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Mr. Donuts, Okayama
Mar. 10th, 2003 12:44 pm(March 8, continued) After visiting Shizutani, Gi-san decided to take us to Bizen since Jazz and Brandon needed omiyage (gifts purchased during travel and customarily given to family members, friends, and colleagues) for their host families. Bizen is famous throughout Japan for its pottery-- Pat the Canadian Monk actually learned pottery there before coming to Sogenji-- and because of its uniqueness, everything there is expensive. Fortunately, Bizen was having its annual Plum Festival at the time, so everything was on sale. I got a chawan (tea bowl) for myself-- I'm going to have to start drinking tea more regularly when I get back-- and a sake set for my parents in the States.
After that, we drove through Saidaiji-- home of (one of) Japan's world-famous Naked Festival(s)-- and caught lunch at Japan's illustrious answer to Denny's, a chain restaurant called Gusto. After much eating and bantering, we returned to the temple and basically dropped to sleep exhausted.
* * *
I know there is anxiety in the act of writing for any writer. How do you convey what you feel to a large group of people and make them understand what it is you have to say? For me, the problem is magnified: I always meant these words to be read by someone else, to try and convey what I understand to others, but it's more than that. I want to live this understanding, because that is the only way I can truly explain it. I think I'm starting to understand zen, but I can't say what it is. There are things you can only know by waking up every morning at 3:40, by sitting and chanting choka, by sitting zazen or doing samu or just meeting other people without words. And there are ways I want to live outside the temple: I want to practice zazen, and that doesn't just mean sitting. Zazen in a lot of ways is a mindset, not just sitting and meditating. Here in this donut shop, writing in my journal, I feel like I'm practicing zazen in a way: I have a deep calm inside me, and I'm letting my thoughts flow, but I'm not holding on to any of them, I'm not owning or being possessive of them. I want to convey this deep calm to others, to maintain it in my everyday life, but I fear that it will be misunderstood, and I will become loud and frantic and overly cerebral because it is the easier path. I want to show other the generosity I learned at the temple, and to be as mindful as I was there about not wasting or consuming so much, which could be hard in Tokyo and the U.S. People in the States will probably find me anal, if not downright crazy. I don't know how I'll explain or if I can keep that way of life up. Though I feel calm, there is a deep anxiety there.
This is not to say I've become a Buddhist or anything. I'm not, but then again I think few people at Sogenji are. It's a tradition at Sogenji that on birthdays, you get a cake and, between blowing out the candles and eating it, you recite a poem. On Jazz's birthday, after lunch, she told Dōan, "I was thinking of reciting a Bible verse as a poem, but I thought it might offend the Buddhists." Dōan just laughed and said, "Are there any Buddhists here?" Chi-san was telling me today that even the roshi doesn't consider himself a Buddhist-- he considers himself a transreligious figure, and what he offers is a practice and a way of life, not a religion. Which is good-- if there is a Buddhist doctrine, I don't believe in it. What I believe in is what I've witnessed, and what I have done myself, what my body knows.
I'm afraid of forgetting to write about something, anything, or forgetting details even after writing over 30 pages in this journal about temple life. I don't want to leave out even one detail, because that one detail may be the very key to understanding what it is to live in a temple, and what this has meant to me. To really understand, one has to live it, and I want to make people live this by giving them every last detail.
I don't remember whether it was Dōan or Corey who once said that free days were a test, to see whether you could manifest what you learn during zazen in the outside world. I guess it's nothing but free days from here on out. This is the real test, not whether I can sit zazen for four hours straight. I guess there's nothing for it but to just live, willingly, joyfully, and with awareness.
After that, we drove through Saidaiji-- home of (one of) Japan's world-famous Naked Festival(s)-- and caught lunch at Japan's illustrious answer to Denny's, a chain restaurant called Gusto. After much eating and bantering, we returned to the temple and basically dropped to sleep exhausted.
I know there is anxiety in the act of writing for any writer. How do you convey what you feel to a large group of people and make them understand what it is you have to say? For me, the problem is magnified: I always meant these words to be read by someone else, to try and convey what I understand to others, but it's more than that. I want to live this understanding, because that is the only way I can truly explain it. I think I'm starting to understand zen, but I can't say what it is. There are things you can only know by waking up every morning at 3:40, by sitting and chanting choka, by sitting zazen or doing samu or just meeting other people without words. And there are ways I want to live outside the temple: I want to practice zazen, and that doesn't just mean sitting. Zazen in a lot of ways is a mindset, not just sitting and meditating. Here in this donut shop, writing in my journal, I feel like I'm practicing zazen in a way: I have a deep calm inside me, and I'm letting my thoughts flow, but I'm not holding on to any of them, I'm not owning or being possessive of them. I want to convey this deep calm to others, to maintain it in my everyday life, but I fear that it will be misunderstood, and I will become loud and frantic and overly cerebral because it is the easier path. I want to show other the generosity I learned at the temple, and to be as mindful as I was there about not wasting or consuming so much, which could be hard in Tokyo and the U.S. People in the States will probably find me anal, if not downright crazy. I don't know how I'll explain or if I can keep that way of life up. Though I feel calm, there is a deep anxiety there.
This is not to say I've become a Buddhist or anything. I'm not, but then again I think few people at Sogenji are. It's a tradition at Sogenji that on birthdays, you get a cake and, between blowing out the candles and eating it, you recite a poem. On Jazz's birthday, after lunch, she told Dōan, "I was thinking of reciting a Bible verse as a poem, but I thought it might offend the Buddhists." Dōan just laughed and said, "Are there any Buddhists here?" Chi-san was telling me today that even the roshi doesn't consider himself a Buddhist-- he considers himself a transreligious figure, and what he offers is a practice and a way of life, not a religion. Which is good-- if there is a Buddhist doctrine, I don't believe in it. What I believe in is what I've witnessed, and what I have done myself, what my body knows.
I'm afraid of forgetting to write about something, anything, or forgetting details even after writing over 30 pages in this journal about temple life. I don't want to leave out even one detail, because that one detail may be the very key to understanding what it is to live in a temple, and what this has meant to me. To really understand, one has to live it, and I want to make people live this by giving them every last detail.
I don't remember whether it was Dōan or Corey who once said that free days were a test, to see whether you could manifest what you learn during zazen in the outside world. I guess it's nothing but free days from here on out. This is the real test, not whether I can sit zazen for four hours straight. I guess there's nothing for it but to just live, willingly, joyfully, and with awareness.
