How to Read The Strong Mind

Discovering the Deeper Meaning of Inner Strength

If you are reading The Strong Mind for the first time, you do not necessarily need to begin from the first page.

This book is a collection of five inspiring lectures, each exploring a different aspect of developing inner strength. We recommend starting with the chapter that most attracts your interest.

As you read through the book, you will discover that each chapter connects deeply with the others, creating a greater understanding of what it means to build a strong mind.

Here is a brief guide to each chapter:

For First-Time Readers

Begin with the chapter that interests you most.

If you are reading The Strong Mind for the first time, you do not necessarily need to begin from the first page.

This book is a collection of five inspiring lectures, each exploring a different aspect of developing inner strength. We recommend starting with the chapter that most attracts your interest.

Here is a brief guide to each chapter:

1. Building Resilience against Life Crises
This chapter discusses the challenges that may arise at different stages of life by looking at life in ten-year periods and exploring what kinds of difficulties may be expected in each stage.

2. Living with a Stout Heart
This chapter teaches the strength, resilience, and ability to accomplish what is necessary in order to overcome the challenges of life.

3. Cultivating Inner Maturity
This chapter beautifully reveals the power of forgiveness and the importance of developing inner maturity.

4. Developing Inner Richness
This chapter explores the richness of the heart that cannot be fulfilled by material things alone. Readers who have moved beyond their youth may discover many deeper insights in this chapter.

5. The Strong Mind
By reading this final chapter, the insights gained from the previous chapters come together and reveal the complete meaning of developing a strong mind.

For Those Who Have Read Several Books

Read The Strong Mind in connection with other teachings.

If you have already read several of Master Okawa’s books, try reading The Strong Mind while considering its connection with his other works.

In the afterword of The Strong Mind, Master Okawa writes:

“At the age of thirty-two, I published Invincible Thinking, which grew to become a best-selling book. Now, decades later, as I offer this book, The Strong Mind, to the world, I realize that I have been constantly striving to be a ‘true diehard’ who never gives up and who persists in thinking positively and constructively.”

Invincible Thinking teaches the mindset of gaining wisdom from every experience — both adversity and success — and using those lessons to develop one’s character.

Nearly two decades later, this idea was further developed and deepened in The Strong Mind. Reading these two books together allows us to appreciate the profound evolution and depth of this teaching.

For Advanced Readers

Understand the background behind the teaching.

To truly appreciate the depth of The Strong Mind, it is important to understand the background behind this lecture.

Master Okawa attained enlightenment and experienced a spiritual awakening in March 1986. After that, his dedication to spiritual practice and self-improvement continued at a level beyond ordinary understanding.

In the preface of The Strong Mind, he writes:

“What I went through during the last several decades after my spiritual awakening strengthened my heart and mind and helped me develop my capacity and depth as a person. In this period, I tasted suffering and sadness to a degree never experienced by an average person.

Over the years, I have produced a vast body of published works and lectures that include a diverse array of perspectives, and all of them represent the days I spent cultivating a strong mind through hardship.

Each day, whether it brought raging wind, rain, or swelter, I sought to transform the weak mind into a strong mind. And as I have walked the path to self-improvement, my other self has always been there, watching over my every step on this journey.”

The final lecture, “The Strong Mind,” was delivered on January 26, 2005.

Approximately six months before this lecture, Master Okawa experienced a critical condition known today as “New Resurrection.” The experience and its meaning are described in the book New Resurrection and portrayed in the film Immotal Hero.

Understanding this background reveals that The Strong Mind is not merely a theory for achieving success in this world. It speaks of a deeper kind of success — the eternal development of the soul.

At the conclusion of the lecture, he states:

“In the end, the ability to shape ourselves is the true freedom that we are endowed with and the most precious gift we're given. The freedom that gives us true joy and happiness is not the freedom to spoil ourselves nor the freedom to do whatever pleases us but the freedom to develop ourselves. And the power of the strong mind allows us to experience the lasting joy of developing ourselves over a long period of time.”

With this deeper understanding, the meaning of the entire book changes.

At first, we may think of The Strong Mind as a way to overcome the walls and difficulties of life. However, as we read more deeply, we begin to see another truth:

Perhaps difficulties do not simply exist for us to overcome them. They exist so that we can develop a strong mind.

This gives a deeper meaning to the words:

“Asking for an easy life with no challenges is equivalent to refusing the chance to develop virtue.”

Challenges are not merely obstacles on our journey. They are opportunities to cultivate virtue, strengthen our character, and experience the lasting joy of developing ourselves.