Intoku is one of the nicest concepts around. It is very simple and of great value. Quite simply it means "Good done in secret"

I have taken the definition from a text atributed to Koichi Tohei. Below is an amplification of the meaning:

"To do good in secret means to act without seeking attention and praise, to act without any hope of reward. This is called intoku."

If you wish to learn more about intoku, a study of the martial art Aikido and of Koichi Tohei would be in order. His book is What is Aikido?, Rikugei Publishing House, Tokyo, 1962

As for me, I simply like the concept of doing good without taking credit. If we all could employ this concept the world would become a much better place. Next time you have that opportunity, why not try and do a little intoku?

Intoku --- Good done in secret

Just as the number one can never be reduced to zero, once we act or speak, our action or speech is never completely erased.

An old Oriental saying tells us, "Sow good, and the harvest will be good. Sow evil and reap evil." We must understand that everything we do comes back to ourselves.

Therefore before wishing for our own happiness and welfare and that of our children we must do good in secret. To do good in secret means to act without seeking attention and praise, to act without any hope of reward. This is called intoku.

Among the various ways of performing intoku, to walk the way of the Universe and to lead others along this way is best.

from: http://omlc.ogi.edu/aikido/talk/tohei/shokushu/21.html
Koichi Tohei Copyright © Ki no Kenkyukai (Ki Society International)

From Eric Lew:
Kanji=chinese characters. Kan=han(in chinese), Ji=zi. han zi in chinese means chinese characters. han is the largest nationality in China among all 56 nationalities. the vast majority of chinese are of han nationality.

China and Japan were both dynasties with empire in ancient times. A sound government administration system was founded in Zhou Dynasty which was more than 2000 years ago. It was mostly about courtesy and bureaucracy. and there was no need for Japan and Korea, as relatively smaller states, to invent another system and they just copied it along with the official domumentary forms. Also there were sages like Confucius, Lao Tsu, Zhuang Tsu, Meng Tsu and strategist like Sun Tzu. their works were in chinese and people in Japan and Korea needed to study all those works as well as chinese medicine etc, so chinese was imported into Japanese and Korea directly studied chinese, koreans speak two languages in ancient times, chinese and korean.

Another great influence is Zen which was imported into Japan from China in Tang dynasty, about 1500 years ago. All buddhist sutras were in chinese.

From Bryan Schellenger:
The letters in the Intoku signs are considered Japanese and Chinese since we both use Kanji.

However, Intoku is Japanese pronounciation of the two Kanjis. Yin De is the Chinese pronounciation.

Japanese uses three characters:

(1) Kanji
(2) Hiragana (50 alphabet) and
(3) Katakana (50 alphabet)

Kanji is imported from China. In order to read Japanese newspaper, we need to know at least 3,000 ~ 5,000 Kanjis.

For Chinese, there is no Hiragana or Katakana. They use 10,000 to 20,000 kanji characters.

Click on image to go back

Translations courtesy of Bryan Schellenger and Eric Lew - USN brothers

There's a Jewish belief about giving that hierarchically rates the different kinds of giving. The highest level is giving where you don't know who receives it and they don't know who gave it. The lowest kind is where you have to beg for the donation and the giver makes you feel bad for asking.

(I'm unfortunately Goy - "In English however, the use of the word goy can be controversial. Like other common (and otherwise innocent) terms, it may be assigned pejoratively to non-Jews" - Wikipedia)