01
What the Academy is
There is a temple in Japan. Shinjun Mikami is its resident priest. Inside it, there is a dojo — a hall for training.
That dojo is open to the public. Not only to people on a religious path, but to anyone willing to sit down and practice.
That work has been carried out in two places: in Japan, and in California — the San Francisco Bay Area.
Shepherdman Academy is that same work, now continued as an Academy.
Nothing here is a shortcut. It is the ordinary work of practice, repeated.
02
Why Praxis, and not practice
In English, a practice can mean a thing you take up for a while and put down again. Praxis is the word we use for the other sense of it — the one that lasts the length of a life, and has no finish line.
It starts with a form that is not yours. You copy it, badly at first. In time it stops being a thing you are copying and becomes the way you do it. Later still, it stops being a technique at all and is simply the way you go about things.
Someone else's kata → my praxis → my michi.
Kata is the form. Praxis is the daily work of it. Michi — a way, a road — is what is left when the work has been done long enough that it no longer looks like work.
This is the whole promise, and it is a small one: repetition. Nothing here promises a result in thirty days.
03
Five areas
What is practiced here falls into five areas. They are not levels to climb; they run alongside each other.
- Self
- Putting yourself in order — the body, the mind, your habits — and looking honestly at your own state.
- Kata
- Form. Courtesy, repetition, and the discipline of doing a thing the same way, again and again.
- Praxis
- The daily work: practice, action, and the judgment that comes out of both.
- Others
- Helping, listening, guiding, protecting. Practice that stops with you is unfinished.
- Michi
- Your own way — what you are for, and how that meets the world you live in.
Growth that benefits only the person doing it is not complete. That is why Others is not an afterthought at the end of the list.
04
Tell someone not to think, and they think
This is the honest difficulty with sitting still. The instruction is to stop thinking, and the instruction itself becomes another thought. The mind works hardest when the body is doing nothing.
So we move the hand. The hand is given one simple task, and attention follows the hand rather than chasing itself.
That is why the practice we begin with puts a brush in your hand. It is called Brush Praxis.
You don't need another optimization tool. You need a practice.
05
The System
Two things are often called by the same name. They are not the same.
- Meditation
- Seeing what is present, without a goal.
- Contemplation (kanso)
- Practice with a direction.
The foundation of both is the same, and it is plain: breath work, and breath counting (susokukan). Breathe, count, notice that you have drifted, come back. Noticing the drift and coming back is not a failure of the practice. It is the practice.
That foundation is where everyone begins. Online sessions for it are in preparation; when they open, we will announce it here.
Past the foundation there is a deeper path. It is not a course you buy. It is entered through a teacher–student relationship, and it begins only when both people agree to it.
06
How it is run
Online — in preparation
Breath work and attention practice, in small groups: the foundation, and the part you could keep doing on an ordinary weekday morning. This is not running yet. We will announce it when it opens.
In person
Brush Praxis, held in the room, with a brush in your hand. Seats are limited, because the practice needs the teacher to see each hand.
Dates for upcoming sessions are announced on Instagram, and on the LINE account for those in Japan. To ask about anything else, use the contact form.
07
Shinjun Mikami
He is head priest of a temple in Aomori. This Academy grew out of that practice.
He received the rank of Denbo Daiajari in 2021.
He has held practice in two places — in Japan, and, formerly, in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
His path in America began at Washington State University, studying psychology. He also completed non-profit management study at Harvard Kennedy School.
He served as Japan representative for NASDAQ Pacific Net (U.S.), and now serves in the same role for a law firm in California.
He is TESOL certified, has taught at US universities, and interpreted in legal and international settings. He is a US-registered clinical chaplain, and holds shihan certification in brush practice from the Japan Onore-sho Dojo association.
That range grounds this practice. MIKAMI ENGLISH ACADEMY grew out of his work in English.