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

by Gregg Krech

Some people spend their entire life in one place. It may be New York City or a small town in Iowa, but it's the only place they know. I've also spent my whole life in one place — in this collection of bones, skin, muscles and nerves called a "body." All my experience, from the days prior to my physical birth up to this Summer morning in the Vermont's Green Mountains have been spent in this body. The only experience I know, or at least I can recall, is the experience of living, loving and working in this body. So I'm really a very limited person.

Since I have no comprehension of what life would be like anywhere else, it is quite easy for me to fail to appreciate my body. For the past twenty years, I don't believe a day has gone by where I didn't complain about my body in one way or another. A pulled muscle, a stiff back, mosquito bites on my leg. Yet many days go by without a mention, or even a moment of noticing, the gift of this body and the gifts which, in turn, this body bestows upon me. And the greatest blessing my body provides is the gift of sensory experience. My body allows me to make contact with the world around me. Visual contact. Auditory contact. The contact between my skin and the textures of creation. The fragrances, stenches and aromas of a world that is constantly dying and being born and making itself known through its odors. The tastes of everything from wine to oregano as my life devours other forms of life, many of which have their own unique flavors. I wonder if I have a unique flavor as well.

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.

by Dr. Richard Blonna

Introduction
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), is a “third-generation” form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) that became prominent in the Western psychotherapeutic community in the early 2000’s in America (Hayes, 2004, 2005). In many ways, ACT is remarkably similar in theory and application to Morita Therapy, conceived by Shoma MORITA in the early 20th century in Japan (Morita et. al, 1998). This article will explore these similarities and examine key differences between these two approaches to dealing with the pain and suffering associated with life.

The Origins of Morita Therapy
Morita therapy was developed by the Japanese psychiatrist Shoma MORITA (1874-1938). Morita had a distinctly Eastern, Zen-based perspective on psychological illnesses such anxiety disorders. It is fascinating to realize that Morita was a contemporary Sigmund Freud, William James, Carl Jung, and others who helped shape the emerging Western psychotherapies.
Zen Buddhism influenced Morita theory and practice in a few key ways. In Zen Buddhism, there is no separation between nature and the human spirit, they are one. Because of this, . . .

by Gregg Krech

During our Living on Purpose course we surveyed the participants and found that nearly 80% struggled with distraction. Early in the course we talk about the metaphor of a vase with sand and big rocks (Covey, 1994). The big rocks are the things that are truly important. These are the tasks, activities and projects that give our lives meaning. The sand represents the numerous activities that dominate our time, ranging from cooking meals to walking the dog. For most of us, there is so much sand that it can easily fill the vase. And it does. And when it does, there isn’t any room for the big rocks. So at the end of the month (or year, or decade) we look back and find that we managed to stay afloat, but the things that really mattered received little or no attention. Somehow we need a way to get those big rocks into our vase.

Several years ago my wife Linda and I sat on the deck of the ToDo Institute overlooking the Green Mountains and made a list of possible priorities. What were the big rocks? What was really important? What would really be meaningful if we could find the time to do it? Our list had over twenty things on it and this didn’t include any of the activities we did just to keep our life going. So we came up with the Box System. Since that time it’s gone through several revisions and mutations and I’d like to share it with you. You can use this approach as a family, as a couple, or by yourself . . .