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Old Japanese houses look so lovely on a picture. What one usually does not see is how cold they are in winter! Getting off the train at Kameoka station, my first thought was „it is cold here“. In Tokyo I enjoyed walking in Ueno park late evening, but at the Tekishinjuku they even had snow this morning.

After arriving, I first did some basic cleaning of my room in the Temple’s guest house. The house has been deserted since May last year, and was covered everywhere inside by a layer of dust and occasionally dead insects. Then I went down to the Temple for evening Sutra chanting, dinner and two rounds Zazen and final Sutra, all in the unheated Dojo.

The icy feeling while sitting on my pillow already warned me to put on all the cloth I brought with me for sleeping, including two pullovers, two samue and my winter coat, and I wrapped myself into three futon, but still shivered all night through. The thermometer was below zero when half frozen I went down to the Temple again at 4:45 the next morning, for Sutra chanting and Zazen. I very much enjoyed seeing the morning sun coming slowly through the fog!

When I came back to the house after Zazen and Nittensoji (morning cleaning) a quarter past eight, it already “warmed up” to 3 degrees … and I borrowed two more pullovers, jogging pants and a pair of warm socks from the Dojo for the nights to come. Living in an old Japanese house near Kyoto end of March is very much like winter camping …

I am just back from one week stay at the Tekishinjuku (International Zen Center Kyoto), on the countryside near Kameoka. I really enjoyed my time with the nice people I met there, and I learned a lot. What I experienced at Tekishinjuku was a way of living day by day, which was simple and just good. It was hard for me to say good bye this afternoon, and I felt very sad all the way back to Kyoto.

When I have some time during the next days or weeks, I will edit a few notes I took during my stay. Somehow I think it is too much, maybe enough for a book. And somehow I don’t want to put into words and publish what we shared during these seven days. You must come and find out yourself!

But I believe it will help this lovely place for experiencing Zen, if it becomes a bit more public how the day to day life at Tekishinjuku looks like. The Dojo is just recovering from the after-effect of the great disaster last year, when all international guests and resident monks left in the face of the collapsing reactors near Fukushima. I am very happy I could contribute a little bit to its revivification, though for a far too short time.

I take it as a good sign that my zoori (slippers) did not fit into my luggage when I packed, so I had to leave them behind, hopefully for my next stay.

Back to Sendai (in the north-east of Japan), the last year’s earthquake and tsunami are much closer, emotionally and physically. One can see cracks and damages all over inside the building, and we started our scientific conference with a minute of silence for those passed away.

What can we do, when our “money donation” reflex in the face of a disaster is not really adequate, and foreign hands-on help not possible or even welcome?

The best and maybe only thing we can actually do is to come and be here in person. After the dead are buried and basic supply for the living is restored, most important is finding back to a day to day life. Let aside the economic basis of a once popular tourist resort, the feeling of being deserted or forgotten after traumatic experiences must be horrible, and similar the feeling of being nothing more than a helpless victim.

I am glad the organisers eventually decided not to relocate the conference, but allowed us to come to Sendai and share some time working and enjoying warm hospitality together with our Japanese colleagues, while not forgetting what has happened and is still going on.

Today we visited the “K-Computer” in Kobe, which currently is the fastest supercomputer worldwide. Since this blog is not about computer science, I spare all the fascinating technical details, and want to just mention the link Japan created between supercomputing and calligraphy.

The Japanese character-“logo” (京) for the K-Computer was written with brush and ink by a famous artist, and my Japanese colleagues told me it cost a fortune (which in their eyes should have better been invested in technology).

Instead of posting this piece of art, let me share just some creative interpretations of the character by school kids, exhibited in the lobby of the building:

Somehow it is nice to see the ancient art and modern technology side by side, although I’d preferred to chose the logo from the above samples, and spend the money for teaching young kids calligraphy and computer science.

It is for the third time now that I visit Japan after the big earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. My first trip following the disaster was in May last year, to see colleagues and friends, who fortunately all survived. I started this blog with my travel report “A Journey to the North”.

After coming back to Kyoto and Tokyo last November, now I am back again, repeating more or less my journey from May 2011.

Kyoto appears unchanged, happily preparing for “hanami”, the great cherry blossom party starting in a week or so. Occasional signs say that the still suffering Tohoku region is not forgotten … but somehow it seems as far as the moon in happy Kyoto, where people enjoy the evening “light up” in the streets of Higashiyama. It is almost impossible for me not to be taken away by the cheerful atmosphere of the happy crowd, coming to Kyoto and walking my favourite routes always feels like “coming home”.

After doing some business in Kobe, I will travel to Tokyo and Sendai, and then back to Kyoto to stay a week at a Zen Dojo. A year after the tragedy, I still have very mixed positive and negative impressions and thoughts, concerning the strength of the Japanese to stand up and recover, their inability to search and find ways against a tremendous waste of energy, our inability to find ways to help, when the “donation money” reflex is of no use. What can we do?

A year ago nature hit Japan with the great earthquake and tsunami. Memorial services are held all over the world today. Let us share a moment of silence, being with those whose life was prematurely taken away, and those who lost their loved ones.

In a few days I will fly to Japan and also visit the Tohoku region, for the third time since March 11, 2011. While preparing for my trip, two things are on my mind:

The incredible strength I witnessed with the Japanese people, not giving up in the face of such a terrible disaster. It is for sure beyond comparison, the way individuals stand up again and move on to rebuild their lives.

The incredible misconception about what has happened. A memorial service is carried out for something past. The ruins of the atomic power plant in Fukushima are still terribly active, in a much unknown and possibly non-secure condition, euphemistically declared as “cold shut-down”.

Human beings are born and die, this is so by nature. Averting the development of new life for many many generations to come in a large region is a new technical invention of the past century,  accounted for by irresponsible bureaucrats who are interested in nothing but a short term return of investment.

What is the answer of Zen in the face of such irresponsibility? I am relieved to learn there even exists an official one, the “Japan Buddhist Federation declaration – Appeal for a Life Style without Dependence on Nuclear Power“, issued on December 1st, 2011. In addition to this, the Myoshinji sect of the Rinzai Zen has made a remarkable public declaration stating, “We must break away at once from dependence on nuclear power for the future of our children”; and “In Buddhism, there is taught the practice of ‘sufficiency’ (chisoku), and we must make an effort to create a sustainable symbiotic society.” Yes!

I love to forget about all that academic discussions concerning Zen and Buddhism, masters, lineages and traditions. When I was younger, I tried with a certain effort to ignore them, but recently they just seem to fade away by themselves, like the mist in the morning sun … the mercy of ageing?

If you just start with your Zen-practise: don’t let you, by any means, intimidate by what you might happen to read in books or on web-pages! Zen is simple, it is emerging from our every day life, and it supports us in living our life! Don’t let you trap by evil sects and abusive want-to-be masters, eventually discouraging your motivation and poisoning your practise! It’s all up to you!

Said that, there is no need to re-invent the wheel during our short life-span, with having those great ancestors in Zen: individuals with inspiring ideas and unique ways of living their life. And it is indeed worth studying them! As far as I am concerned, I meet my Zen-ancestors by copying their calligraphies … a very intimate way of communication with those who passed away before us.

Their message is encouraging and simple: we actually do have a chance to live our life, day by day. Not bad, or?

This blog is not meant to become a kind of yellow press, and I am not much interested in denouncing certain Zen-teachers or methods of practise, just because they do things different from me.

Said that, the meanwhile well documented abuse of (mainly female) Zen students by their teachers has to be made public, in order to protect future potential victims. And the question may be asked, what kind of Zen, what kind of Zen-community or Sangha and which kind of leaders backed up those cases going on over decades. What is their understanding of responsibility?

Instead of repeating what is already widely published and discussed, below a few links for further reading considering the case of Eido Shimano, just to mention this one:

• “Sex Scandal Has U.S. Buddhists Looking Within” (New York Times, August 20, 2010)
• The Aitken-Shimano Letters
• The Shimano Archive
• “Compelling Reasons Why Eido Tai Shimano, the Abbot of The Zen Studies Society Should Step Down as its Spiritual Leader”

Some worth reading comments on the situation:

• A letter from Joan Halifax
• Discussion on the “Zen Forum International”
• “Some Fundamental Problems With Zen Practice” by Christopher Hamacher

And eventually Eido Shimano’s letter of resignation can be found here.

Case closed? By no means! Just guess who will lead in August 2012 what is proudly announced as “the first international Rinzai Zen Sesshin ever held in Turkey” ?

It is our responsibility to prevent such obviously insane people from causing further harm, and it is our responsibility to continue teaching and practising a Zen, which supports our life and is free of abuse.

One promising step in this direction might well be to consider if it is not worth completely giving up the game of calling people “Roshi“, running behind (those who have) a “Dharma Transmission” and being blinded by names and titles … and instead focus on a teacher’s integrity, and last but not least, quality of teaching.

Zen is based on personal experience and the encounter and transmission from heart to heart 以心伝心 (i shin den shin) between true humans without a rank 無位真人 (mu i no shin nin). This is the “lineage” I follow, not any officially acknowledged yet insane “heir of Buddha”, who destroys his students.

Martial artists often share a particular affection for the Katana, or Japanese sword. In contrast, pacifists usually express aversion against any kind of weapons. The idea that Zen has certain links to the exercise with the Katana can therefore be surprising.

Let aside historical roots of medieval Samurai performing Zen-training, more contemporary masters of Zen and sword-fighting, and a terrible misunderstanding of Buddhism by some distinguished Zen masters, leading to hilarious justifications why it is o.k. to kill …  what can the exercise with the Japanese sword provide for a western non-crazy Zen practitioner? Is it just an overcome, old-fashioned militaristic right-wing Japanese thing we better should avoid?

After the second world war, Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, developed a new concept of practising with the wooden sword or bokken. From my Aikido teacher, Kobayashi Hirokazu, I learned this style, called otonashi no ken (音無しの剣), the silent or calm sword. There is no aggressive posture in otonashi no ken, no attack, and especially no idea of cutting down an opponent.

This bokken exercise is all about oneness with the situation, breath and timing, decisiveness and bold action in the face of a violent attack. No thought of killing or showing off with a weapon, and therefore not at all aggressive in its appearance … nevertheless, very efficient.

Although its origin is not related to Zen, I consider otonashi no ken a perfect Zen exercise. In my teaching, I want to promote this new and peaceful link between Zen and sword, giving a new and non-violent aspect to the old proverb that “Sword and Zen are One”: 剣禅一如 (ken zen ichi nyo).

The other day, a reader of my blog expressed his surprise about the fact that, as he put it, I “can not imagine a Zen-life without doing Zazen”. Well, true, for myself I can not. All the Zen-Art I teach (like Hitsuzendo and Aikiken) or practise (like Shakuhachi) is based on Zazen.

It is not a big deal, sitting still in silence for some time, regularly, but in my experience,  it can make a big change for your life!

So, what about practising a Zen-Art without Zazen, or just reading Zen literature and deal with it as a kind of philosophy? For me this sounds a bit like cooking without eating, or just reading cookery books. Of course it is possible to do that, and of course it is not “forbidden” … but without Zazen, I am sure, it is much more difficult to experience the essence of Zen with your body and mind.

Said that, please feel free to call whatever of your activities “Zen”, and let’s leave the universally valid definition of “correct Zen” to the Zen-Taliban.