Author: dorakuan

Since my early childhood time, I love the Danish fairy tail “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen. It is one of the best introductory texts to Zen I am aware of.

Looking right into the essence of a human being, in complete ignorance of whatever status, rank, title or other kind of fake cloths the person is believing or believed to wear, this is what we can learn in Zen. One might think a PhD or a 7th Dan in martial arts or a Roshi’s title is of some meaning, and the person holding it might be of a certain importance.

“Kill it!” was Rinzai’s response to any of this, and my (maybe more 21st century human and modest) reaction is “burst into laughter”. Zen is right here right now, the two or three of us. On a seminar day, you come through the door, put off your shoes, walk up the stairs … that’s all, in all it’s beauty and simplicity, nothing more, nothing less.

Last weekend, I went to an Aikido Seminar conducted by senior students of the late Kobayashi Hirokazu (1929-1998). It was touching to experience how much all of us who once practised with Kobayashi Sensei, in spite of our too obvious differences, carry him and his Aikido in our heart and body, share a love for the old man we simply refer to as “Sensei”.

I remember his teaching as generous, his technique efficient yet beautiful to watch, and personally he behaved just like an elder friend to us. There was no organisation to join, no examination to pass and no discussion about ranks and positions. Just practice, practice, practice, his friendly guidance and a good deal of joyful private communication outside class. What he left behind are the many of us, who most of all wish to understand and continue his way of doing Aikido.

Next year I will find a place to teach Kobayashi Sensei’s Aikido again, as I did more than a decade ago. The past 13 years I could not take responsibility for regular classes, since I was completing studies with my former Zen teacher. Now it’s the time, and I am much looking forward towards merging Aikido, Zazen and Hitsuzendo within one school …

When I was a young Zen student assisting my former teacher during his Sesshin, I often asked myself “why on earth do I spend my time and money to work with those people ?” Some participants in our seminars really got on my nerves, and often I felt I had more than enough good reasons to complain …

Shunryu Suzuki once said “when you have shit on your nose, it smells bad wherever you go”. In my experience, practising Zen is a bit like cleaning your nose. The bad smell you find everywhere is getting less and less with time …

Nowadays, I really enjoy doing seminars and Sesshin. There is no stress and no anger about participants, I am always looking forward towards having a good time of Zazen and Hitsuzendo with the nice people coming. I very much hope, after they leave, they don’t think it smelled bad at my Dojo!

Last evening I returned from a three weeks journey to China and Japan. This time I decided not to post anything during the trip, but instead take notes, and do the on-line work by and by once I am back home.

Besides meeting friends and family, the purpose of my trip was to deeper understand the roots of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy. Also, I wanted to explore how much of the once so rich Chinese culture survived the cultural revolution and the past decade’s vast economic and industrial changes.

In Japan, I visited Shunkoin, the Rinzai-Zen temple within Myoshinji in Kyoto, my Dojo is affiliated with.

To keep the time-line of the blog in order, I will set the posting dates approximately to the days I took my notes. So please scroll down, if you want to read my Chinese-Japanese Zen diary coming on-line by and by during the next week.

I started this blog in May 2011 during my visit to Japan, soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Coming back six months later, Kyoto and Tokyo appeared to me as they did during all my previous trips. No more “energy saving” posters, none of the millions of cooled vending machines switched off, and the night in Shibuya was illuminated brighter than daylight.

In Asakusa, besides the Sensoji temple, I saw an exhibition from the Fukushima region, with kabuki play, a soba noodle maker, lots of tourist advertisement and regional farming products and sake freely distributed and happily taken away by the visitors. The slogan of the event was “Fukushima Happy Design”.

I do so much appreciate the strength of the Japanese people not to bother others publicly with private troubles and emotions … but in the face of a disaster which has its causes, people and institutions responsible for it, and the possibility to re-occur, I felt so sad amongst the Fukushima locals, who see no other way than trying hard to keep on going as if nothing happened.

“Fukushima has been a place to bring you happiness. It’s not changed until now” one can read on the “Fukushima Happy Design” facebook page. I hope a change will come, for Fukushima and for the world. Let’s work together, that it will become more than just a happy new design …

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P.S.: I have been asked about “Zen and politics”, if it would not be better for Zen-people to stay away from these topics, sit on the pillow and have no opinion on politics. Zen is politics, Zen is revolution. Human beings with a free and independent mind, taking responsibility for each other, not drawing artificial boarders between “me” and “them”, “me” and “the nature” or “me” and “the rest of the world”, this is Zen.

In the park of the Summer Palace in Beijing I witnessed and old man writing beautiful calligraphy with a sponge-like brush on the floor. He seemed not to be the slightest bit irritated by the noisy people around him, and when we asked him later, he told us that he was just spending some time while waiting for a friend.

The old man beautifully wrote an ancient poem, a citation of Mao and the words “Spreading Buddha’s Light in all World”.

I once read that calligraphers will experience enlightenment after many many years of practise, even when they never practise any Zen. This old man seemed to have integrated in his writing all his and his ancestors past experiences.

“During culture revolution, you’d be in jail for talking to that foreigner”, the calligrapher’s friend said, while we had some good fun writing with the water brush for each other.

After surviving such horrible past, how could this old man preserve his open heart, joking with me all the time while practising our art?

He has been exercising for almost 30 years, we learned. Doing calligraphy, I am convinced, can help one to develop more than just a beautiful handwriting …

The workshop was located in the Guwenhua Jie tourist street in Tianjin, surrounded by souvenir shops. I did not really believe from the very beginning that we should have our seals carved here, and when a young guy, looking more like a biker or rock musician, presented himself as the artist I suggested to leave. A second look at the artwork displayed in the shelves supported my initial doubts, tacky manga creatures obviously made for customers in their late teens seemed to be the main business.

While we talked a bit, I discovered the Hannya Shingyo, printed with beautifully carved seals hanging on the wall. And another version on the opposite wall. “The one was an assignment from the Shaolin Temple, carved in expensive stones”, the young seal maker explained, “the other one for a poor Buddhist temple, where I had to cut a large seal-stone into slices to save money”.

We started discussing the design and proper choice of characters for the seals I had in mind, and soon it was clear that we not only had discovered a sincere Buddhist, but also a true master of his art. After an hour or so of interesting conversation we reached agreement, and shortly after the seals where made. While carving, he explained to us that his waiting list for custom-made seals currently is a few months, but since he enjoys exchange with sincere people appreciating his art, and we came from so far, he makes an exception for us.

The real master is often hidden and easy to miss, I thought when leaving, though nowadays it might not always be a cloudy mountain hermitage where he lives.

As a young Aikido teacher, I always had a hard time to explain to whom and why we bow at the beginning and end of each class. My students got the message, that it is not the picture of Morihei Ueshiba hanging in the kamiza we are bowing to, neither anything else considered as sacred. Instead, we bow to all our seniors, ancestors and teachers. Since teacher and students bow together in the same direction, I explained, we all become students, respecting those countless before us, who kindly handed down their skills and art to us.

Today, I saw at a very old temple in Beijing a believer kneeling down and bowing in front of a closed building. I wondered to what he his bowing, so after he was gone, I peeked through a gap in the door. Inside the room there was a pile of rubbish and old furniture, nothing else.

Not caring if it is garbage or the famous lying Buddha (supposed to be inside the building) we bow to, this might be real Zen, I thought.

Before going to China, I wrote a calligraphy with the Characters of “willow” and “wind”, yanagi ni kaze (柳に風). The person to whom I gave it, I explained the meaning is “a willow survives the strongest wind and heaviest snow, because it bends under the load and comes back up straight after the troubles are gone”.

In Beijing I was astonished and happy to see very vital Buddhist temples with monks practising and lay people joining a Sutra chanting ceremony. It seems, the barbaric years of the culture revolution could not eradicate this part of China’s rich cultural heritage.

But I was mistaken in my naive assumption that finding a Zen temple is as easy in China’s capital as it is in Kyoto. The nearest one, I was told, is hours by train and bus. Could that be true? So I had to give up my idea to practise Zazen in a Chinese temple for this time.

Though, if I ever come back to Beijing, I wish for a chance to bring some Zen back to its roots.