A FRIEND FROM AFAR

A friend is someone who deserves your love. All relationships are founded on the ground of friendship, at the bottom of which is an ageless and immovable rock of life, which is trust.

My father, Masahilo M NAKAZONO, was a life-time searcher for the truth of life from which all children of life come and are truly related to each other, rather than by blood, cultures and beliefs, contracts and pacts. All of those who loved him remember his love and focused passion for the truth of life; though they might have never realized it, in truth they all loved him because Masahilo never hid his trust from anyone—he took everyone who came along with him to the journey of search for the truth of life.

My whole life, until my father died, I followed in his footsteps.

As I was a child, growing up in Japan, he was always "away," traveling the world with his Martial Art training uniform (KeikoGi) and books of Oriental Medicine. He was then a distant Hero-God to me.

He became a real living person in my life when we moved to Marseille, France, in 1964 [I was 13], to join him there. That is when I entered the actual road he was on in search for the truth of life [the name he has given to himself, Masahilo, means "searching for beauty," through which he meant to say to himself and to the world, "I am a searcher for the Beautiful Truth of Life"].

On that road I saw Jizo-Bosatsu (Bodisatva of Storing Earth) which my father worshipped for his medicine and healing, Aikido, and Koto-tama—the principle of 50 sounds of ancient Shinto. I studied and practiced them beside my father, not because I wanted to study and practice them, but because I wanted to do everything my dad was doing.

Jizo-Bosatsu is a divine spirit who is said to be right in-between the realms of life and of after life, who is looking for any lost children’s souls to save and guide them to Higan—the other side, or the realm of Dharma (Truth). Jizo-Bosatsu (Bodisatva) is the God of Shugen-Do-Sha, or Yama-Bushi (practitioners of Shugen-Do, who are generally spiritual healers and martial artists at the same time). Shugen-do is Japan’s own folk (but very exclusive) belief, whose peculiar form is half Shinto and half Buddhist. I worshipped Jizo-Bosatsu through morning and night rituals and prayers, from the time we (my mother, older brother and I) joined my father in Marseille in 1964, to the time he left us in October of 1994.

Aikido is a Japanese martial art my father taught in Viet Nam, Europe and North Africa, which was his main occupation while he lived in France from 1962 to 1971. His practice of Oriental Medicine, which was in the family for generations [I am the 9^th] became his full time occupation when we moved to Paris in 1967. That year was also when the principle of Kototama 50 Sounds—an esoteric doctrine that constituted the ancient Shinto, was revived in my father’s mind as his new direction in his search for the truth of life.

The Kototama 50 Sounds, to my father, were more of a spiritual and meditative practice and study to move closer to the truth of life than a practice of Faith of Jizo-Bosatsu. In fact, he had included his practice of 50 Sounds of Kototama in his daily prayers to the Spirit of Jizo-Bosatsu, and by the time he had moved and settled in Santa Fe, N.M., USA, his entire prayers were in Kototama Sounds, and finished by all of the religious mantras in the world—Amen, Amin, Nam, Aum and Amn.

In Santa Fe, at his school of Oriental Medicine which he named Kototama Institute, he gave his Blessing Ceremonies every Sunday to his students. I joined my father in Santa Fe, in the Fall of 1979, and the most fun part of the Sundays for me was the breakfast after the Blessing Ceremony at "Big Boy," with everybody. It was indiscreet on my part to feel that way, but truly, I didn’t need any ceremony to worship my dad and whatever he worshipped. I went to his Sunday services and I continued my daily rituals of worship of Jizo-Bosatsu to worship my father. My 30 years of rituals of worship did not bring me anything, because my true heart, or trust, was not in the worship, but I received the whole wisdom and experience of the truth of life my father had achieved in his life through my worship of my father, not only as my dad, but as my God, Master, Guru, or Rabbi.

Everything my father had tried to give structure to in his life failed: his fishing boat business and the first Isuzu trucks dealership outside of Japan, both of which took place in Singapore in the late 1950s’, the united Aikido organizations in France and Europe; the school of Oriental Medicine in Santa Fe—the Kototama Institute closed after 5 years of existence with only 108 Doctors of Oriental Medicine graduated. They all failed because my father was not going after any "finished" form as a goal, his goal was nothing but the truth of life—the origin of life.

When he was finished with his school of Oriental Medicine in Santa Fe, in 1984, he came to join me in my practice of Oriental Medicine in San Diego, Ca. He came and said to me; "Son, I came to help you." I worshipped my father, but that was in spirit, in flesh I wanted my independence, and from the day he moved in with my mother I was searching for elsewhere to move to, to look for my own challenges in life.

My father was happy in San Diego, because he had the Pacific ocean right there for his fishing, and his longtime friend, Master T. K. Chiba of Aikido was there with his Aikido college.

After I left San Diego for New York my father stayed and kept his healing practice going with my son C as his assistant. I never had the chance to teach my own child, but C had a much better teacher and mentor than me, his grandfather. At that point already my father’s method of healing was evolving rapidly towards a more spiritual approach, the process of which I did not physically witness, but my son has.

In 1991 [3 years before his death] I became a citizen of the United States and changed my full name to Jei Atacama from Jiro Nakazono. That year my father discovered Mexico and the Mexican people through many patients from Tijuana and Ensenada, both in Baja California, who came to be treated by my father in San Diego. My son C who was born in Paris, France, but grew up in Santa Fe, N.M., went to school with the local Santa Fe native children and spoke Spanish fluently, consequently C could help his grandpa as his interpreter as well.

Before I go on to tell you about my father in Mexico, I must tell you of an episode when I had changed my name to Atacama, which is from the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile [to commemorate my "becoming an American" I wanted a real native American name, and Atacama was the one I had chosen]. As I called my father to report on my name change, he laughed and said; "Son, you tried to go faraway from me, but a mere 15 minutes from where I was born there was a village called Atakama. You tried, but you didn’t go that far…"

Mexico was my father’s new frontier and in the horizon he was seeing further South, to the entire South American continent. If it was not for my mother declaring to my father that he was going down alone he would have probably gone as far as to Argentina or to Brazil. He conceded and bought a ranch in San Antonio de Salinas, near Ensenada instead. My mother really wanted to go back to Santa Fe, to her beautiful Adobe (mud bricks) house equipped with all the modern amenities, but she had to do her own part of concession by accepting to go live in a bare minimal house without telephone or television. We all get very quickly spoiled by the conveniences of high technology, but my father’s true idea of life was to live side by side with the earth and its natural elements. They farmed for their vegetables and fruits, and they were having a lot of fun doing it.

One day in 1993 I visited my father at his ranch; there was a room full of patients waiting for their treatment, and I was diagnosing each patient visually [it’s called the Looking Diagnosis in Oriental Medicine] ahead of time of their treatment, so I could see my father’s treatment results.

While I was diagnosing I witnessed a peculiar phenomenon in the waiting room; the patients were gradually, but visibly, healing on their own while they waited their turn. My son C said to me; "Some of them get completely healed from their symptoms even before they enter grand-dad’s treatment room…"

When I approached my father on the subject he said; "Recently I seem to have developed a spiritual healing power, which I don’t control, and there is nothing I can tell you about it other than that I have come very close to "i dimension." The i dimension was the origin of life to my father, it was the ultimate truth of life he was going for.

In the Spring of 1993 when I revisited my father he was already very ill. I did everything I could to alleviate any symptoms he had, but my best was not enough to give him more than 10 minutes of relief. There were three students of his, all three medical doctors, and they did not know what to do, knowing that my father did not want to take any synthetic medicines. My brother, Katsuharu Nakazono, Doctor of Oriental Medicine, flew a private jet from Santa Fe to move our ailing father back to Santa Fe, to keep him under his watch. I was sad that Mexico was not going to be my father’s last resting place, but I knew I would bring his ashes back to his ranch and build him a memorial.

Masahilo M. NAKAZONO’s Memorial in Mexico

My heart broke on October 8^th, 1994 at 4 am (2 am in Santa Fe, N.M.) when the phone rang to announce to me that my father had just passed away. I had a big hole in my chest for the next 7 months, cried everyday at least once a day, I had lost the most important person in my entire life.

My mother, Harue Nakazono, watched her husband breathe his last breath out right after he had opened his eyes to look at her for the last time. When I saw my mother in the afternoon of the 8^th, she was crying, but well composed. My brother was the only one who did not cry in public and took care of everything that needed to be done. I was a basket case along with everybody else in the family.

Chiba Sensei was in Albuquerque [60 miles south of Santa Fe] on that day giving an Aikido seminar. He drove to Santa Fe and met my father on his death bed, and he said; "I didn’t know anyone could look so peaceful as Sensei does on his death bed."

At my last visit with my father just one month before he died, he came out to the living room to sit with me. He couldn’t walk anymore, but as he sat with me he looked just as good as he did when he was strong.

I had some important questions to ask him; "Dad, I know you touched the truth you were always looking for. It wasn’t Kototama, was it?"

He nodded "no," and said, "No, it is so much more… but I cannot talk about it. You keep searching, and it will come to you…"

"It" came to me indeed on the night of November 8 of 1996, and that was my experience of the realm of the origin of life—Heaven, and since that moment I was given the power to reunite souls back to their origin—Heaven, which is what I do in my healing work today.

I cannot express in writing the realm of the origin of life and the presence of the Creator of Life, but I do connect souls to the origin.

Somehow I know that my work in life since the night of November 8^th of 1996, is to bring the presence [resonance] of the Creator of Life, which I can only describe as an Intelligence of Creation, back into life.

My father was the forerunner to this work I was given by Heaven. In his life, from the middle of nowhere, he lived to trace back the road that leads straight to the entrance door to the realm of the origin of life. I know he touched the door and went straight into it. That day I visited my father in Mexico, on my way back I saw a beautiful golden carpet laid on the Pacific, and I said to myself, "Dad reached it, now he is going back to the realm of the origin of life on that carpet…"

A friend has visited me from afar, Sensei Renato Filippin of Switzerland last December.

Renato came to say hi to me, but the true spiritual meaning of his trip was to reach Masahilo M. NAKAZONO’s spirit which lives in my work and office—the Atacama Healing Center.

Renato’s journey on the very road my father had left behind took him 41 years, but now he is right at the very gate of entrance to the realm of the origin of life. I did unite his soul to Heaven to show him in live where his life long teacher had gone.

May all of Sensei Renato Filippin’s students, under his guidance, reach one day the solemn door to the realm of the origin of their lives—Heaven, Anam.

Jei Atacama

[Formerly; Jiro Nakazono]

Sensei, Masahilo M. NAKAZONO (1918-1994)