Author: dorakuan

When I left Kyoto beginning of April, I was sad about missing the peak of the cherry blossom by just a few days. Back home, while longing for the sakura in Kyoto, I almost missed a remarkably old and beautiful cherry tree in full bloom right here in this village, not even five minutes from my Dojo.

I must have never walked this particular way before, the view of the tree in the evening sun was most striking and by any means comparable to the most beautiful ones I have seen in Japan!

Maybe in your Dojo you regularly chant Hakuin’s Zazen Wasan (坐禅和讃). One line says 衆生近きを知らずして, 遠く求むるはかなさよ, in my clumsy translation: a pity to seek far away, without knowing about the living things nearby. Hakuin might have talked about seeking Buddha, but finding the beauty of a local cherry tree is not much different for me.

Some Sutra texts have a relevance for our daily life, so I recommend more advanced Zen students to actually spend effort into understanding their meaning. Just chanting SHUJO CHIKAKI O SHIRAZU SHITE, TOKU MOTOMURU HAKANASA YO without caring what the strange syllables mean is a good practice for beginners, but you risk to miss a friendly hint to a Buddha just around the corner…

Over the 13 years I worked with my former teacher, I took many pictures of him, including a short movie. But none of them came close to the one we shot in his Dojo in spring 2006.

We wanted to produce some material for a webpage and a book, still with my old analogue camera. Soon I sensed nothing worked: flash or not, additional light or not, I was not able to capture that specific silent and concentrated atmosphere present in the room when he was writing his calligraphy.

Suddenly, for a moment, the sun came through a gap in the clouds and flooded the Dojo with the most fantastic light. I said “Now!”, and without hesitation he took the brush and started writing a powerful 気. I took the picture, and a moment later the sun was gone.

No other photo we shot that day was anyhow good, but this one we used for many years to come…

Only when I am really and fully immersed in a situation or environment, I can take good pictures. It is nothing more than being here and catching the moment with my cheap little camera. If I fail to ban the atmosphere of a scenery, this tells me that I am not really aware of it, or just not fully present.

Usually I come back from Japan with a bunch of nice pictures, but I always failed to capture anything beautiful concerning the rock garden of Ryoanji-Temple in Kyoto.

While I enjoyed sitting on the veranda many times looking at the the famous stones in the sun, rain and snow, alone and with friends, I never managed to take a picture of the scenery I liked. Somehow, I concluded, in spite of their fame the couple of stones in the gravel do not
make much sense to me …

For that reason I hesitated to visit Ryoanji this time. But a storm was announced, and so I decided to change my plans hiking near Takao in the north of Kyoto last minute and went to Ryoanji instead. This was good luck, not just because the storm later became really severe.

When I entered the veranda of Ryoanji, the garden almost talked to me. It felt like looking into a mirror, or at my own calligraphy right after writing, a completely unexpected and joyful experience. For the first time I could easily take a couple of pictures of Ryoanji garden, perfectly reflecting what I saw and felt.

It is not the 15 stones (all Japanese tourists count before taking their picture). The beauty of Ryoanji’s rock garden comes from the vast emptiness, merely intensified by the stones, and from the old wall in the back. A perfect expression of 色即是空, 空即是色 from the Heart Sutra. To really see it, you maybe must ignore it is so famous …

Since my early teenage days I am into photography, though with several interruptions. A picture I like must be full of atmosphere, telling a story, magically transporting all the circumstances which cannot be printed on a sheet of paper: the scent of the flowers and warmth of an early spring day, the joyful activity and sound-scape of a street in Kyoto during Gion Matsuri, the smell of humid old cedar-wood and moss on a veranda facing a Japanese garden in the rain.

Aside from technical aspects (which often are ridiculously over-emphasized), I experience taking a picture very much like writing calligraphy: in this very moment I am fully present, and complete my work in one breath; not much can be improved thereafter. Most important is not being disturbed in my mindset by the action itself.

The reason why I gave up photography several times for years was that searching for nice views and handling a camera disturbed me experiencing the very situation I wanted to capture, and the wish of documenting everything became over-dominant. Doing calligraphy, you destroy your work already before the brush touches the paper if your mind is occupied by the desire to write something good.

One of my favourite photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson, was made aware of Eugen Herrigels “Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschiessens” by his artist friend Georges Braque. Later, another famous photographer, Robert Doisneau, compared Cartier-Bressons work to that of a Japanese archer. It is not transmitted if he had in mind the aesthetic and solemn atmosphere of Zen archery Herrigel described in his book, or the wild yabusame horse riders who attempt to hit the bull’s eye in full gallop, but both images describe very well the process of taking a picture, I guess.

Maybe my notes about the seven days I spent at the Zen-Dojo near Kyoto motivated you to visit the Tekishinjuku. For me it was a very good experience, but I heard others just left after a night or two. Reading about our day to day life in my blog, a friend wrote to me “… isn’t this just stupid? I never could do it …”. So a few words in addition to the information you can find on the International Zen-Dojo’s webpage are hopefully useful:

In case you are experienced with doing regular Zazen and certain aspects of Japanese life-style (especially eating and sitting on the floor), you might enjoy your time as much as I did. Just bring a sleeping bag and a few warm cloths in case you plan to go there during the cold months.

If you are new to Zen and Japanese living and particularly eating, but want to make your first experiences in a “real Dojo”, be prepared for some hardships. The best I can recommend is to come with an open mind: everything could be a bit different from what you might expect. Just watch and learn and do … Since you will sit on the floor not only during Zazen, it is a good idea to practice a bit beforehand in order to give your body a chance to adopt to the unfamiliar posture. Zen-practise always has a strong physical aspect, part of it outside our usual comfort-zone. Especially for the beginner the focus can quickly shift from contemplation to survival. And don’t forget to bring a good sleeping-bag for the months October-May …

In any case I suggest to plan staying longer than just one or two nights, otherwise you already leave before you really arrived. If you are just looking for a cheap accommodation near Kyoto and your interest in Zen is more a touristy one, I recommend not to visit Tekishinjuku. I read a heartbreaking report on the web of a young couple who suffered two days and nights through before eventually leaving, and another one from a Shakuhachi group entiteled “Prelude to Pain“.
An excellent introduction to Zen (in English) and the opportunity to combine holiday with a stay at the Temple is offered by Shunkoin, our Dojo’s partner-Temple, which is located inside the Myoshinji Temple complex in Kyoto. Find out about Shunkoin’s weekly schedule here.

That was our daily schedule at Tekishinjuku, more or less:

4:50	Rise
5:15	Morning service
6:00	Zazen
7:00	Interior and garden cleaning
7:30	Breakfast
9:00	Manual work period
12:00	Lunch
14:00	Free practise (Zazen, Sutra copy, reading, …)
16:00	Evening service
17:00	Dinner
19:00	Zazen
21:00	Night service, retire

 

If you happen meet the most friendly monk K-san, who’s name is now Genryo, please don’t forget to say a warm “hello” from me!

This time my trip to Japan was a bit extreme, from Kobe in the south-west to Sendai in the north-east and back. I saw the currently worldwide fastest supercomputer, went to Sendai for maybe the first scientific conference after the disaster, spent a night at an expensive Ryokan not so far from Fukushima and a week with nice people at Zen Temple outside Kyoto. I was hiking in the hills around Kamakura and enjoyed an exceptionally clear view of mount Fuji. And on the last day I attended a scientific workshop at Kyoto University, where I was happy to meet friends and colleagues from my scientific community.

In the plane somewhere above Siberia, I am just finishing my notes and wonder was there any specific highlight I should mention? I don’t think so, every day was a good day. I feel very grateful for all I experienced the past two weeks, and towards the people I have met. Now, I am just a bit tired …

When I came back from Kameoka, I found all Kyoto busy preparing for Hanami, the cherry blossom party. In Maruyama Koen groups people happily drinking under the first cherry blossoms could be spotted, and at Hirano Jinja the booths and platforms were set up for catering the guests expected to come in large numbers the next days.

I was a bit worried how the big city would affect my mood after seven days in the Zen Dojo on quiet countryside. But it was o.k., no problem, Kyoto was for me the same as before. Just my one-tatami sized room in the old Ryokan was a bit too much luxury I felt, it even provided heating!
I enjoyed wandering around in the city, sitting at the banks of Kamogawa river in the evening, walking along Higashiyama in the east from Nanzen-ji Temple all the way to Kiyomizu-dera. Kyoto is just my second home-town, somehow, and coming home is always good …

On the last day we had a workshop at Kyoto University, which my colleagues kindly shifted for one week so I can participate. Changing from my indigo dyed samue to a black business suit, and giving a scientific presentation instead of doing Zazen and manual labour felt a bit strange at first. But the one or other way, I guess, both aspects are part of my every day life.

When I had to go back to Kyoto after seven days I was really sad. My time at the International Zen-Dojo felt much longer than just one week, and the Tekishinjuku became a bit my home … I will miss K-san and J, our morning coffee on Roshi’s exclusive staircase, and so much more.

New guests will come and I won’t be there to help cooking. How will the polite Japanese man who arrived the other day and now moved into “my room” in the guesthouse get along with the group of tourists living under the same roof? They do not just not share the same schedule, but also not a single word of the same language? And also I did not even finish sharpening the second cooking knife … o.k., I have to let it go!

What could I learn after all, in such a short time … or was it in the end just some “Zen-tourism” I did?

Today, on the way to the airport, I found a leaflet in my pocket I must have collected two weeks ago at the Engakuji Temple in Kitakamakura. The answer to my question was written on it:

Although the spoon touches the soup every day year after year, it will never know the soup’s taste. But if you just drink one single drop, you will know the taste.

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P.S.: A friend made me aware that the probably eldest source of the “spoon and soup” proverb is the Dhammapada, Chap.5 V.64+65. Not intending to discriminate fools and wise (or count me to the one or other group), I just wanted to say that it’s up to us to make the best out of what we find, and learn from it. Otherwise, however far you might travel, however long you might stay, whomever you might meet, chances are high “that’s a spoon ye’ll sup sorrow with yet …”

I was happy to discover a collection of huge wooden swords (suburito) behind the Temple. So I could do a few suburi or Aikiken (Aikido sword style) every day, and sometimes all of us practised together.

It is a big relief for stiff shoulders and neck to exercise with the wooden sword, and personally I like some Budo spirit at a Zen Dojo. Working with the sword is an excellent Zen-practise for a variety of reasons, therefore I also plan to teach seminars on Zazen, Hitsuzdendo and Aikiken in 2013.

On the last day we were half through with our exercise while it was a bit raining, when suddenly K-san called us across the garden wall “Roshi said we maybe can do Zazen now!” I was a bit shocked, because I did not realise the Roshi was around in the garden. So I feared he might be upset because we practised sword outside on the parking-lot, while inside the Temple he held a memorial service with some local guests who came an hour ago in very formal black suits. When I heard him say “very good” while we passed by to put back the swords, I felt much relieved. He just wanted to make us come inside because of the rain…

—
P.S.: Back home, I found this picture on the web, indicating that the Roshi likes practising with a sword himself. To my surprise he is standing in a typical “hanmi” (half body) posture, more common in some branches of Aikiken than any other more traditional schools of sword fighting.

A pity I did not ask him, aside from Omori Sogen’s Jikishinkage-ryu, where did he learn handling the sword apparently the same way I do…?

I have absolutely no talent for languages; achieving my current poor level of Japanese took me ten years of hard work, and I still cannot even read a newspaper. So the good news is that it is possible for everyone to learn one’s teacher’s language to a certain basic extend, and very likely in a much shorter time!

For a student in Zen and Martial Arts, speaking, hearing and especially reading are not so important,  first comes carefully observing your teacher and seniors, trying to understand and imitate what they do and why. Said that, I always thought it is a bit impolite and showing a certain ignorance towards what your teacher might have to tell you, if you do not even try to learn communicating in a language he or she feels comfortable with. If after years of being a Japanese teacher’s favourite student, all you can say his “Hai Roshi, hai …” and “Ossu”, I imagine this uses up a big deal of his infinite generosity and tolerance. And it makes you dependent on the clumsy translations performed by people like me …

This morning after the Sutra Chanting, our Dojo was full with guests, the Roshi gave a long explanation about the background of the breathing exercise he created and just performed with us, the underlying principles and the importance of developing a strong Hara. He talked once more about the unity of human beings and nature, and how important it is to have heart and body act together for being free, for which Zen provides a good background. Also he mentioned that his new temple has beams and doors higher than 1,80, extra for us Westerners … and in the middle of explaining all this, he turned towards me and said “please translate”.  That was a pretty good wakeup-call!