A Swordsman and Constructive Living
Introduction.
Life wisdom underlies the principles of swordsmanship put forward by the famous samurai, Miyamoto Musashi. Some of this same life wisdom provides the foundation for Constructive Living. In this section I borrow quotations from A Book of Five Rings, Musashi's treatise on fighting strategy, and point out their parallels with Constructive Living. I sometimes assign the study of Musashi's book to my students and frequently quote from it. Page numbers in the text below are from the translation by V. Harris, published in 1974.
Let us begin with The Four Oaths:
"Never be late with respect to the Way of the warrior. Be useful to the lord. Be respectful to your parents. Get beyond love and grief: exist for the good of man." (p. 39)
The first oath has to do with putting one's Path first. Our Path or Way or Guiding Principles or God or whatever we wish to call that which supports our lifeway provides order and coherence to all of what we do. To keep it in our thinking helps focus our purpose. To reflect on what we might have done or should have done is to "be late with respect to the Way." Right now, what does your Way call you to do?
The second oath demands that we live up to our responsibilities. For the samurai, the lord (the daimyo who has engaged his services, for example) deserves faithful support, even to the point of the sacrifice of life. We must be clear on our responsibilities to our families, our employers, our neighbors, our government and others in our lives. We must "be useful to" them, in the way we have contracted either formally or informally. Too often, we avoid looking clearly at what we owe these important people and organizations, much less do we meet our obligations to them impeccably.
The third oath refers to our obligations to those who raised us. We owe a special debt to our parents or parent surrogates. Whatever their imperfections we must come to terms with our debt to them and begin diligently to repay them directly or indirectly (through our children or students, for example) before we can develop true human maturity.
The fourth oath is about giving ourselves away, about our need to "exist for the good of man." Until we go beyond ourselves every twist of fate, every broken dream, every loss of a loved one, every hope, every success, every flickering infatuation will throw our lives off balance. When the focus is on me and getting my share, I shall have a life of disappointment, narrowness, misery.
Musashi is not writing only about how to be a great swordsman. He is writing about how to be a great human. He is applying broad principles to the specific case of the warrior.
Principles of the Way.
"1. Do not think dishonestly.
2. The Way is in training.
3. Become acquainted with every art.
4. Know the Ways of all professions.
5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
6. Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.
7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
8. Pay attention even to trifles.
9. Do nothing which is of no use." (p. 49)
Do these principles sound familiar? If you have read other books about Constructive Living they should remind you of what you read there. If you have listened to someone who has lived a long time and kept his/her eyes open you have encountered something similar. Let us examine these pan-human principles one by one.
1. Do not think dishonestly. Habits of dishonesty confuse and distract us from straightforward living. When certain psychological tests are given, the test administrator records the amount of time it takes the subject to come up with a response. The more time it takes, the more likely the subject was censoring the response. Dishonesty inhibits spontaneity.
But we are advised not even to think dishonestly, much less to act without deception. Thoughts arise without our conscious control, without our desire, at times. How can we help the occasional dishonest cogitation? As always, the principle from which we benefit is that of working on what is controllable in order to affect the uncontrollable. Behavior is controllable. By "doing" our lives with integrity we foster thinking with integrity. In the smallest detail we must act with honesty if we wish to influence how we think. The paperclip we brought home from the office, the excessive amount of change that was returned to us by that cashier, the lie we told our client, the embellishment on our resume--all must be corrected and avoided in the future. The promises we make to ourselves and to our children, our parents, and other loved ones must be kept. The solution lies in the doing.
2. The Way is in training. The Way is not in the result of training, and the Way is not in solely thinking about or reading about training. What do I mean when I write that the Way lies not in the result of training? I mean precisely what Dogen meant when he wrote that sitting in zazen meditation doesn't lead to enlightenment, it is enlightenment already.
Some of the students who come to Maui for certification training in Constructive Living get so involved in the learning and exercises that they are having the time of their lives. They may think that they are learning the Way, but they are already experiencing the Way. Their growth isn't directing them toward the Way, it is the Way already.
3. Become acquainted with every art. Musashi suggests a broadening effort here. When life is centered only in business or when life shuffles between business and home it is overly narrow. We can become unnecessarily vulnerable to setbacks in one area of living when it is the only area we know and care about.
Some of my suffering students have no hobbies, no interests in reading or music or art or other people. Their lives center around their misery. They need to broaden their awareness and purposes and interests. They need to outgrow their symptoms.
4. Know the Ways of all professions. Here Musashi requires that we not only know about other occupations and arts, but that we study how the basic principles of the Way apply specifically to those endeavors. We go beyond the broadening of our interests and understanding to the deepening of our wisdom. We begin to see the underlying operations of the Way, the breadth and depth of it as we move beyond our own specialty.
5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters. What are the rewards/costs of cheating in business? What are the rewards/costs of an extramarital affair? What are the gains and losses of succeeding in upper management, of getting through college, of having a baby, of joining a church, of physical exercise, of owning an automobile, of raising a garden? To be ignorant in these worldly matters will interfere with attaining other ambitions. We must be "as wise as serpents" about the ways of the world. Naivete is no virtue.
6. Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything. Often, our minds are just playing, trying to keep us interested. We need to recognize this tendency and accept it while getting on with what really needs to be done in our lives. Judgement and understanding come from paying attention to what is going on around us, checking out the results of our actions, living fully, failing frequently, querying others, and allowing time and experience to pass through the filter of assessment.
7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen. I don't believe that this principle has to do with mysticism. More likely, it refers to the mental world of ourselves and others. With practice, we come to recognize what is probably going on in another person's mind. We learn to sense subtle shifts in mood and attitude. Constructive Living, too, suggests that we notice and accept our own feelings and those of others. Feelings are part of reality. They hint at what needs to be done.
I suspect that Musashi, too, had the purpose-pointing function of feelings in mind when he recorded this principle. He writes elsewhere of the necessity of discerning one's opponent's mind and one's own mental tendencies if one is to fight well.
8. Pay attention even to trifles. How often this advice comes up across the wisdom of the ages! It is in the details of daily existence that life is lived. To ignore them is to miss the chance to develop skills of observation and perseverance. Life cannot be lived fully without attention to details.
On the other hand, our attention to detail must fit within some framework of order and purpose. It is possible to become lost in the myriads of minutiae. Purpose and action guide us past such a danger.
9. Do nothing which is of no use. In the language of Constructive Living, be purposeful in everything you do. There should be a reason for every activity, even the slightest lifting of the hand, the briefest word. Being clear on one's purpose eliminates useless action, meaningless action, empty action.
Experiential understanding
The importance of experiential understanding is stressed by Musashi just as it is by practitioners of Constructive Living: "If you merely read this book you will not reach the Way of strategy. Absorb the things written in this book. Do not just read, memorise or imitate, but so that you realise the principle from within your own heart study hard to absorb these things into your body." (p. 53)
Advanced Assignments
Constructive Living students get assignments in individual sessions, including homework assignments. It is in the doing of the
assignments that students gain experiential understanding of CL. Here is a selection of advanced assignments, puzzles, and problem-oriented questions given over a period of several years to a middle-aged male already certified as a CL instructor
You suddenly received this telephone call. How would you respond?
Friend: My wife was just killed in a car accident.
Friend: I just lost my job after 20 years.
Friend: My 16 year old daughter just returned home this morning after staying out all night without permission.
Friend: My next door neighbor plays loud music late at night.
Co-worker: We part-time workers weren't invited to the office party/trip next month.
Child: You don't love me; you don't understand me.
Mother-in-law: You forgot my birthday. Why?
How would you propose to work with the following students?
1. A 60 year old male was forced into retirement. He sits around the house with nothing to do. He feels bored; life is meaningless. He
gets in the way of his wife's housework.
2. Another male lost his job during company restructuring. Now he feels anxious and worries about dying.
3. A 48 year old wife, mother of her 22 year old son, faces death from metastasized breast cancer within a year.
4. An alcoholic nurse, explains her drinking as the result of incestuous acts by an uncle during her early teen years.
5. A parent is grieving over her seven year old child lost a year ago in a traffic accident.
6. A 29 year old lady, married, employed, is deciding whether to have children or not.
7. The wife of a self-employed shop owner comes because of problems with her husband. Economic pressures stimulate his drinking problem and spousal abuse. Then the wife seeks help; he settles down temporarily; then the cycle begins again.
More assignments and questions
Offer thanks (silently or aloud) to things you don't usually thank such as toilet paper and clothes as you put them in the laundry basket.
In some European countries it is customary to give a name to one's home. What would you name your home? Which of your
possessions have you named? How did you choose the names?
When you die, what possessions do you want to leave for others?
When you were a child did you have a pet? What did your pet teach you?
Draw a map of your childhood neighborhood. Where is your home, your school, your local park, your friend's home, your secret hiding place?
How did you learn to cook? Who and what things help you to cook?
Who encouraged your creativity?
Describe an occasion in the past week when someone helped you.
What are your greatest fears about death? What do you think is a perfect or successful death?
Write a contract for taking proper care of your body. What is your specific plan to improve your health and prevent disease?
List seven important keys to a successful marriage. Compare your list with your spouse or another person.
If a fire broke out in your home what valuable things (not people) would you save, in order? What would you save from a fire at work?
Before meeting with a student or assigning exercises please do Naikan on that student.
Have you changed your view of 1. self, 2. family, 3. community since CL? How?
Have you changed your use of 1. time, 2. money, 3. other things differently since CL? How?
Are you less influenced by social pressure since CL? How?
Are you more flexible about ambiguity and change since CL? How?
Do you handle problems differently since CL? What problems? How?
Are you more creative since CL? How?
Do you notice more details since CL? For example, what details and when?
Do you work 1. differently, 2. more creatively, 3. with a different attitude since CL?
Do you talk differently since CL? How?
Has your attitude toward religion changed since CL?
Do you think more about dying since CL? Do you think less about dying since CL?
Do you criticize others less and praise them more since CL?
Do you criticize yourself less and praise yourself more since CL?
How would you improve CL certification training?
Would you recommend CL certification training to other people?
What kind of people? Why? Did you recommend it to someone?
Subjects I don't know but want to learn.
Tasks I haven`t done but want to do.
Find something alive and small and observe it and learn from it.
Find something beautiful and smile at it. (hohoemi kakeru)
Find something delicate and protect it.
Find something ugly and make it look better.
Find something dirty and clean it. (yogorete iru)
Find something weak and make it stronger (tsuyoku suru)
Find something ordinary and make it unusual
Find something troubled and relieve it.
Find something dark and brighten it.
Find something you don't understand and figure it out.
Find something that looks soft but feels hard.
Find something that looks hard but feels soft.
Compare the perspectives of Morita, Naikan, and CL on the following topics.
What is suffering?
Is Reality important?
Why work?
What are feelings for?
What is the duty of the instructor?
What qualifies an instructor?
Why educate people?
What does the mind do?
Is individual judgment worthwhile?
What is life's purpose?
Is the environment important?
What causes suffering?
What cures suffering?
Is change natural?
Are humans basically good or bad or both?
Is complaining worthwhile?
Is Intellectual understanding important?
Are humans (are shinks) lazy?
Is there a kind of graduation?
Make a list of the simple pleasures your spouse or child or friend enjoys in life. What can you do to make one of those pleasures more available or more frequent for that person
Each day for one week pick a different everyday activity and do it at a slow pace, gracefully. Brushing your tenth, chewing your food, washing dishes, taking a shower are examples of activities that may be carried out slowly. What did you discover with this exercise
Where do you want to be five years from now? Where do you want CL to be five years from now? What needs to be done to get there?
Think of someone you would like to emulate. What are the qualities that person has that you admire? What can you do specifically and concretely to become more like that person?
While strolling do Naikan on what you see.
When you do a task such as making your bed make a list of the people who have done that task for you in the past.
Write an application to live for one more year, one more month.
Taste some food that you don't ordinarily eat.
Check feeling words on the first 3 pages of your newspaper. Note whether they are used in a CL way. Note whether they are used to explain or excuse behavior.
Trace the line of people thanks to whom you came to Constructive Living.
Write a letter of appreciation to a teacher, a trash collector, a police officer, a store manager, a relative focusing on what you received from them this year (or the most recent year you had contact with them).
Discover something new about your partner and report on it.
Make a list of at least 10 specific qualities of your partner (specific deeds, if possible) that you loved, respected, admired during
courtship days.
Make a list of at least 10 specific qualities (specific deeds, if possible that you love, respect, admire about your partner now.
Simply read off the list slowly to one another without comment.
Find elders' wisdom, skills, stories (tape recorder for grandchildren, etc)
Interview a couple of people over 65 years old. Perhaps your own parents fit this description. Ask about the details of their lives. Of what are they most proud? What did they plan to do in their lives but never got around to doing? What are their hopes and plans for the future? What did you learn from them about yourself?
Take a homemade snack or sack lunch for someone you don't know well at the office or at school or in the neighborhood.
The next time you feel down in the dumps call someone and don't mention a word about your own misery. Find out how that person is doing. Find out if there is anything you can do for him or her. Thank the person for talking with you. Go on to what needs doing next.
Meditation is bringing mental focus back to a subject again and again. In CL the focus is What needs doing? and What is being received, returned, troubles caused?
Give examples of the marvelous in everyday life.
What are you putting off that needs doing.
What makes a task spiritual? What are advantages and disadvantages of religions?
What can be the focus of obsession? What problems result from
obsession? What about obsession with being a good parent, a good employee, a good boss, perfectionism?
What are examples, boundaries, and problems associated with the modern medicalization of life?
What is the difference between patience and waiting?
Thank your faults for teaching you. Give examples.
Give examples of when personal suffering caused suffering for others (e.g., illness).
In what sense is your success, your job, your project "yours"?
“Be thankful” is useless advice; so how can CL talk about generating gratitude?
What is CL advice to make life more interesting?
What are advantages and disadvantages of being alone?
What are advantages of making mistakes?
Correct the following: What a terrible day, My meal is terrible, I'm too old, Nobody loves me, I'm a failure, My career is over, my lecture was a flop, My boyfriend doesn't like me, I'm a terrible parent.
What parts of CL do you find most useful and what parts are hardest to understand?
When are temporary distractions helpful? What ways can you suggest to distract (endure, accept) yourself in a fearful situation?
In what situations do you sometimes fail to say "thank you" because the person has done you that favor over and over again?
Discuss ways to make unpleasant tasks easier. (Brighten work area, add music, rewards, get help or do jointly, limit time each day on a project, vary timing or route or order, make game or contest out of task vs. self in past or vs another person).
Recall a situation in which you felt at least two feelings simultaneously (fear/excitement; sadness/joy, etc)
Choose a specific behavior of a parent and emulate it.
What events made you smile, frown, tearful in the past 24 hours?
When you were a child did you have a pet? What did your pet teach you?
How did you learn to cook? Who and what things help you to cook?
Do Naikan on ages 10-12. Consider your best friends, house, street, musical instrument, sports equipment, games, favorite color, favorite toys, favorite foods, favorite subject in school.
Each day for one week pick a different everyday activity and do it at a slow pace, gracefully. Brushing your tenth, chewing your food, washing dishes, taking a shower are examples of activities that may be carried out slowly. What did you discover with this exercise?
What advice/assignments would you give to someone who found it hard to throw away things and stop outmoded habits?
Quiz True or False
It is best not to bring up the subject of suicide if you think a student might be considering it.
It is your responsibility to see to it that your student does the assignments.
Any proper CL assignment can function as a distraction from feeling-focus, thus providing temporary relief.
The total number of CL koans is less than 100.
CL instructors never consider why a student does what he/she does in preparing an assignment.
Hopes and goals are accelerators in life; anxiety is a brake.
CL helps people to enjoy their discomfort.
CL offers first aid advice for both feelings and behavior.
There is a third alternative to expressing or suppressing feelings.
Those who can't be cured now may be cured in the future.
The primary reason to finish Naikan on mother during all periods before starting on father is so that the Naikansha won't compare the two.
A lady in Japan did daily Naikan for 34 years.
Constructive Living students get assignments in individual sessions, including homework assignments. It is in the doing of the
assignments that students gain experiential understanding of CL. Here is a selection of advanced assignments, puzzles, and problem-oriented questions given over a period of several years to a middle-aged male already certified as a CL instructor
You suddenly received this telephone call. How would you respond?
Friend: My wife was just killed in a car accident.
Friend: I just lost my job after 20 years.
Friend: My 16 year old daughter just returned home this morning after staying out all night without permission.
Friend: My next door neighbor plays loud music late at night.
Co-worker: We part-time workers weren't invited to the office party/trip next month.
Child: You don't love me; you don't understand me.
Mother-in-law: You forgot my birthday. Why?
How would you propose to work with the following students?
1. A 60 year old male was forced into retirement. He sits around the house with nothing to do. He feels bored; life is meaningless. He
gets in the way of his wife's housework.
2. Another male lost his job during company restructuring. Now he feels anxious and worries about dying.
3. A 48 year old wife, mother of her 22 year old son, faces death from metastasized breast cancer within a year.
4. An alcoholic nurse, explains her drinking as the result of incestuous acts by an uncle during her early teen years.
5. A parent is grieving over her seven year old child lost a year ago in a traffic accident.
6. A 29 year old lady, married, employed, is deciding whether to have children or not.
7. The wife of a self-employed shop owner comes because of problems with her husband. Economic pressures stimulate his drinking problem and spousal abuse. Then the wife seeks help; he settles down temporarily; then the cycle begins again.
More assignments and questions
Offer thanks (silently or aloud) to things you don't usually thank such as toilet paper and clothes as you put them in the laundry basket.
In some European countries it is customary to give a name to one's home. What would you name your home? Which of your
possessions have you named? How did you choose the names?
When you die, what possessions do you want to leave for others?
When you were a child did you have a pet? What did your pet teach you?
Draw a map of your childhood neighborhood. Where is your home, your school, your local park, your friend's home, your secret hiding place?
How did you learn to cook? Who and what things help you to cook?
Who encouraged your creativity?
Describe an occasion in the past week when someone helped you.
What are your greatest fears about death? What do you think is a perfect or successful death?
Write a contract for taking proper care of your body. What is your specific plan to improve your health and prevent disease?
List seven important keys to a successful marriage. Compare your list with your spouse or another person.
If a fire broke out in your home what valuable things (not people) would you save, in order? What would you save from a fire at work?
Before meeting with a student or assigning exercises please do Naikan on that student.
Have you changed your view of 1. self, 2. family, 3. community since CL? How?
Have you changed your use of 1. time, 2. money, 3. other things differently since CL? How?
Are you less influenced by social pressure since CL? How?
Are you more flexible about ambiguity and change since CL? How?
Do you handle problems differently since CL? What problems? How?
Are you more creative since CL? How?
Do you notice more details since CL? For example, what details and when?
Do you work 1. differently, 2. more creatively, 3. with a different attitude since CL?
Do you talk differently since CL? How?
Has your attitude toward religion changed since CL?
Do you think more about dying since CL? Do you think less about dying since CL?
Do you criticize others less and praise them more since CL?
Do you criticize yourself less and praise yourself more since CL?
How would you improve CL certification training?
Would you recommend CL certification training to other people?
What kind of people? Why? Did you recommend it to someone?
Subjects I don't know but want to learn.
Tasks I haven`t done but want to do.
Find something alive and small and observe it and learn from it.
Find something beautiful and smile at it. (hohoemi kakeru)
Find something delicate and protect it.
Find something ugly and make it look better.
Find something dirty and clean it. (yogorete iru)
Find something weak and make it stronger (tsuyoku suru)
Find something ordinary and make it unusual
Find something troubled and relieve it.
Find something dark and brighten it.
Find something you don't understand and figure it out.
Find something that looks soft but feels hard.
Find something that looks hard but feels soft.
Compare the perspectives of Morita, Naikan, and CL on the following topics.
What is suffering?
Is Reality important?
Why work?
What are feelings for?
What is the duty of the instructor?
What qualifies an instructor?
Why educate people?
What does the mind do?
Is individual judgment worthwhile?
What is life's purpose?
Is the environment important?
What causes suffering?
What cures suffering?
Is change natural?
Are humans basically good or bad or both?
Is complaining worthwhile?
Is Intellectual understanding important?
Are humans (are shinks) lazy?
Is there a kind of graduation?
Make a list of the simple pleasures your spouse or child or friend enjoys in life. What can you do to make one of those pleasures more available or more frequent for that person
Each day for one week pick a different everyday activity and do it at a slow pace, gracefully. Brushing your tenth, chewing your food, washing dishes, taking a shower are examples of activities that may be carried out slowly. What did you discover with this exercise
Where do you want to be five years from now? Where do you want CL to be five years from now? What needs to be done to get there?
Think of someone you would like to emulate. What are the qualities that person has that you admire? What can you do specifically and concretely to become more like that person?
While strolling do Naikan on what you see.
When you do a task such as making your bed make a list of the people who have done that task for you in the past.
Write an application to live for one more year, one more month.
Taste some food that you don't ordinarily eat.
Check feeling words on the first 3 pages of your newspaper. Note whether they are used in a CL way. Note whether they are used to explain or excuse behavior.
Trace the line of people thanks to whom you came to Constructive Living.
Write a letter of appreciation to a teacher, a trash collector, a police officer, a store manager, a relative focusing on what you received from them this year (or the most recent year you had contact with them).
Discover something new about your partner and report on it.
Make a list of at least 10 specific qualities of your partner (specific deeds, if possible) that you loved, respected, admired during
courtship days.
Make a list of at least 10 specific qualities (specific deeds, if possible that you love, respect, admire about your partner now.
Simply read off the list slowly to one another without comment.
Find elders' wisdom, skills, stories (tape recorder for grandchildren, etc)
Interview a couple of people over 65 years old. Perhaps your own parents fit this description. Ask about the details of their lives. Of what are they most proud? What did they plan to do in their lives but never got around to doing? What are their hopes and plans for the future? What did you learn from them about yourself?
Take a homemade snack or sack lunch for someone you don't know well at the office or at school or in the neighborhood.
The next time you feel down in the dumps call someone and don't mention a word about your own misery. Find out how that person is doing. Find out if there is anything you can do for him or her. Thank the person for talking with you. Go on to what needs doing next.
Meditation is bringing mental focus back to a subject again and again. In CL the focus is What needs doing? and What is being received, returned, troubles caused?
Give examples of the marvelous in everyday life.
What are you putting off that needs doing.
What makes a task spiritual? What are advantages and disadvantages of religions?
What can be the focus of obsession? What problems result from
obsession? What about obsession with being a good parent, a good employee, a good boss, perfectionism?
What are examples, boundaries, and problems associated with the modern medicalization of life?
What is the difference between patience and waiting?
Thank your faults for teaching you. Give examples.
Give examples of when personal suffering caused suffering for others (e.g., illness).
In what sense is your success, your job, your project "yours"?
“Be thankful” is useless advice; so how can CL talk about generating gratitude?
What is CL advice to make life more interesting?
What are advantages and disadvantages of being alone?
What are advantages of making mistakes?
Correct the following: What a terrible day, My meal is terrible, I'm too old, Nobody loves me, I'm a failure, My career is over, my lecture was a flop, My boyfriend doesn't like me, I'm a terrible parent.
What parts of CL do you find most useful and what parts are hardest to understand?
When are temporary distractions helpful? What ways can you suggest to distract (endure, accept) yourself in a fearful situation?
In what situations do you sometimes fail to say "thank you" because the person has done you that favor over and over again?
Discuss ways to make unpleasant tasks easier. (Brighten work area, add music, rewards, get help or do jointly, limit time each day on a project, vary timing or route or order, make game or contest out of task vs. self in past or vs another person).
Recall a situation in which you felt at least two feelings simultaneously (fear/excitement; sadness/joy, etc)
Choose a specific behavior of a parent and emulate it.
What events made you smile, frown, tearful in the past 24 hours?
When you were a child did you have a pet? What did your pet teach you?
How did you learn to cook? Who and what things help you to cook?
Do Naikan on ages 10-12. Consider your best friends, house, street, musical instrument, sports equipment, games, favorite color, favorite toys, favorite foods, favorite subject in school.
Each day for one week pick a different everyday activity and do it at a slow pace, gracefully. Brushing your tenth, chewing your food, washing dishes, taking a shower are examples of activities that may be carried out slowly. What did you discover with this exercise?
What advice/assignments would you give to someone who found it hard to throw away things and stop outmoded habits?
Quiz True or False
It is best not to bring up the subject of suicide if you think a student might be considering it.
It is your responsibility to see to it that your student does the assignments.
Any proper CL assignment can function as a distraction from feeling-focus, thus providing temporary relief.
The total number of CL koans is less than 100.
CL instructors never consider why a student does what he/she does in preparing an assignment.
Hopes and goals are accelerators in life; anxiety is a brake.
CL helps people to enjoy their discomfort.
CL offers first aid advice for both feelings and behavior.
There is a third alternative to expressing or suppressing feelings.
Those who can't be cured now may be cured in the future.
The primary reason to finish Naikan on mother during all periods before starting on father is so that the Naikansha won't compare the two.
A lady in Japan did daily Naikan for 34 years.