Hara or Mind Over Labor

Hara: The Vital Center of Man

Author: Karlfried Graf Durckheim

EASTERN PHILOSOPHY

“Hara is essential reading for all who inquire into the spiritual principles and practices that are fundamental to all wisdom traditions and natural healing professions.”
Don Stapleton, author of Self-Awakening Yoga

When we speak of an individual’s state, we are actually referring to something that transcends the duality of body and soul, something that reflects the entirety of a person’s being. Because each of us is a unity of body and soul, there is no psychic structure or inner tension that is not reflected outwardly in the form and order of the body. When we find the physical center of the body we also find the psychological center of the soul. According to Zen masters, by correcting posture and breathing to balance this center, one can cultivate inner tranquillity and balance: the state called Hara.

Karlfried Graf Dürckheim shows the Western world how to overcome the physical and spiritual decay of modern life by adopting the age-old techniques of Japanese Zen masters. By leaving behind the “chest out-belly in” posture and attitude of the West and adopting the belly-centered posture and attitude of Hara, individuals can live a calm, grounded, and more balanced life. Included in this classic text are vital life force practices and translations of the wisdom teachings of three Japanese Zen masters. This book also explores how the practice of Hara emphasizes empirical learning and the cultivation of self-knowledge through the perfection of arts such as painting and archery.

Karlfried Graf Dürckheim (1896-1988) spent eight years in Japanbefore World War II and was a professor at the University of Kiel until Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. In Japan he discovered Zen Buddhism in its various expressions and subsequently became a Western authority on the subject.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part I--Hara in the Life of the Japanese
1   Hara in the Life of the Japanese
2   Hara in the Life of the Japanese
3   Hara as the Purpose of Practice
4   Hara in the Japanese Language

Part II--Hara in its General Human
                 Significance
1   Eastern and Western Views of Hara
       The General Significance of the Center
          of the Body
       The European Attitude to the Belly
       Natural Hara
       The Two Levels

Part III--Man With Hara
1   The Living Form Centered in Hara
2   The Ego and the Vital Center
3   Malformations of the I
4   Hara as Secular Power
5   Hara in Experience: Insight and Practice
6   The Strength, Breadth, and Closeness 
       Engendered by Hara
7   The Order of Life in the Symbolism
       of the Body

Part IV--Hara as Practice
1   The Purpose and Prerequisite of 
       All Practice
2   The Purpose and Limits of Practice
3   The Prerequisites of all Practice
4   Posture, Breath, Tension--as Starting
       Points of Practice
5   The Practice of Right Posture
6   Sitting with Hara
7   Tension-Relaxation
8   The Practice of Breathing

Part V--Retrospect and Outlook
1   Retrospect and Outlook

Appendix--Japanese Texts
1   Okado Torajiro
2   Sato Tsuji-The Teachings of the Human
        Body
3   Kaneko Shoseki-Nature and Origins
        of Man

Index

Karlfried Graf Dürckheim (1896–1988) spent eight years in Japan before World War II and was a professor at the University of Kiel until Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. In Japan he discovered Zen Buddhism in its various expressions and subsequently became a Western authority on the subject.

Look this: Migraines or Sound Medicine

Mind Over Labor

Author: Carl Jones

The fear and pain most women expect from pregnancy can at last be overcome. Carl Jones, a certified childbirth educator, tells how using mental imagery can help you reduce the the pain of labor by controlloing the fear beforehand. His easy-to-follow, eight-step method, which teaches your mind to cooperate with your body, will help make your childbirth less stressful and more natural. Whether you plan to give birth at home, in a childbearing center, or in a hospital, Carl Jones's simple exercises will put you in touch with the best instrument of birth there is - yourself.

Publishers Weekly

``This book will show you how to create the kind of birth you want,'' writes Jones, author of After the Baby Is Born, etc. He compares childbirth to lovemaking in terms of the potential joy for the woman and claims that the key to a ``safe, happy birth'' is mental imagerythe art of creating vivid pictures in the mind to help the woman ``surrender'' to the ``pleasure'' of childbirth. Mental-imagery exercises include thinking of a ``Special Place,'' such as a favorite beach, or envisioning the child in the womb and asking ``what he or she needs.'' Jones stresses the importance of a mellow labor environment and subtly promotes the idea of delivery at home or in a childbearing center, but he fails to spell out the risks of a nonhospital delivery. His goal of a well-informed, positive-thinking pregnant couple is admirable, but his insistence that attitude can overcome virtually any problem is questionable. (February)