ABOUT
Hello, and welcome. My name is Kazuhiro Kurosawa, and I am the one who made this app.
If your heart feels a little weary right now—please, let your shoulders down and read at your own pace. This is not an instruction manual. It is more like a small letter from the person who made it.
Allow me to tell you a little about the road I have walked. It was never a straight one. And yet, each of those detours led, in its own way, to the app you hold now.
I studied applied biological science at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science. After graduating, I worked at a pharmaceutical company, delivering medicines to the front lines of healthcare as a medical representative (MR). I think that, from a young age, my heart was already drawn to the workings of the body and to the world of medicine that supports people.
Then, one day, a meningioma—a tumor that forms on the membrane enveloping the brain—was found. The time of that illness became a great turning point for me. “What am I living for?” “Where is the path I truly wish to walk?” Quietly, I began to sit with questions like these. Perhaps you, too, have known nights when you suddenly come to a stop.
After leaving the company, I spent about three years traveling across Asia with nothing but a single backpack. At Wuwei Temple in Yunnan Province, China, I lived in and studied tai chi. Breathing slowly, feeling the inside of my body unwind—for the first time, I came to know in my own body what it means to be healed from the very root.
In Chiang Mai, Thailand, I studied Thai massage. To touch another person with my hands, and to feel them soften. “To touch the body, and to heal a person.” That joy struck me to the heart.
Along the way, an Israeli shiatsu practitioner taught me shiatsu. With the palms of the hands, you gently enter into dialogue with another person’s body. In that moment—I cannot quite put it into words—something deep in my chest stirred, straight and true. “Ah, this is what I wanted to do.” It was the moment when a road that had seemed like a long detour suddenly drew itself into a single line. I returned to Japan and knocked on the door of the Japan Shiatsu College.
From 2010 to 2019, I taught shiatsu as an instructor at that Japan Shiatsu College. At university, I also served as a part-time lecturer in anatomy practicums. From the one who learns to the one who passes it on—those were days of handing the craft of the hands and the knowledge of the body to the next person.
In time, I came to want, once more, to face the person in front of me with my own hands. In 2019, I opened a shiatsu treatment room, “Tsumugu Shiatsu,” in Sagamihara (Sagami-Ōno). And since fiscal 2024, I have had the honor of serving as president of the Kanagawa Shiatsu Practitioners’ Association. I have been able to walk this far only because so many people’s hands and bodies have supported me.
What I hold most dear in my shiatsu is the philosophy left to us by Tokujiro Namikoshi.
“The heart of shiatsu is a mother’s heart.
Press, and the spring of life wells up.”Tokujiro Namikoshi
Like the hand of a mother as she gently lays it on the aching belly of her child. To place the hand softly, with all one’s heart. Shiatsu, I believe, is that kind of laying-on of hands.
At the same time, I am also someone who has taught anatomy. I do not think of Eastern and Western medicine as one being above the other; rather, they complement each other. The circulation the East calls “qi, blood, and water” overlaps with what the West calls the flow of blood and lymph. The pathways of the body known as “meridians” resonate with the connections of the nerves and the fascia. It may sound like difficult language, but in essence it is simply this: to carefully bind together the wisdom handed down from long ago with the science of today. I call this “the bridge between shiatsu and anatomy.”
And, as if in conversation with each knot of tension, I listen closely to the voice of the body. Beneath the stiffness in a shoulder, or a shallow, restless sleep, a person’s daily life and the sway of their heart lie quietly hidden. The body’s troubles are always deeply bound up with the heart.
Into the name “Tsumugu Shiatsu” I wove two wishes. One is to give shiatsu with all my heart, as one spins thread strand by careful strand. The other is to gently spin together and connect—person to person, body and heart, East and West—the spaces in between. More than anything, I want to cherish that once-in-a-lifetime meeting of hearts.
There is one more thing I would like to confide here. I love great quotes.
Throughout my life, I have drawn inspiration from countless words. When I was lost, when I had come to a stop, it was always someone’s words that gently pushed me forward. On the days I faced my illness, and beneath the open skies of my travels, a single line of words would softly loosen a heart that had grown tight.
This is much like what I do in my treatment room. With the hands, I ease the knots of the body. With words, I ease the knots of the heart. Both, I believe, are a laying-on of hands that gently awakens the strength a person already holds within. If only, just as I lay my hands on the body, I could lay a hand—softly—on the heart as well. As a bodywork specialist, this is what I came to think about.
Into Meigen Oracle, I added a small feature of my own: “One gentle thing.” It is a modest ritual, lasting just about thirty seconds out of your day.
There is nothing difficult about it. All you do is gently lay a finger on an acupressure point, quietly speak words that encourage you within your heart, and take one slow breath. That is all. Into the flow of those movements, I have carefully layered a few pieces of wisdom, so that they reach the body and the heart with gentleness.
What I Placed into “One Gentle Thing”
Not only to “read” the words, but to gently touch yourself with your own hand. When you do, it feels as though the words seep in not only to the mind, but all the way into the body.
To spin together the body (shiatsu) and the heart (words). My journey—bridging East and West—wound its long way around and arrived, in the end, at this small ritual. Meigen Oracle is a modest attempt by someone who has laid his hands on one person after another in his treatment room, to reach out, softly, and offer a hand to you as well, on the other side of the screen.
Thank you for reading this far. I know there are days when things do not go well, and days when the heart simply will not move. On such days, please, be gentle with yourself. May this small word and laying-on of hands become, somewhere in your day, a moment that loosens the heart—even just a little. That is my quiet prayer.
Kazuhiro Kurosawa
Shiatsu Practitioner / Founder of Tsumugu Shiatsu · President, Kanagawa Shiatsu Practitioners’ Association
Provided by: Genko Inc. (Representative: Kazuhiro Kurosawa)
One last thing. The quotes, commentaries, brief notes, acupressure points, and other content this app delivers were created in the hope of bringing peace and learning to the heart; they are not medical or health advice. If you have any symptoms that concern you, please consult a medical professional.