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Sixth Day of Osesshin
Feb. 20th, 2003 09:50 pmOne of the best parts about kitchen duty, other than it gets you out of about two and and a half hours of sitting zazen, is that before you do any meal preparation, you get to drink tea with the roshi. The room is heated, and the roshi is gentle and full of humor in such a small setting. He whips up a mean bowl of matcha, too.
Today, one of the kitchen aides was Kujo, the aforementioned former taxi driver with no sense of direction (and, it turns out, is missing part of his right index and middle fingers. I wonder about that.) He and the roshi were talking about the upcoming marriage of his son at the beginning of March. Kujo said that once his son got married, all his cares about the outside world would be over. He said that once his worldly business was out of the way, the roshi had to help him face death, and that was why he became a monk. It saddens me, that Kujo is here simply to prepare for death, and wonder what the roshi thinks of this. And I hope that Kujo is happy, that he will not just abjectly await death, and wonder how his family is faring without him. His wife, especially.
There was also another shock today, when David, one of the students had to suddenly leave because his grandmother had a heart attack and appears to be dying. I won't lie: I was extremely annoyed by David while he was here. He was slow in the kitchen, he slurped at meals, he made all sorts of disgusting noises during zazen, and was annoyingly staggeringly inept at everything. But now it appears he won't be able to come back to Japan. He looked so sad when he left, sounded like he was about to cry. I hope he's okay. I hope my constantly annoyed attitude didn't make things horrible for him.
One more day. I can't wait for this osesshin to be over. I'm tired and restless at the same time, and I smell bad.
Today, one of the kitchen aides was Kujo, the aforementioned former taxi driver with no sense of direction (and, it turns out, is missing part of his right index and middle fingers. I wonder about that.) He and the roshi were talking about the upcoming marriage of his son at the beginning of March. Kujo said that once his son got married, all his cares about the outside world would be over. He said that once his worldly business was out of the way, the roshi had to help him face death, and that was why he became a monk. It saddens me, that Kujo is here simply to prepare for death, and wonder what the roshi thinks of this. And I hope that Kujo is happy, that he will not just abjectly await death, and wonder how his family is faring without him. His wife, especially.
There was also another shock today, when David, one of the students had to suddenly leave because his grandmother had a heart attack and appears to be dying. I won't lie: I was extremely annoyed by David while he was here. He was slow in the kitchen, he slurped at meals, he made all sorts of disgusting noises during zazen, and was annoyingly staggeringly inept at everything. But now it appears he won't be able to come back to Japan. He looked so sad when he left, sounded like he was about to cry. I hope he's okay. I hope my constantly annoyed attitude didn't make things horrible for him.
One more day. I can't wait for this osesshin to be over. I'm tired and restless at the same time, and I smell bad.
