Just before I came here, I watched the TV program “Meet the Legend,” featuring Prof. Tomio Tada (多田富雄), who studied the self with immunology, finding the self to be adaptive and advancing in vast possibility. He was even engaged in Noh, from his understanding of being human, life, and living. He was perhaps the earliest researcher to study brain waves during meditation.
He had a stroke at 67, losing the ability to move the right side of his body, to process nutrients well, and to speak. When he saw his new self in the mirror, he felt inclined to kill himself. But when, eventually, he saw a slight sign of movement in his toe, he saw a new vista for a vast new life. He felt himself living more lively and vigorously than when he was normal and healthy. His ideal was to advance to the very end and to stop there (which he did at age 76).
He regretted his inability to move on his feet, but he could open up the wide world of his mind, and in this way he confessed he could live a new, better life. His ideal research was tolerant and rich research. The value of research lies not in the short-view and short value, even when it lags behind a year or so in researchers’ race. That was his life view and value also. By cutting his ordinary flower, he could attain true flowering and fruition.
6/16/12
“New Career in Noh Play”
Photo by Hitoshi Miyata
“Rebirth from Brain Stroke –
Battle of Tomio Tada,
Immunologist,” by NHK