who constantly gave and gave at her own expense. Who changed a thousand pooply diapers and nursed me through all kinds of illnesses. And in myself, I saw a kid, a teenager, and a man who did nothing but take and complain and inconvenience her.

I sent her a thank you card and an . . .

The following letter was inspired by reflections during a two-week Naikan Retreat in Japan. During the retreat the author was deeply struck by the depth and breadth of the care he had received throughout his childhood. He felt compelled to acknowedge this by offering his sincere appreciation to his mother in a letter he composed spontaneously after finding a robin's nest in the garden. He realized that, throughout his entire childhood, he couldn't once remember saying thank you to his mother.

Dear Mom,

I hope this letter finds you doing well and that your back is feeling a bit better. I'm thankful to have the opportunity to see you next week - a delayed mother's day meeting - and I look forward to my visit.

I have enclosed a picture of some beautiful baby robins in a nest by our garden last spring. It was a wonderful experience to find the three soft, blue eggs and watch them hatch one by one. I would go up to the nest and make a squeaky bird sound and they would pop up their heads and open their mouths. They reminded me so much of myself. They couldn't yet see, but their automatic reaction was to think only of what they wanted. Their mother and father cared for them diligently, searching for food and bringing it back for the children. I doubt these robins were as difficult children as I was, but it wasn't long until they were strong enough to fly away on their own. Perhaps they are building a nest this spring and raising their own family.