Author: dorakuan

Rice is our essential food, three times a day. If we did not have an electric rice-cooker, one of us would permanently be busy in the kitchen. So, using some modern technology is maybe o.k., the more even this can provide a good lecture.

After a few days working in the kitchen I realised that the removable inner lid of the rice-cooker has not been cleaned for possibly a very long time, so I got rid of lots of brownish-greenish smelly stuff hiding there. Also the ventilation on top did not look and smell too good, carefully speaking, and I decided to clean it the next day.

Never postpone anything to tomorrow!

Last evening J must have set up the cooker for the rice-soup accidentally with the wrong program. After morning-Zazen was finished, we found lots of water was leaking from the cooker, and this water had a really strange colour. The rice was dyed in the same strange colour, we quickly discovered … but the top ventilation I wanted to clean today was now properly washed. “Maybe strange colour, but we don’t care … still can eat rice!” K-san decided. And we had to eat it all up …

—
P.S.: I just read about the Tenzo or cook of a Monastery: “Since ancient times this office has been held by realized monks or by senior disciples who have roused the enlightened. Those entrusted with this work but who lack a disciplined mind will only cause and endure hardship despite all their efforts.” Mea culpa …

Sometimes small things make life difficult. Kamemushi for example. I wondered about the awful smell in my room after getting all dead insects out on the first day, and the smell was not completely gone a week later when I left.

As soon as we opened a window or sliding door to the veranda, the Kamemushi came in. Little bugs, who usually play dead, but become awfully stinky when being touched.

Sometimes I saw them wandering around in the Zendo during the Morning Service or Zazen, and K-san told me he accidentally once crashed a Kamemushi which sat on the Mokugyo, the big wooden drum-fish, during Sutra chanting.

It is not always romantic harmony, human beings and nature living closely together, and a Japanese house on countryside can be a good training ground in case you feel a bit uncomfortable with insects crawling around. The impact of small things on your Zen practise should never be underestimated…

I remember I once read a funny story about the young Shunryu Suzuki, when he and his fellow monks buried some spoiled takuan (pickled radish) in the back of the garden, so they don’t have to eat it any more.

It must have been the same kind of takuan we have three times a day with our meals, and as much as I usually love takuan, I am not sure if our specific sample still fulfils all necessary requirements for being called “edible”. I imagine it is just some left-over from the Monks who deserted the International Zen-Dojo in March 2011 … but we have to eat all up!

In a Temple and Zen Dojo there is a special way of taking the meals, called Oryoki (応量器). The details differ from place to place, but basically one has five bowls (called jihatsu 持鉢), of which three to all are used (depending on the meal) together with chopsticks and some wrapping and cleaning cloth. The whole procedure is pretty complicated, consisting of Sutra chanting, a specific way to unpack and later clean and pack the bowls … and also eating itself is formalised and usually very fast!

I had a hard time learning the Oryoki procedure, so I asked T-san where I could buy such bowls in Kyoto to practice back home. He replied that he maybe can ask the Roshi where to find a specialised shop.

The next day the Roshi talked to me about the bowls, and offered to buy them for me in a shop near Myoshinji Temple. I first thought I must have misunderstood his Japanese … just a stranger, a passer by to his Temple and Dojo, not even his student, he offers to go and buy Jihatsu bowls for me ? “Very unusual!” K-san remarked later … I agree, the Roshi really is an unusually kind person.

I feel much embarrassed that I completely messed up the Oryoki procedure again during today’s supper … maybe I should start practising with  just one bowl for the next decade or so…?

The guesthouse of the International Zen-Dojo I stay for these seven days is an old Japanese house surrounded by a beautiful garden. I love it, although at night it is as spooky as you just can imagine, and freezing cold. In daytime it is heaven to sit on the veranda (where I am writing right now) while enjoying the beautiful scene of the garden.

Japanese houses can teach us westerners modesty and awareness for details. Especially if we, like myself, are taller than the typical 1,80 meters height of doors and horizontal beams. The paper sliding doors are easy to destroy, everything is fragile and has to be used with a certain skill and care.

This morning, while waiting in the garden for his guests to wake up, the Roshi talked with me about the benefits of this kind of old Japanese architecture: it makes us human beings live closer to nature than any modern insulated apartment made of concrete and steel. A wood- and paper house surrounded by a garden opens our heart and helps us feel and understand that we are part of nature, not separated beings.

An old friend and student of Roshi, a high ranked martial arts teacher, was announced to arrive with his wife, baby and two students for holiday. I wondered if it might not become challenging to combine a Zen Dojo’s busy schedule with that of a group of tourists, and I was a bit worried about sharing the house with people who go to bed late after pub and get up half a day after the rest of us. But unexpected interference is always a good Zen exercise …

The morning after his guests arrived the Roshi came three or four times to the guesthouse for discussing the sightseeing schedule, though in vein, all of them were still sound asleep.

Since it was our free day, I just did some cleaning inside the house, very silently not to wake up the sleeping ones, so every now and then I had the opportunity to talk a bit with the Roshi. He took me to the neighbour’s house, a cultivator of bonsai trees, and we had some interesting exchange concerning architecture and living in an old Japanese house.

When his visitors finally made it out of their futons around eleven, he asked me to translate. The Roshi did not show any anger, just slight astonishment, and I concluded he really must be a very generous character. Though, he asked all of them to join next morning’s service at 5 am, and I had the impression that his friends did not really trust my translation at first …

At a Zen-Temple or Dojo one is usually quite busy from dusk to dawn. A good chance to go to the supermarket, do ones washing or just relax a bit is the “day off” every two weeks. The schedule is much relaxed, after Morning Service, Zazen and cleaning (all finished around 7:30 am) the meals are free-style, and no other program points.

Stream with bamboo near the Temple

First I was disappointed to hear my seven days at the Zen-Dojo will be interrupted by a day off, but now I am happy! I have time to write a bit, explore the neighbourhood and take a few pictures, eat a relaxed meal with my friends outside on the veranda. And I can enjoy the lovely guesthouse and garden in the sun! 

With all the strict schedule and work, it is really good to sometimes just relax. Too often in my daily life I tend to forget the importance and pleasures of taking a break …
 

The formal architecture of a Zendo or Temple comprises a main entrance where only the Roshi is allowed to enter. On the webpage of the Tekishinjuku I read that it is “strictly forbidden” to come through this gate, so I never ever did it.

Not strictly forbidden seems to hang around at this Roshi’s exclusive entrance and enjoy a morning coffee, once Sutra Chanting, Zazen, cleaning and breakfast are over.

I asked K-san if the way we make use of this sunny but possibly somehow forbidden place is really o.k., and he replied with an ambiguous, “yes, maybe o.k. …”. An answer which did not fully comfort me, until one day the Roshi unexpectedly came back in the morning, and just smiled when he saw us sitting on “his” stairs enjoying the sun.

So, maybe, it is o.k. …

In a Zen-temple it is not possible to enjoy a hot bath or shower every evening. The only place for a quick daily wash at our guesthouse is the old outdoors basin providing cold water, not too inviting at temperatures slightly above zero …

But each couple of days (at very traditional places every two weeks) is bathing day, and today it is! After three freezing cold nights and four days wearing all the cloths I brought with me to Japan, I was much looking forward to soak myself in hot water.

Several times during my trips to Japan I stayed in lovely old onsen-ryokan where the night costs a fortune (usually neither booked nor paid by myself), with baths comprising splendid tubs from exotic wood or giant stones, filled with natural hot spring water said to have certain healing effects. But today’s bath in the Temple’s small metal tub filled with hot tap-water was without doubt the best and most joyful soak I ever had in my life!

I like Sutra chanting. Not being a great singer myself, this is a good way for me to unify breath and body through voice, together with others. But I must admit that chanting a text which is the Japanese pronunciation of a Chinese translation of something coming from India I do not really understand, is not fully satisfying.

A copy of the Heart Sutra at Tokoji Temple

So another activity I enjoy doing here at the International Zen-Dojo during the afternoon „free practice“ hour is Sutra copying, a practise called shakyo (写経) in Japanese. For someone who likes calligraphy, this is a pleasant exercise! And a Sutra-text does not really start making sense, unless one seriously tries to discover the meaning behind it’s underlying Chinese characters, instead of just reading nonsense syllables in Latin alphabet from a sheet of paper. Even more, slowly writing the characters while rehearsing their pronunciation, helps me a lot to memorise the text.

K-san suggested I might want to offer my copy to the temple, maybe the Roshi will accept it for their collection. But it was J’s birthday the next day, and I didn’t have any present … so I had a better idea what to do with my hand-brushed copy Hannya Shingyo.