Introduction During my life, I have experienced and observed the miseries of world war, together with the misery of present-day society--the various diseases and poverty, greed and selfishness, failure and difficulties, anger and hatred, discrimination and prejudice. In my youth, I was inspired with the dream of realizing world peace through many possible measures, including the establishment of a World Federation. However, through the process of maturing, I have become able to see that world peace can be achieved only through the reconstruction of humanity, or the resurrection of man, from current degenerative trends which have prevailed throughout the world, increasing with the development of modern civilization. At the same time, I was able to have an enlightening experience during meditation, which revealed universal and eternal life. I have also had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of ancient oriental philosophies and religions, which should be combined together with the modern occidental thought and way of life. In this regard I am grateful for the inspired teaching of George Ohsawa and many other present-day philosophers, as well as ancient spiritual, philosophical and scientific thinkers. All miseries in human affairs come from our personal incomprehension of the order of the universe, or we may say, our ignorance of ourselves. From this ignorance we misguide our daily way of life in our dietary practice, social relations, and mental attitude as well as spiritual comprehension.
Life is one infinite universe itself, and our way of life should be simple and practical, according to the order of the infinite universe. Realization of health and happiness is the easiest and simplest way. On the basis of this understanding, I have begun to spread the way of life which everyone can practice at any time as the simplest means to achieve health and happiness, freedom and peace--known as the macrobiotic way of life. Together with the spread of the way of life for humanity for one peaceful world, I have encouraged the adaptation of several traditional ways of physical, mental and spiritual development, namely, oriental medicine, acupuncture, moxibustion, shiatsu massage, palm-healing, meditation, and mental and spiritual exercises. In order to reinforce our own development, I also began to introduce an ancient macrobiotic practice, Do- -In, in the United States about thirty years ago. I am grateful to Mr. Jacques DeLangre and Mr. Jean Bernard Rishi for their respective books on Do- -In, which introduced part of these exercises.
However, the Do- -In which I introduced was a partial exercise, mainly related to energizing our physical and mental vitality, and did not fully explain other aspects of Do- -In which are more spiritually oriented. I have been obliged for the past several years to introduce the general scale of the entire scope of Do- -In exercises. It has been necessary to rediscover and reconstitute the Do- -In exercises because these ancient macrobiotic exercises were largely lost in many areas, although some of them have been practiced among a limited society of seekers in the Far East. The entire scale of Do- -In exercise is not limited to the several series of exercises introduced in this book. These ancient macrobiotic exercises were actually the origin of all physical, mental and spiritual exercises which are currently differentiated into various kinds of meditation, chanting, yoga exercise, physiopsychological training, the martial arts, as well as other methods of self-development. The origin of Do- -In exercise is simply our intuitive self-adjustment to maintain and develop ourselves, within the ocean of universal life or the infinite universe. Therefore, the beginning of Do- -In exercise is historically unknown, but it has always existed with human life, throughout all generations of mankind. However, it was over 10,000 years ago when Do- -In exercises were actively adapted in the ancient way of physical, mental and spiritual development to produce free man--the Tao of Shin-Sen (), the Way of Spiritual Free Man.
The uniqueness of these exercises is that anyone can practice them at any time as daily exercises under ordinary circumstances, without requiring any partner or special technique. In this sense, all races, all ages, man and woman, can practice them easily for health and happiness. Some of the exercises introduced in this book are my own modification in the hope that they may benefit everyone. I sincerely hope that everyone throughout the world will freely practice these exercises for his or her own physical health, beauty, and spiritual happiness.