The purpose of this study is to present one view regarding Kansei Experience in the zone with the happiness one feels when playing sports. Firstly, the characteristics of the zone experiences collected by Murphy and White, the characteristic properties of flow experiences organized by Csikszentmihalyi, and Kansei experiences gathered by Shiki and Fukubayashi were compared. Next, 19 athletes and coaches who represent top-level sports in Japan and internationally were interviewed about the zone and Kansei. Then, the results of the survey were analyzed from the point of view of the human energy field called aura. As a result, it is suggested that Kansei experience in the zone is involved in flow experience and is related to aura that can be felt not by eye sight but by extrasensory perception. It is revealed that the Kansei experience in the zone can be classified into 30 characteristics.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

This essay attempts to scrutinize the serious limitations within educational thinking and to provide a fundamentally different perspective that goes beyond these limitations, by drawing upon Eastern thought such as Zen, Advaita Vedanta, and Dzogchen. While educational thinking attempts to describe progressive changes in human development, these Eastern perspectives are identical in addressing ultimate reality as one that involves no change. Therefore, this essay regards educational thinking as an“ intraworld” perspective and such Eastern thought as an “extra-world” perspective. In addition, the extra-world reality is called“ pure awareness.” To expound the extra-world pure awareness, this essay explores some of the essential thoughts offered by Huang Po, Linchi, and Bankei from Zen, Ashtavakra, Sri Shankara, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj from Advaita Vedanta, and Namkhai Norbu from Dzogchen. It goes on to highlight several attempts to integrate these two seemingly opposing perspectives. In conclusions, it points out the danger of reducing an extra-world perspective to an intra-world perspective. Hence, it argues for the importance of establishing the extra-world perspective in order to recollect the wholeness of reality.

View full abstract

This study explores the issue of presence in psychotherapy which Carl Rogers called mystical and spiritual dimension or altered states of consciousness, through examining the concept of loving presence in Hakomi. First, by explicating the characteristics and structures of the Hakomi, the therapist and client relationship which Ron Kurtz called as healing relationship is examined, and thereby the Hakomi is clarified as a psychotherapy of second-person approach. Then, the function of loving presence is clarified through analyzing it both as a psychotherapeutic technique and as a development of psychotherapists’ personhood. Finally, two main principles of Hakomi, organicity and unity, as a foundation of loving presence, and two techniques of tracking and contact are examined to elucidate the whole picture of loving presence.　 It was shown clearly that presence needs to be understood from the viewpoint of the second-person approach and can be told as a method in the dimension of relationship.

View full abstract

A near-death experience is a transcendental and mystical phenomenon that an individual experiences in the hour of close to death or in critical condition. This article concerns seventeen cases of near-death experience in Japan. Data used for analysis　derived from semi-structured interviews. To examine how individuals’ view of life and death change after having such experience, the author compares two groups of individuals: those who had a near-death experience and those who were critically ill due to cancer and returned to life without having a near-death experience. Analysis reveals a significant difference between these groups regarding time consciousness. Individuals in the first group are conscious of a time after death, while those in the latter group emphasize a life time before death. Thus this difference leads us to conclude that a near-death experience can extend an individual’s view of life and death.

View full abstract