Bullets to write about later:
Incredibly frightening Dragon Gong
Chopsticks crisis
Spider
Prostrations
Clean water
Eyes making a line
Slow eating
Plum
Takuhatsu
Misty Mountains
Creepy doors
Graveyard
Gruel
Shrimp chips #2
Roshi’s GF
Highway
HUGE SPIDER OMFG
We’re on our way! I’m feeling a little better about all of this now. Wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m excited, but it’s enough. Here’s the schedule (as much as I know):
Wake up at 4:00
Meditate/sutras till 6:00ish
Breakfast
Split into three groups: one goes and begs for alms, one goes on a hike to a shrine, and one does something else – oh, gardening. Or something.
Lunch
Hour break
Meditation
Dinner
Bath and bed, ideally at 9:00, but most likely later.
I CAN DO THIS. Gotta go into this with that kind of attitude. I can do this. I hope I can afford to write about this experience without losing much sleep. I may have to write in bullet points for a while.
Speaking of bullet points, I never got around to explaining the bullets on 9/13!
Parfait – I ate one. It was delicious.
Bathroom cleaning – Me, Harrison and Danielle are in charge of bathroom cleaning at the temple now. It’s kinda fun, actually – we spray down the floor with a hose, scrub it with a brush, scrub the toilets, wipe the mirrors and wipe down the sinks. There are drains all along the floor, so the water drains fairly quickly.
Mosquitos – they’re fat and spoiled here, making them slow and easy to swat. It’s very tempting. Monks are not allowed to kill, it’s one of the precepts. This includes killing mosquitos. As a result, they are numerous and fearless. Terrible combination. I killed one the other day. Felt kinda bad about it, but only briefly.
Fun Fact: I think I’m gonna start pronouncing Buddham like ‘Budh-a’ and not ‘Boo-dah’. It sounds a bit on the pretentious side, but it’s prettier. It’s also the correct way to pronounce it.
We’re going to have the option of meeting with Docho-Roshi (Hokyoji’s abbot) the same way that we did with Issho-sensei. I know I’m going to do it, but I`m going to have to think of a better question than what I asked last time.
Dharma combat – Potential abbot/clergy man is asked tough questions, and has to answer them as quickly and accurately as possible. It sounds pretty intense.
Later:
-Yoda
-Castle (fake)
-Knees
-Metaphors
-Glasses
-Shrimp chips
-Powow
-Ringing bells
-Spiders
I’m like a bottle of wine – I get mature with age. But that doesn’t mean that right now I taste sour, sweet, or bitter. Not necessarily. I have to wait it out, I can’t know until I’m older what kind of wine I am. That’s what Issho-sensei said last night, during our abbot-monk ‘interview’. Once every so often, the abbot of a temple will hold interviews with the monks. During the interview, you have to go through a process of bowing, prostrations, seiza for an uncomfortable amount of time, and at the end, you get whacked with a kaku…kakau…katets…a stick. A long stick. I’ll think up the name later.
Anyhoo, after I went through the motions, I asked Issho-sensei how I could take my Zazen practice back to the States. It’s one thing to meditate with a group of Buddhist Studies students while being instructed by a bona fide zen monk at 5:00 am, and another to sit alone, surrounded by computers and unfinished homework, 20-some hours away from a place where what I’m doing is socially relevant. I’ve learned a lot of things in the past two weeks, and I don’t want to come back to the States and have things go back to the way they were before. It’d be so easy to fall back into my old routine, and I really don’t want that to happen. But how do I compromise my hectic, stressful, and frequently overwhelming lifestyle with this new, minimalistic, uncomplicated one?
Issho-sensei that there’s nothing I can ‘bring back’, except myself. We’re all shaped by the people and things around us, and when I go home, I’m going to fall back into my old patterns. But there will be new patterns too. If I keep up the practice, I’ll be able to maintain that same Zazen, but I have to accept that things will be different. That’s the nature of life, after all.
He also compared me to a flower. I need nourishment – water, sun, fertilizer, etc. Issho-sensei loves analogies. I love Issho-sensei.
Hokyoji, noooo! Ugh, I am way not excited. They haven’t really told us much about it, which makes it even worse. Just that we ‘won’t have time to crack a book’. Maaaan.
I’ve been in Japan for two weeks, and its felt like an eternity. This is definitely not a bad thing.
Things I’ll do differently when I go back to the States:
– Wear house slippers
– Bow sometimes
– Drink tea
– Smile more
– Use chopsticks more
– Apologize
Let’s Learn Japanese! Lesson 1:
Sumimasen: my offences will not end!
Do itashimashite: How could you say thank you when anyone would do the same in my place?
It’s funny how the Japanese language can really tell you a lot about its culture. We talked about that in Society – I’d go into the details, but it’d take forever. Needless to say, language is amazing.
Oh no, I’m hungry again…trying really hard not to eat as much – well, starting today, anyhow. Okay, starting this morning. This is very difficult. It’s just, Japanese food is so delicious! I can’t deal with it. There are these delicious not-exactly-Pocky things with cream inside that tastes like pound cake. Mmmm. I could eat them forever.
More Bullets:
– Four hour eating lesson
– Parfait epic calories
– Laundry air dry failure
– Naps make two days out of one
– Bathroom cleaning
– Mosquito flocks
– Nara
Last night was really fun. It started off with dinner – there were baby fishes in my jalepeno peppers. I know this is some really flawed logic here, but there are limits to the meat I will eat in Japan, and that limit is babies. I will not eat babies. At home I’m like “Sure, I’m a vegetarian” to make things less complicated, but to be honest, I’m not really much of a vegetarian at all. Not in Durham, anyway. When I go to Durham, I eat local meat, and it’s delicious. (No meat in Asheville generally, though) Here, I decided to eat meat, because I wanted to try all kinds of Japanese foods, not just veggie tempura and tofu. The baby fish were the last straw. I told Aimee-sensei that I couldn’t eat the meat meals anymore, and she agreed to let me switch my meal preference. So yeah, hopefully no more baby-anythings.
After the adorable baby fish massacre, we had a meeting, then –
Quotes never to forget:
“What’s mine is yours!” “And what’s mine is mine as well.”
“We’re lusting after a married monk. WITH A KID.”
“Squirtle, use surf! Squirtle only knows tack and tail whip. Squirtle drowns.”
Right. So, last night. Me, Andrea, Will, Harrison, Phillip, Jasna, Danielle and Susannah walked down to the river. It took about twenty minutes. Wow, I wish I had the energy to write about this in more depth. Point is, we hung out at the river. It was a ton of fun, and I got to know everyone a little better. On the way we sang Simon and Garfunkel songs and chatted. The river was really pretty. We saw a giant water rat (eh, it was probably a possum, but whatever) and Danielle and I went on a bathroom hunt adventure. Susannah, Jasna and me danced and sung to the Black Eyed Peas, and we saw our first homeless person. All in all, a pretty fun night.
Well, I took a nap. Then dinner happened, then Snack Attack, then sleep. My bad.
Things I have learned this past week:
– Don’t spill your soup all over the breakfast table.
– Don’t hiccup repeatedly during morning sutras.
– Don’t leave the lights on in the zendo.
– Don’t drop your underwear in front of the temple on the way to the bathhouse.
– Don’t eat the weird red thing on top of the bento rice. It’s not a cherry.
– Don’t drool on the buckwheat pillow.
– Ojisan and ojiisan mean ENTIRELY different things. Don’t confuse them.
– Don’t eat standing up.
– Don’t drop your camera into the squat toilet.
– Don’t press the orange button next to the toilet.
– Don’t use the squat toilet without putting in your contacts.
– Don’t swim in the sulforous-smelling tub without taking off your silver jewelry.
– Don’t pretend you speak Japanese. EVER.
– Don’t say Ohayoo gozaimasu after 11:00 am.
– Don’t play Blackjack with David.
– Don’t finish eating last.
– Don’t read the sutras too loudly.
– Don’t open the zendo sliding screen.
Key words to write about later:
Phillip “Ruined my nightly routine”
Sake = gross
Five different conveenie stores
Coin machines
Homeless person #1
Rat the size of a possum (can swim)
McDonalds and the 100 yen burger
Photobooth
Bridge with lights
Disappointed grapes
Big headed conveenie
Oh boy. I am NOT sleeping well. This is no good at all. I slouched during meditation today (and slept through warm-ups! They’re optional, but still…) Augh. Hopefully I’ll get more sleep tonight. Maybe I’ll take a nap now.
There was a typhoon today! (I know, right?) It wasn’t actually that spectacular – just a lot of rain. Again, not sure exactly what I was expecting. Thunder and lightning, maybe? Huge winds and wayward umbrellas? Flying Japanese nannies and huge fish leaping out of the water before dissolving into waves*? Nope, just lots of heavy rain. It didn’t last long though, which was good. Kyoto needed the rain, apparently.
Ugh. I thought I was gonna be sick during meditation today. I had trouble sleeping last night, and didn’t drift off until 10:45ish. No good. Little sleep is not conducive to good meditation. I took a nap this afternoon, though, so I should be good tomorrow. It’s the ‘short’ day (8-10 am class, then free till evening meditation), so I’ll have a chance to do some reading and send emails inthe library, providing I can figure out how I can use my computer. I’ll ask Harrison about it.
I love the Ryokoku U. campus. Firstly, the bathrooms are super nice – the stalls all have sliding doors (it makes so much sense!) and the toilet has lotsa nifty buttons. Today I accidently pressed the alarm button. I’m pretty sure I’m the third or fourth person in the group to have done that, so I don’t feel too terrible about it, but still. Embarrassing.
Every hour, instead of a bell ringing to signal the end of classes, there’s a whole chorus of bells, playing this relaxing melody. It’s like something from my Singing Metal Bowls of Tibet CD. I wish UNCA had bells like that. Or bells at all, for that matter. We have a bell over Governor’s Hall, but it just kinda sits there, Liberty Bell style. Le boo.
The Ryokoku Library closest to our temp is AMAZING. It feels like an alien space station – when you go in, the metal automatic doors open and you insert your student card to open the metal gate, like you do tickets at a bus/train station. There are four floors connected by glass elevators, and lots of computers. There’s an AV area where you can go and watch movies on computers while sitting at big couches. Super posh.
It’s a new library – two years old, I think, which is part of what makes it so impressive, I think. That, and the fact that it’s in Japan. Did I mention that I’m in Japan? Yeah, I am. Still not over it.
Yesterday after class, me, Danielle Shelby and Jasna when to the library to study. We went up to the third floor and sat at a table in front of a large window looking over a gorgeous temple (you can’t throw a rock without hitting a temple here [or a building that looks like a temple, anyway]), and a small school building with little kids running around outside. It was just me for a while, which was kinda nice. Hum.
*See: Ponyo and the Cliff by the Sea
Me and Shelby went down the street to get noodles, then grabbed cookies at the convenience store across the street from the temple (they call it a ‘conveenie’). The lunch and cookies were really delicious. My latent psychic abilities are beginning to manifest, and they are telling me that before this trip is over, I’m going to get fat. Yup.
Tomorrow’s our first day of meditation and classes, and I’m pretty excited. It’s almost 9:00 pm, so I should get to bed soon, but I just wanted to write a little more. I tried calling Dudley yesterday afternoon. Didn’t think it was going to get through, so when it did, I was really surprised, and didn’t know what to say. It was 2:00 am there, and he was at Dragon*Con. I wish I could be in two places at once. He’s having lots of fun. Of course, about thirty seconds into the conversation I started bawling. Its only been, what, a little less that a week? We’ve been apart for alot longer than this, but I think the fact that he’s literally all the way on the other side of the earth makes it a little more difficult. I can’t even do that corny ‘Maybe he’s looking at the same moon!’ thing, cuz of the 13-hour time difference. Not that I’d do that, or anything.
After I talked with Dudley, I called mom and dad, and told them I was doing well. I’m going to try and email them tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. I miss them.
September 7th, 2010
Let’s see, where did I leave off…Sunday. Okay. Welp, it’s Tuesday now, and, once again, a lot has happened. Issho-sensei and John-sensei happened, for one. Meditation began, classes started, and I ate a lot. The prophecy has already begun to manifest itself…
We sort of had our first morning-meditation yesterday morning. At 5:15 am, we staggered into the zendo, sleepy and rumpled. (I’m mostly talking about myself here, I was too dopey to actually notice the state of anyone around me). When I woke up, I had one of those “WHERE AM I??” moments that lasted about a second too long. Ugh. Anywho, we staggered through the futon-folding and teeth brushing before we made it into the zendo. We all grabbed zafu, round sitting pillows, from a stack in the outer area of the zendo, and filed into the zendo’s inner room. The sliding paper-screen doors weren’t soundproof, but they kept out the flocks of mosquitos. Despite them being made of paper, the room was surprisingly cool. We each got our own tatami mat along the screen walls, while Issho-sensei took front-and-center. Most of what followed was Issho-sensei introducing himself, and explaining Zazen. We ended up meditating for about six minutes before doing an introduction to sutra chanting.
Lemme talk about Issho-sensei for a bit. He went to Tokyo University, and got a degree in Psychology, followed by a PhD in Zen buddhism. He joined the Soto Zen clergy when he was 29, and, very long story short, went to teach Soto Zen in Massachusetts. I’m not ashamed to say that when I heard that a priest was going to be teaching us Zazen, I was not expecting anyone like him. That’s been the story of this trip, really. Completely unexpected.
I love Issho-sensei. He makes me want to go to Amherst and take his classes (Harrison goes to Amherst already, lucky guy). Apparently there’s a huge Buddhist community in Amherst. There’s a lot of stuff in California too, though…stuff to think about. In any case, Issho is sweet and smily and does awesome warm-up exercises and has a relaxing voice and speaks awesome English (uses words like ‘paradigm’ and ‘cerebral cortex’ and stuff. Maybe one day I’ll be able to say those kinds of things in another language too…probably not.)
Anyway, his warm-ups are really awesome. Unfortunately, my right knee is totally wack, and I can’t sit kekkafuza (full lotus), hanka fuza (half lotus) or just a regular pretzel (pretzel) without my knee screaming “NOOOOO!” But I talked to Issho-sensei about it after afternoon meditation, and he told me to sit in seiza with a zafu between my legs. It makes my knee hurt a lot less, which is pretty much awesome. I love him.
“When we sit zazen, what precepts are not observed? What merits are not actualized?” Dogen Zenji
I like it. And that fact that Issho-sensei practices it, and the clear and rational way in which he explains it – at least the way he managed to straddle the whole objective/subjective line made it that much more appealing. But yeah.
The prostrations were also pretty neat. At first, it felt a little strange. I almost felt bad for going to such an extreme extent for a religion that I don’t actually practice/legitimately belong to. The presence of the altar that we were bowing to made the whole process even more intimidating. Maybe I’ll try and post a picture of the altar here sometime.
We lined ourselves up on the mats in the main area and gassho’d. From there, we knelt on the floor and bent so that our foreheads were touching the mat. We then bent our forearms and turned our palms up, lifting them slightly from the mat for a few seconds, then stood up and repeated the process twice more. We then chanted the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita) and the closing sutra, before repeating the prostrations. Then we cleaned the rooms. All-in-all, it was pretty neat.
After the ceremonies, we had breakfast, then class. I don’t really feel like talking about class, but all of them were interesting. I’m auditing Japanese Society – it’s way too interesting not to take. Also, John-sensei is really cool.
When class was over, we had orientation (tour of the school, how to use the university computer system, etc) then afternoon meditation (5:00 pm). The yoga warm-ups were great, and the sitting was okay (only bad cuz my knee, but we talked about that after).
Man, I totally do not have time to do this, but I’m gonna go doodle.
Okay, I’m going to try and get this over with without skimping on important details, so please bear with me. The first thing you need to know is about the Buraku class. The buraku are descendents of butchers and people of other meat-selling professions. Because of the stigma against the killing and eating of animals, the buraku were ostrasized and discriminated against in a big way. They began living in Buraku communities, and were (and still are), on the whole, members of the lower class. Until the late 1800’s, the buraku were forced to include the fact that they were buraku when they were entered into the government registry. This means that employers and schools who had access to this registry were free to discriminate against them. Even though the registry no longer exists, it’s not difficult to find out whether someone is buraku, based on their profession and birthplace. Before marriage, a lot of families still hire detectives to find out whether the person their son or daughter is marrying is buraku. It’s pretty bizarre. But the most bizarre thing of all is that the buraku and Japanese non-buraku look EXACTLY THE SAME. Crazy. One of the books I read for the program talked about how even the upper tiers of the Indian caste system doesn’t treat the lower tiers, even the untouchables, half as badly as the Japanese government treat the buraku. But anyway. The Onsen Incident.
Thursday night, we went to an ofura, or public bathhouse. It was about a fifteen minute brisk walk, and by the time we got there, we were all really hot and tired from a combination of jet lag, orientaion exhaustion and fast walking. I’mna shorten this part: we made it inside, and started the baths. It was as similar set-up to the ofura in Koshoji, but bigger, with lots of older Japanese women. There were also about six different tubs. Pretty cool. Susannah and I sat on two of the stools and started washing our hair, when an older woman came out of the sauna and started talking quickly to us in Japanese. I heard the word ‘hayaku’ which means ‘hurry up’, a few times, so I told Susannah we should probably move. We went to a different set of stools, hoping to avoid further conflict. What happened next was a part that we didn’t see:
After we had moved to a different area, Aimee-sensei began berating the woman for the way she had treated us, saying that she had brought us to the ofura in a n attempt to show us a different side of Japanese society, and that we were here to learn so that we could go back to the states with a good impression. We had paid the same amount of money that she had, and deserved to be treated with respect. Aimee told us afterwards that when she had finished, the woman stalked away, but not before delivering a harsh kick at another woman. Upon seeing this, Aimee went straight to the manager of the ofura and got her to call the police. Because not only was the woman bitter and rich, but the woman she had kicked was buraku, and because of this, had not retailiated. She didn’t even react at all.
So, the police came, and spoke with the woman, forching her to offer a formal apology to Aimee and the buraku woman she had kicked. Meanwhile, in another part of the bath, we were finding out that one of the hot tubs turned our silver jewelry a pretty gold color, and that the green tub electrocuted you a little bit. It didn’t feel bad, just kinda weird.
After our bath, Aimee drew the seven of us aside and explained to us what had happened. Needless to say, we were all pretty shocked, not only because of what happened, but at Aimee-sensei’s reaction. We never would have expected a mild-mannered woman like Aimee-sensei to be so…what, passionate? Strong willed? We were all really impressed. Susannah and I felt partly responsible for the incident, but Aimee assured us that were weren’t, and that what we had seen that night was a side of Japanese society that didn’t often show on the surface. Like all societies, Japanese society has many faces, she said, and in a way, were were lucky to have seen what we did. The wonderful thing about that particular ofura, she explained, was that not only was it built over a natural hotsprings, but it was a place that attracted people from all different classes. It was cheap enough for the lower class to afford, and nice enough to interest the upper class. It was also located very close to a Buraku district, which is how Aimee-sensei and the rich woman had recognized the other woman as Buraku – they had seen her riding her bike from that area, and Aimee-sensei recognized her. All societies have many faces, some of them darker than others, and we got to see one of those dark faces in a big way.
I’mna go study kanji, I’ll write more later.
A Barbaric Yawp 