The Sazuke, a Tenrikyo healing rite, is bestowed on the mind of a person who listens to a set of nine lectures called the Besseki given at the Home of the Parent.3 After completing the ninth lecture, the candidate receives the special grant from Oyasama through the Shinbashira, the spiritual leader of Tenrikyo.

The content of the Besseki lecture deals with the basic tenets of Tenrikyo: the Truth of Creation, the Divine Model of Miki, the mind-body relation, the eight dusts, true sincerity, the importance of the service and the administering of the Sazuke, and ethical manners in social relations. The listener is provided with an opportunity to attain spiritual rebirth, for listening to the nine lectures attentively enables the mind to become renewed.

Through the successive stages of the lecture, an individual is transformed from the perspective of a child, who has things done for him or her, to the perspective of the parent, who does things unconditionally for others. In other words, the truth of the Sazuke is bestowed on a reborn mind that desires the salvation of others and, when this truth is bestowed on the mind, it should be upheld as the standard of mind for the rest of one's life. When a person receives the Sazuke, s/he is a Yoboku, timber, for the construction of the world of the Joyous Life. The popular construction motif, as we have mentioned so far, not only plays a special role in the actual material construction that often occurs on Tenrikyo compounds but it has strategic spiritual notions when intertwined with the other construction metaphors such as "Shinbashira" (central pillar), "master carpenter," "framing master," and "planer." That is, these symbols assist the follower in visualizing his or her role in the actual construction of the Joyous Life.

The Sazuke is administered to people with disorders. It is taught that relief appears only as a result of the combined sincerity of the person administering the Sazuke and the person to whom it is being administered. Ideally, then, such sincerity is accepted by God who works miraculous salvation, for bodily improvement is shown when the mind is replaced. It is through this rite that the minds of many people are transformed: illnesses and ailments disappear through the administering of the Sazuke. Yet even without the proof of bodily improvement, the Sazuke does affect the mind of the person to whom it is administered, thus renewing the mind for spiritual growth. This, we believe, is the catalyst for which to administer the Sazuke. That is, the administering of the Sazuke is carried out as a symbolic act of helping one who is in need so that the mind of the afflicted one will be awakened to the truth that the body is indeed a thing lent, a thing borrowed.

The human body is obviously instrumental for carrying out this symbolic act. If receiving the truth of the Sazuke symbolizes spiritual rebirth and renewal, then administering the Sazuke to an afflicted person would symbolize the imparting and sharing with others this renewed life energy. This life energy, notwithstanding, is recognizing the blessings of God as they are in the world and the human body. Yet the mind of true sincerity--as we shall see later--is the heart and kernel of all salvation, whether it be the curing of illness or living the way of life taught by Miki, the living of a blissful life.

Tenrikyo missionaries spend time administering the Sazuke to people--the majority of whom are not church members--in the hope of spreading the teachings of Oyasama. The primary activity, then, of an ideal missionary in the contemporary world is to administer the Sazuke to as many people as possible who suffer from an illness or any other physical affliction, no matter how serious their conditions may be.4 When the alterations in the mind become proof for further inquiry into the teachings, the newcomer may resolve to go on a pilgrimage to Jiba and attend the three-month course called Shuyoka, a spiritual retreat where the basic teachings are taught and put into practice.

The human body in the ritual context of the Sazuke is being utilized as a instrument for living the Joyous Life. Since the human body is a manifestation of the complete providence of God, a Yoboku employs it to reach out to others in the form of administering the Sazuke, inducing an awareness of the complete providence of God in the person to whom the Sazuke is administered. Furthermore, the Sazuke is administered through bodily contact and may not be otherwise administered. That is, the entire ritual proceeding conveys the symbolic notion of imparting renewed life through the human body. As an instrument reaching out to another instrument, it implies instruments striving to work together on the path to joyousness.