At a very young age I came across a simple meditation technic focusing on the flame of a candle. It made me realize that I was not that anguished youth that lived my everyday life. I had caught a glimpse of a different future that I began to pursue.
An esoteric grandmaster once said;
"The path is not something that is laid out in front of you, but something that materializes under your feet when you summon the courage to step out into the unknown."
My to begin with, not so courageous steps into the unknown would lead me to Japan and Zen master Moriyama Daigyo Roshi. Thanks to the people I met in "Tokyo Stories" I was able to summon the courage to walk what would become my path.
Tokyo Stories is about being adrift in Tokyo and soul searching in the nineties. Teachings from a Zen master to his student and the unbreakable intimate relationship. The transient life of foreign youth roaming the streets of Tokyo looking for adventures and love. To find peace with yourself no matter of the past you carry with you. What it is like to live under the haunting shadow of the Second World war. Reflections of a traditionel culture as foreign as the Japanese. Shinto, the key to the Japanese mind and what martial arts really teaches if you listen carefully.
Friedel, Håkan: -
I have a BA in Culture communication at the University of Stockholm. Major in Comparative Religion special field Japanese Buddhism, and minor in Social-anthropology.
My father grew up in Nazi-Germany during the 30s and survived the War. My family still live under the shadow of the war, even it is over long ago. At a very young age I began to question all the negative feelings I harbored and how I lived my life. Later I could find gratitude for the family trauma that became a condition for my early urge to study spiritual methods for inner wellbeing and made me travel around the world to seek the masters.
I met Moriyama Roshi in Japan who accepted me as his deshi, his close disciple, and trained me at his Zen temple Zuigakuin for three years. Later I returned and stayed another five years in Tokyo, studying martial arts and healing arts for various teachers.
For more than 45 years I have practiced and taught meditation. Thru my lectures and workshops, I have introduced more than fifteen thousand people in the corporate world to meditation.
Today I am a blackbelt holder in jodo, judo and iaido and aikido.
Usually I return to Japan twice a year for practice.
I am also a member of the professional group at the Imoto Seitai Traditional Manual Therapy Education and Development Center in Tokyo. For the last thirty years I have been doing treatments and developed my own style of treatment from Swedish massage, shiatsu and seitai techniques. From the information of my hands in contact with the client I read the character of the person and their life-situation, to be able to understand the true cause of stress in their life.
I have a license to work as an assistance nurse in psychiatry.
I received Bodhisattva ordination from Moriyama Roshi and have been a member of Esoteric Shinnyo Buddhism for almost thirty years and have passed thru the four levels of esoteric training. I am ordained to the second level of priesthood in Shinnyo Buddhism.
In Stockholm I have founded a Shinnyo center, being one of the cornerstones.
