Bumping Into Zen: First Zazen in Japan
June 11, Tuesday (2002)
Dear ________,
Please forward to whomever might be interested.
Thanks so much for your reply to my last message. Also, thank you, _______, for yours.
Please find attached a couple of photos taken of Daibutsu, the Great Buddha, in Kamakura. I was there on a Sunday not long ago. The site was jammed with tourists, mostly Japanese; many were offering prayers and tossing coins in a tank. I usually try to follow the adage “When in Rome,” but here in Japan I’d look very awkward trying to “pray” to a big statue. (I’m awkward doing most things here in Japan. So…they have their ways, I have mine.)
I don’t know what the standard reaction to seeing this bronze colossus is. For me, confronting such a monstrous example of good zazen form made me want to practice more. Maybe that was why it was built in the first place--some time in the 13th century—to make people want to meditate more often and more intently. Kamakura was the first center of Zen in Japan.
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| Daibutsu in Kamakura |
In any event, shortly after my visit to Kamakura, I became aware of lay zazen practice in Tokyo. There was an article in the (English)Sunday Japan Times about a few temples that offer regular practice sessions to “regular” people, including foreigners. (I've cut out the article and will bring it home.) A few web site addresses were included in the article. I found one in English for Sounnin Temple, which included a schedule and a map of the location. I decided to go last Sunday.
Now, getting to and around Tokyo, at least from where I live in Sagamihara, is no “walk in the park.” For me it’s a one and three-quarter hour trip, on train and subway , one way, and costs about $10. As if to refute the above cliché, however, when I got off the train, I did in fact take a walk in the park, Ueno Park, a vast conglomeration of manicured lawns, ponds, monuments, statues, temples, museums, food stalls, Tokyo's largest zoo—and lots of people.
I was hungry and got something at a food stall. It’s called okonomiyaki, a kind of folded and stuffed omelet. It was the first I had, and I surprised at the size; it was huge. Thus was dispelled, at least in this case, yet another myth, i.e., that the Japanese prefer small portions. Then again, maybe it was meant for two, or a whole family. It must have weighed two kilos. Nevertheless, sitting at a rough wooden table, I ate the whole thing, picking it apart and devouring it with chopsticks. I wondered how it would feel lying in my gut as I sat in zazen. Fortunately, since I’m constantly hungry here in Japan, it was absorbed instantly into my bloodstream.
Though I had studied my map, It was not easy finding Sounnin Temple. I found one temple, yes, which I thought was the place. I positioned myself inside the gate, in the courtyard. The doors to the inner temple were open and it certainly looked like a zendo inside (for all I know what a Japanese zendo looks like.) I stood and waited, recalling the stories of Zen prospects having to sit for days at the door of the temple before being admitted. It's the Entrance Ordeal, one of many I have experienced.
There was one pair of slippers at the bottom of the steps leading up to the zendo. No one was inside. At about 6:45 a small cheerful middle-aged man appeared from a side door. “Can I help you?” he asked in English.
I told him I was looking for zazen practice. “Oh, you got the wrong place. I’ll show where the place is…very near to here. But you can’t do zazen there, I think.”
“Well, just show me where it is, and maybe next time I’ll know where to go,” I said. So, in my case, “Waiting outside the temple door” lasted about twenty minutes. I had stood quietly and refrained from smoking, a small but significant achievement for this nicotine addict. Maybe that was all the discipline I was going to need this night.
In fact, Sounnin Temple was only 50-60 meters away, around the corner. He knocked on a side door, which was opened by a young woman. My guide explained to her what I was after.
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| Sounnin-ji, Tokyo, my photo |
“Oh, you’re in luck,” he said. “Right now is zazen practice.”
Right now?
The woman, wearing a stylish white monkish outfit, was young, pretty, cheerful, and spoke English. She took me in through the main door. I thanked the man and he departed. She showed where to put my shoes and instructed me to sign a guest register on a scroll. Most of the previous entries had been written in Japanese. I wrote my name, address and e-mail. My entry, in Roman script, looked incongruous.
She then escorted me upstairs to a waiting room, where I put my backpack. There were a few people waiting silently. Then she took us all up another short flight of stairs, to the zendo. She had gotten a zabuton and zafu for me, and laid them on a free space.
The Roushi was already in the zendo, giving instructions to a few Japanese newcomers.
When I sat on the zafu, he knelt in front of me and started right away giving me some pointers, in English. “Sit there like this…oh, I see, you know…good. Breathe from here (pointing at my tanden, or navel), count one, only one. Breathe in, one. Breathe out, four…very important. Hold your hands like this…no, like this…this hand on top…see? Look there on the floor, eyes not open, not closed, right here, see? Sorry, I don’t have time…here’s the sutra we say after practice. This page here…in English letters, right?“
He gave me a blue booklet with sutra printed in both English and Japanese. “This one…see? OK? Sorry, no time…”
The Roushi's head was shaven in good priestly style. He had a kind, sensitive, intelligent face. He was wearing a long black “dress.”
Indeed, there was no time, even for me to apologize for being late. I mumbled thanks in English and Japanese. Other people started filing in and taking their places on the gorgeous tatami floor, maybe ten in all. I noticed right away that I was the only gaijin.
In a minute zazen started. The introductory phase was more protracted and formal than what I’d been accustomed to. The first sitting period started with an eerie knocking on wood somewhere behind us. It was series of sharp knocks on a hollow wood drum, almost like Morse code. It might have been a recording. (How should I know? it was my first time.) If it was real, I had no idea who was doing it. Maybe the girl. (Two years later I learned she was the priest's daughter.)
Then came a double clack of the wood blocks from the Roushi, and three clear and forceful rings of the bell. We had plenty of time to settle upon our cushions. The zabuton were white, by the way, and rather smaller than the black ones we use at ZCS. The zafu were small and black and rectangular, with not much loft.
But I felt comfortable, physically anyway, except for the position of my hands (mudra). I thought: Maybe this is why I haven’t made any progress in Zen all these years. My hands have been wrong.
About 25 minutes later, the Roushi signaled the end of the first period with the bell. We remained sitting, stretched our legs and backs. A few people got up, presumably to visit the restroom.
During the second period, the Roushi rose from his lotus pose and patrolled the zendo with the kyosaku. [1] His steps were measured and his bare feet passed directly in our line of gaze a few feet in front of us. He stopped once to strike a man sitting a few spaces down on my right. There was a brief verbal warning (or encouragement) and then two sharp slaps. Maybe it was just for show; perhaps he’d already arranged to hit this guy. Whatever the effect of the blows on the receiver, it certainly had the effect of keeping me awake for the rest of the period. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d stopped to strike me, too, but I was worried I didn’t know the proper etiquette for getting slapped. _________, I thought of you.
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| Gettin' whupped by the Awakenin' Stick |
At the end of the second period, we rose from our zafu. Roushi called “kinhin,” simply. (Kinhin is a brief period of walking meditation between sitting periods.)
We walked clockwise, much faster than I was used to--in keeping, perhaps, with the frenetic urban pace of Tokyo. On the first go-round, I immediately discovered a low ceiling beam…smacking my forehead--WHAM!-- forcefully on it. It knocked me back, but not down. All the other practitioners turned to look, eyes wide and mouths open.
I did not cry out, nor did I attain enlightenment. I just said “Oh!”, rubbed my head and continued walking. Maybe it was even better than getting whacked with the kyosaku. I was just grateful that I didn’t get knocked out or start bleeding all over the pristine tatami. In a way, it felt good: I had got hit after all, even though I’d been spared the stick. We just kept up the fast walking for five minutes.
During the third sitting period, Roushi again patrolled with the stick, his elegant feet treading directly in sight of our lowered gaze.
Both sides of the zendo were open to the outside, letting in both the cool evening air and the noises of the city—cars, sirens, motorcycles, trucks, bells, horns, kids yelling, etc. I was glad when the sitting was over. My back was getting tight and sore, maybe because of the tension of the new situation, maybe because of the low cushion. It ended with the Roushi’s bell and again with the eerie wooden knocking. Then we chanted the sutra from the book. I think it was one of the same we chant at the retreats. I couldn’t find the right page, of course, But I tried humming, adding a bass drone as accompaniment. I must say the other people chanted very well. When that was over, we stretched our legs and stood up. Very quickly some of the others brought in some low folding tables, and set them in the middle of the zendo, end to end. In another minute the cheerful young woman produced a pot of tea and a tray of small cakes. We sat down at the table, most of us in seiza [2] position.
This was the time for informal “free talk.” Roushi made a point of addressing me in English right away, asking me where in the States I was from. I told him Spokane, not too far from Seattle. He’d been to Seattle to visit his brother. From there, quite naturally, the talk turned to baseball, perhaps the one subject I knew anything about. The two men sitting nearest Roushi were quite happy to talk about baseball. [This was the year after the Seattle Mariners' 116-win season, in which Ichiro had won MVP and Rookie of the Year.] But I couldn’t follow the conversation. I studied the cake before eating it. It was small and green with an embossed design on the top.
“Chinese cake,” Roushi said. It was dry, crumbly and not very sweet. The tea was orange in color, hot, with no discernible taste, and served in a simple white cup with no handles. During tea I sneaked a few looks at the other attendees sitting round the table. I wanted to see what they looked like, especially the women. Their eyes were turned down, showing no displeasure that the two men at the head of the table were dominating the conversation with Roushi. Perhaps that was their role. Someone has to talk; let it be the men. Perhaps, like me, they simply didn't see any sense in talking after zazen practice.
Tea was over in twenty minutes, though it seemed much longer. I ached to get up and out of the temple. A few of the attendees put the tables away and closed the sliding windows. I stood awkwardly, trying to look helpful. Good training, maybe.
After the tables were put away and the long windows shut up, Roushi again spoke to me, asking if I’d practiced in the States. I said yes, for few years, with a group in Spokane. He nodded. I felt a little embarrassed—why, I am not sure. He patted his head, and smiled, recalling my forehead's encounter with ceiling beam. [3] I bowed (awkwardly, again) and thanked him, bilingually.
I fumbled my way downstairs, retrieved my bag, stumbled down another flight, put on my shoes and fairly burst outside into the night air. Ah, freedom! Right away, I lit a Peace, inhaled deeply, and released the smoke into the humid Tokyo air.
Freedom? From what? What was I escaping to? I had nothing to look forward to but an hour and half train ride to Sagamihara...if I could read the signs and make the right connections.
All for now. Hope to see you soon, toward the end of July.
…ben
(I later got to know the Roushi, Yamomoto Bunkei, better. I learned a more accurate title is O-Shou (Rev. Priest), rather than Roushi.)
2. Seiza:
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