Origin
According to ancient written records, which remain in the Archives of the Imperial Palace in Japan, Jin Shin Jyutsu was widely known before the birth of Gautama Buddha (India), before the birth of Moses (recorded in the Bible) and before Kojiki (Record of Ancient Things, Japan, A.D. 72). For many centuries this knowledge was passed from generation to generation by verbal teachings. Gradually the true concept of this art got lost until it was rediscovered by Master Jiro Murai in Japan in the early 1900’s.
Jiro Murai was born in Japan in 1886. His father and elder brothers were physicians. Murai didn´t follow the family tradition. He went in search of the meaning of life. In 1912 at age 26 he was diagnosed with a life threatening illness. As he was waiting to die, he started to deal with various philosophies, spritiual practices and the mudras he had seen. After restoring his health Jiro Murai devoted the rest of his life to studying and understanding the process that enabled him to regain his health and expanded his knowledge that would later become Jin Shin Jyutsu. He dedicated his research to Ise Jingu, the Imperial Shinto Shrine at Ise, Japan.
Thirty-four years after his initial discovery of Jin Shin Jyutsu in 1912, Murai began to teach. Mary Mariko Iino, a young Japanese-American woman, attended one of his lectures and then became his student for 12 years.
Master Jiro Murai
Father of Jin Shin Jyutsu
(1886 – 1960)
Mary Burmeister
Author, Teacher, Founder of Jin Shin Jyutsu, Inc.
(1918 – 2008)
Although Jiro Murai never left Japan, he wished to make the Art of Jin Shin Jyutsu available to the world and Mary seemed to him to be suitable to accomplish this vision.
Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1918 Mary Iino arrived in Japan in the late 1940s to serve as a translator and study diplomacy when she met Jiro Murai and began to study with him. Mary’s father, Uhachi Iino, also became a student of Jiro Murai. Mary and Uhachi Iino developed a deep and lasting friendship with Jiro Murai.
In 1953 Mary Iino left for America to marry Gilbert Burmeister and to continue her studies with Murai through correspondence. During the next phase of her life as a wife and mother she studied Jin Shin Jyutsu and began to work on family and friends. In 1965, 12 years after her return from Japan, Mary began to teach Jin Shin Jyutsu and opened an office in Scottsdale/Arizona.
Like Jiro Murai, her studies and developments in Jin Shin Jyutsu never ended. Mary placed considerable emphasis on the practice of self-help and created practical and simple applications of Jin Shin Jyutsu on oneself.
Today there are thousands of students throughout the United States and the world. On January 27, 2008 Mary passed away. Jin Shin Jyutsu, Inc. is now directed by her sons, David and Michael Burmeister.
