“We human beings think and ponder about various matters and things, but there are surprisingly few people who know the real meaning of why we do so. Rather, today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow. People just go on living day by day giving absolutely no thought to the reason why. ‘I didn’t sow those seeds!’ they say.
“But it’s not so. It is the thinking and pondering in our minds that makes us what we are today. Whether or not our dreams of becoming this or that come true depends not on external factors but on the power of thinking and pondering in our minds, which have been bestowed on us human beings. We cannot strengthen our convictions unless we understand this point.
“. . . If you decide to go to Tokyo and set off, it’s the same as arriving in Tokyo, because cause and outcome are unified. Depending on problems at the time, you might or might not make it. But that is the only difference. In terms of the notion, you have already arrived. When you decide that you like someone, you have already established in your mind what the ultimate objective is.
“. . . If, through some illness or misfortune, the heavens try to awaken you to the fact that there is something wrong in your way of doing things, the most important thing is not to bear a grudge but to be grateful and to adopt a positive attitude of cheerfully correcting the mistake. If you have time for moaning and groaning and losing heart, use it to point your mind in a positive direction. Life after all is just a stage on which minds acts.
“For example, when your business is not going well, don’t just cry ‘What an unlucky fellow I am!’ but think ‘Maybe someone up there is trying to tell me that this is the result of a big mistake in my attitude or method. My way of doing things was wrong. Ah, thank you so much! Usually if I went on like this, I would end up bankrupt. But I have been shown the light, so maybe I can make a comeback.’
“. . . Your approach to life will be entirely different depending on whether you have a positive or negative attitude. If you are positive, whatever happens, your life is going to be rosy, dashing, and full of vigor. If on the contrary you are negative, everything in life is going to be forever spiritless. If you have a negative attitude, everything in life is going to lack vigor.
“If you have a positive attitude to life, though, your strength of mind can turn the impossible into the possible.”
In January 1990 I had to spend some time in hospital. Someone from a certain maker came to see me and gave me a book to read: Seiko no hiketsu (The Secret of Success; not available over the counter) by Tempu Nakamura (1876–1968), the founder of Japanese yoga. Lying in my hospital bed, I read it over and over again and was deeply moved. For me, I think it was from then that the “truth” became specifically embedded at the bottom of my mind.
After that book, Nakamura went on to write many other works, including Seiko no jitsugen (The Realization of Success), and to attract an enormous number of followers. I myself also made the switch to positive thinking, which I have continued to this day. I firmly believe that Nakamura’s thinking reached the realm of heaven’s way.