So, tomorrow is my birthday. My first birthday at a Japanese Zen monastery. It should be interesting. We have a visitor coming that usually brings sweets (little cakes, juices, etc), and the other guys here are making a cake for me! :)
After that, there is a sesshin from August 1-5. We still haven't decided how we will handle that. Usually, there is no sesshin in August, because of the heat. However, since Docho-san is not here, we are going to do one, but we might not do a full 15 hours. Some have suggested to do two 5-hour blocks, omitting the middle block (when it is the hottest). However, they suggest to go outside and work for 2 hours during that block, which would be horrible, since we still only eat 2 meals a day. 2 meals a day, 2 hours of work outside in the heat, 10 hours of sitting with no air conditioning, is probably unmanageable. But, in zazen everything becomes manageable.
The day after sesshin, August 6th, will be a free day. So, I will have time to gather all of my stuff together to leave the next morning. I will leave early (6am) on August 7th to walk to the bus stop and catch the train in Hamasaka. I bought my train ticket today from Hamasaka station to Kansai International Airport. It cost ￥５１５０ (~$48 US).
After Public Storage makes their automatic withdrawal from my bank account tomorrow, I will have less than $10. Aside from the bank, I have a 20 dollar bill, so I will have less than $30 to my name. It seems like I am always living strapped for cash.
When I get back to the states, I will have a few weeks to enjoy air conditioning, and figure out how I am going to pay for UW, where I will live, fix my laptop, learn Perl, and countless other things I haven't even thought about yet.
But for now, I will just sit silently. Just another bug crawling around the forest. The enchanted forest of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Sesshin otsukare sama deshita
July 1 to July 5 was another 5 day sesshin. Yes, this means that I spent 15 hours in meditation and didn't talk to anyone on the Fourth of July. Lame...
After the sesshin, everyone drank a decent amount of beer. 3 of us stayed up until after 1 AM watching the movie Sunshine, which, by the way, is pretty good until the last 30 minutes or so. I was tenzo the day after the sesshin, so I had to wake up 4 hours later to start cooking breakfast. Waking up at 5, breakfast had to be prepared by 7:30, because a guest that came just for the sesshin had to be back in town early to get back home. Somehow, I was quite late with the breakfast, I didn't finish until 7:45, even with a couple of the other guys' help setting up the table. Not only was I late cooking the breakfast, but I also forgot that one of the guys was fasting and still served him food. To make up for it, I ate all of his food as well. The head monk was quite pissed off at me. Everyone went to the beach that day, but they suggested that I stay back, so that I would "have enough time to make dinner."
We actually wound up having two free days after the sesshin, the second of which was an O-Hosan, where there is no tenzo and no obligations to do anything. Everyone wound up going to the beach again, so I got to tag along this time. It was really neat. We went down to the coast of the Sea of Japan and set up a big tarp next to one of the small cliffs. I was the first to swim out to the ocean and found a large group of rocks. There was one spot where you could jump off of the rocks into the water from about 15 feet up. This was pretty fun. Fun, something I haven't had much of since being here at Antaiji. Later on, I swam to some caves I saw and checked them out. It was pretty neat to swim inside of caves. :)
We have a discussion on a particular book every week here at Antaiji, and two nights ago was my turn to lead the discussion. I had prepared the talk for about 5 hours over the course of 3 weeks, whereas most of the other guys take less than an hour the day of to do it. The head monk got really T.O.'ed about the stuff I was talking about, because he didn't understand me (didn't see the connection to the text), and hence disagreed. At one point, he told me to stop talking about this certain thing, because I was wasting time. I tried to tell him that I was building up to make a point. But then, by the time I got to the end of the section, my point finally became clear and he was agreeing with me. He has been very nice to me ever since. He actually gets into a lot of disputes with everyone here. Possibly, he has a big head because he is the head monk, but he's only been here for a year and is actually leaving Antaiji for at least a year (maybe forever?) sometime next week - he is committing to stay a year at another monastery (Sougenji).
Aside from all of this stuff, I have begun to dabble in more secular interests lately. I am reading Operating Systems Concepts in order to gain a deeper understanding of how operating systems work. Although I am only reading that so that I will be able to read The Design and the Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System I have recently developed an obsession with FreeBSD. Their design philosophy and organization structure are incredibly sexy.
After the sesshin, everyone drank a decent amount of beer. 3 of us stayed up until after 1 AM watching the movie Sunshine, which, by the way, is pretty good until the last 30 minutes or so. I was tenzo the day after the sesshin, so I had to wake up 4 hours later to start cooking breakfast. Waking up at 5, breakfast had to be prepared by 7:30, because a guest that came just for the sesshin had to be back in town early to get back home. Somehow, I was quite late with the breakfast, I didn't finish until 7:45, even with a couple of the other guys' help setting up the table. Not only was I late cooking the breakfast, but I also forgot that one of the guys was fasting and still served him food. To make up for it, I ate all of his food as well. The head monk was quite pissed off at me. Everyone went to the beach that day, but they suggested that I stay back, so that I would "have enough time to make dinner."
We actually wound up having two free days after the sesshin, the second of which was an O-Hosan, where there is no tenzo and no obligations to do anything. Everyone wound up going to the beach again, so I got to tag along this time. It was really neat. We went down to the coast of the Sea of Japan and set up a big tarp next to one of the small cliffs. I was the first to swim out to the ocean and found a large group of rocks. There was one spot where you could jump off of the rocks into the water from about 15 feet up. This was pretty fun. Fun, something I haven't had much of since being here at Antaiji. Later on, I swam to some caves I saw and checked them out. It was pretty neat to swim inside of caves. :)
We have a discussion on a particular book every week here at Antaiji, and two nights ago was my turn to lead the discussion. I had prepared the talk for about 5 hours over the course of 3 weeks, whereas most of the other guys take less than an hour the day of to do it. The head monk got really T.O.'ed about the stuff I was talking about, because he didn't understand me (didn't see the connection to the text), and hence disagreed. At one point, he told me to stop talking about this certain thing, because I was wasting time. I tried to tell him that I was building up to make a point. But then, by the time I got to the end of the section, my point finally became clear and he was agreeing with me. He has been very nice to me ever since. He actually gets into a lot of disputes with everyone here. Possibly, he has a big head because he is the head monk, but he's only been here for a year and is actually leaving Antaiji for at least a year (maybe forever?) sometime next week - he is committing to stay a year at another monastery (Sougenji).
Aside from all of this stuff, I have begun to dabble in more secular interests lately. I am reading Operating Systems Concepts in order to gain a deeper understanding of how operating systems work. Although I am only reading that so that I will be able to read The Design and the Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System I have recently developed an obsession with FreeBSD. Their design philosophy and organization structure are incredibly sexy.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Life at Antai-ji is incredibly serious
Let's see... It has been two full rotations of our 5-day week schedule since I have posted here. Since then, we have had 6 work days, two ringkous, two one-day sesshins, and two Hosans.
After the previous one-day sesshin, we had a HUGE bonfire. During the summer at Antai-ji, there is constantly grass to be cut. We pile all of this grass in the middle of the baseball field. But grass-cutting doesn't actually just mean grass, it means that we completely clear out the ground, so many fallen branches go into this pile as well. Aside from all of the grass and tree branches we had piled up, a local guy came by and dropped off a truckload of wooden pallets, which we also added to the heap. The final result was a pile of combustible materials that was about 10 feet in height, and 20 feet in diamater. The fire was huge. I uploaded pictures to my Flickr page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomamundsen/sets/72157605695855513/
The previous Hosan, which happened the day after the big bonfire, I went on a hike with one of the other guys staying at Antai-ji. We hiked up a 'path,' I say path in a very loose sense of the word - it was basically a jungle with enough clearing on the floor of the forest to see which direction you should walk in. It took us about an hour to make it up to the top, where we found a fire ring and a great bird's eye view of Antai-ji. I also have some pictures from the top of the mountain in the same Flickr collection of photos. I had a good chat with the other hiker, we talked about pygmies in the Amazon, how their eyes have evolved so that they have much better vision in the forest than ours, but when they leave the forest, they have no sense of depth-perception, and can't figure out that people standing 100 feet away are not actually miniature people floating in the air right in front of them...
After Hosan, we of course had another sequence of 3 work days, a one-day sesshin, and today's Hosan. The first two work days were pretty standard. On the third day, it started to rain very heavily, so we did some wood ('maki' in Japanese) chopping. It was pretty cool to do - relieving sexual tension of living with men for almost a month, and not having seen an attractive female since I left Osaka. Actually, I've hardly seen any women at all since I've been here, aside from the 60-year old nun, and a not-so-attractive Japanese girl that came to stay for two nights. We do go to Hamasaka every couple of weeks, but there is really not that much going on there, and you don't really see too many people, let alone hot chicks. So yea, it was good to take my frustration out on a wood pile.
We actually had a good casual talk last night after sesshin about the whole women situation at Antai-ji. We had our typical post-sesshin party, this time with snacks and candy shipped from Israel (one of the monks is half Israeli, half Canadian), and of course - Japanese beer (only 1 can per person, don't think that monks are getting hammered!). It turns out that women are the number one reason why it is so difficult to dedicate your life to monasticism. At Antai-ji, there have been many monks who have left because a chick came to stay at Antai-ji, they fell in love, and off they went to get married, have kids, etcetera. Actually, there is a former Antai-ji monk coming to visit during July that did exactly that a number of years ago. He is also the subject of Docho-san's famous story about the man working at the sushi restaurant.
During ringkou before the sesshin, we got into an intense discussion about the importance of attentiveness at Antai-ji. Before, I discussed how self-sufficiency is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself, because it forces attentiveness on the monks. It turns out that I didn't fully understand this. We aren't been attentive just for the sake of the practice. We are being attentive, because the stuff we are dealing with (rice, vegetables, chicken shit, etc) really possess infinite value. You don't pay care to rinsing the rice because Zen practitioners should be attentive, you pay care to rinsing the rice, because each grain of rice is extremely important. I did not have that mindset when I came to Antai-ji, and really, I had no idea anyone else did until this talk. Now that I have a better understanding of just how important EVERYTHING is at Antai-ji, I think I will do a lot better job and make less mistakes.
These guys are really serious.
After the previous one-day sesshin, we had a HUGE bonfire. During the summer at Antai-ji, there is constantly grass to be cut. We pile all of this grass in the middle of the baseball field. But grass-cutting doesn't actually just mean grass, it means that we completely clear out the ground, so many fallen branches go into this pile as well. Aside from all of the grass and tree branches we had piled up, a local guy came by and dropped off a truckload of wooden pallets, which we also added to the heap. The final result was a pile of combustible materials that was about 10 feet in height, and 20 feet in diamater. The fire was huge. I uploaded pictures to my Flickr page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomamundsen/sets/72157605695855513/
The previous Hosan, which happened the day after the big bonfire, I went on a hike with one of the other guys staying at Antai-ji. We hiked up a 'path,' I say path in a very loose sense of the word - it was basically a jungle with enough clearing on the floor of the forest to see which direction you should walk in. It took us about an hour to make it up to the top, where we found a fire ring and a great bird's eye view of Antai-ji. I also have some pictures from the top of the mountain in the same Flickr collection of photos. I had a good chat with the other hiker, we talked about pygmies in the Amazon, how their eyes have evolved so that they have much better vision in the forest than ours, but when they leave the forest, they have no sense of depth-perception, and can't figure out that people standing 100 feet away are not actually miniature people floating in the air right in front of them...
After Hosan, we of course had another sequence of 3 work days, a one-day sesshin, and today's Hosan. The first two work days were pretty standard. On the third day, it started to rain very heavily, so we did some wood ('maki' in Japanese) chopping. It was pretty cool to do - relieving sexual tension of living with men for almost a month, and not having seen an attractive female since I left Osaka. Actually, I've hardly seen any women at all since I've been here, aside from the 60-year old nun, and a not-so-attractive Japanese girl that came to stay for two nights. We do go to Hamasaka every couple of weeks, but there is really not that much going on there, and you don't really see too many people, let alone hot chicks. So yea, it was good to take my frustration out on a wood pile.
We actually had a good casual talk last night after sesshin about the whole women situation at Antai-ji. We had our typical post-sesshin party, this time with snacks and candy shipped from Israel (one of the monks is half Israeli, half Canadian), and of course - Japanese beer (only 1 can per person, don't think that monks are getting hammered!). It turns out that women are the number one reason why it is so difficult to dedicate your life to monasticism. At Antai-ji, there have been many monks who have left because a chick came to stay at Antai-ji, they fell in love, and off they went to get married, have kids, etcetera. Actually, there is a former Antai-ji monk coming to visit during July that did exactly that a number of years ago. He is also the subject of Docho-san's famous story about the man working at the sushi restaurant.
During ringkou before the sesshin, we got into an intense discussion about the importance of attentiveness at Antai-ji. Before, I discussed how self-sufficiency is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself, because it forces attentiveness on the monks. It turns out that I didn't fully understand this. We aren't been attentive just for the sake of the practice. We are being attentive, because the stuff we are dealing with (rice, vegetables, chicken shit, etc) really possess infinite value. You don't pay care to rinsing the rice because Zen practitioners should be attentive, you pay care to rinsing the rice, because each grain of rice is extremely important. I did not have that mindset when I came to Antai-ji, and really, I had no idea anyone else did until this talk. Now that I have a better understanding of just how important EVERYTHING is at Antai-ji, I think I will do a lot better job and make less mistakes.
These guys are really serious.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
"You create Antaiji, but you don't count for anything"
Before Docho-san left Antai-ji, he left us with a few teachings about his thoughts on life in this monastery.
His philosophy about the monastery is - "You create Antaiji, but you don't count for anything." This is broken up into two parts:
Docho-san talks about 'artificial mindfulness,' which my teacher back in LA, Brad Warner, and his master, Nishijima-Roshi, have been harping on recently. There is a trend in Buddhism to put a great emphasis on so-called 'mindfulness.' However, when people put emphasis on being mindful, it is more like they are video-taping themselves being mindful - thinking to yourself "OK, now I am just peeling potatoes." When you do this, you are turning Buddhism into some sort of ideology, not a way of life. When mindfulness turns into thinking about the present moment, it stops being mindfulness. Real mindfulness is just paying attention to all of the details of something. When you are cooking your dinner, you shouldn't let the pot overflow when it starts to boil; you should wash your hands before you start preparing the food, and after any time you touch something dirty. If the pot overflows, or you contaminate your food, then you weren't actually paying attention - it's as simple as that.
Before I came to Antai-ji, I tried to take one thing at a time and focus on doing that 'mindfully.' I said, OK, for now, I will just try to be really mindful when I am taking showers. This worked pretty well, but I would become distracted once again when I was going to work. I would browse internet websites, check my e-mail, etc. At Antai-ji, you are essentially forced to pay attention to all details of your life. If you don't take your shoes off the right way, or if you put a personal item in the wrong place, you are going to be corrected. During sesshin, you can't go back to your room after a bathroom break, you have to use the toilet and go immediately back to the meditation hall. You can't talk during samu. All of these sorts of things create an external enrivonment where it is impossible not to pay attention to all the details of your life. Hopefully, when you leave Antai-ji, these conditions will have permeated into your brain and will be an internal environment that you can apply to everything that you do out in the world of householders. Will I be able to live up to that challenge? I don't know.
The important thing is paying attention to the details. This is the teaching of the Buddha. Most of the original Buddhist meditations are simply paying attention to detail. You just sit down and watch your body, or your mind. If you think about driving to work, you say to yourself 'I am thinking about driving to work. If your leg starts to hurt, you say to yourself - 'my leg hurts' or possibly just 'pain.'
The point to this is to notice how our reality simply consists of the 5 aggregates, which arise due to causes and conditions. The Buddha taught that the 5 aggregates are the world, and the 5 aggregates are suffering. There are no 5 aggregates outside of suffering, and there is no suffering outside of the aggregates. In fact, if you carefully read my brief introduction to Abhidharma, you'll have noticed that the only type of reality aside from the aggregates is Nirvana. The more familiar we become with the 5 aggregates, and their inherent empty self-nature (due to the fact that they only arise because of the presence of particular causes and conditions), we can actually put an end to the aggregates (if we are practicing Nikaya Buddhism). But in Mahayana Buddhism (which Zen belongs to), we only learn the emptiness of the aggregates, we don't actually put them to an end. In fact, we commit ourselves to continually re-appropriate these aggregates throughout many, many lifetimes. The Mahayana path is to learn emptiness, and be able to teach it to others, so that all sentient beings will be freed from suffering (the aggregates).
His philosophy about the monastery is - "You create Antaiji, but you don't count for anything." This is broken up into two parts:
- You create Antaiji
- This can obviously be viewed as being the same as the old cliche phrase - "life is what you make of it."
- But I think we can also apply a little Buddhist philosophy (Abhidharma). When you study Abhidharma, you learn that there are two kinds of reality - material phenomena (rupa), and mental phenomena (nama). There are four types of absoulte reality - consciousness (citta), mental formations that arise with consciousness (cetasika), material form (rupa), and Nirvana (Nibbana). Abhidharma also tells us that sentient existence consists of 5 aggregates or heaps (khandhas in Pali, or skandhas in Sanskrit) - there is no underlying self or soul aside from these 5 aggregates. These five are - material form (the Rupakkhanda), feeling (the Vedanakkhandha), perception ( the Sannakkhanda), mental formations (Sankharakkhanda), and concsiousness (the Vinnanakkhandha). There is one rupa khanda - the Rupakkhanda; and there are four nama khandas - the other four. Feeling, perceptions, and mental formations are all cetasikas, so the four nama khandas are actually just cetasikas and cittas.
- If we look at material form (the Rupakkhanda), we see that there are 6 sense organs and their objects. Eyes, ear, nose, mouth, body, and mind are the 6 sense organs, and sight (all material objects - or rupa), sounds, smell, tastes, feeling, and thoughts are the 6 objects of perception. The actual Rupakkhanda consists of the 6 sense organs AND the 6 sense objects. This means that the things we look at are part of our form aggregate. Which means that when I look at a person, that person becomes part of my material form aggregate.
- This leads to the conclusion that we create Antai-ji, because all of the things at Antai-ji ACTUALLY ARE our material form aggregate. They are not a separate self. We are not a separate self aside from Antai-ji.
- This also has a two-fold meaning, one conventional and one Abhidharma.
- Conventional - you are just a little cog in the big picture of Antai-ji. Antai-ji has been here for decades before I arrived, and it will (probably) be here for long after I leave. What I do here does not make that much of a difference in the big picture of things.
- Abhidharma - as I said before, there is no self aside from the 5 aggregates. So, literally there is no self. We are not individual entities, we just think that we are, so in a way - we 'don't exist.' But of course, that shouldn't be taken literally. We don't exist only from an absoulte point of view. On the conventional level, we are human beings who have emotions, etc.
Docho-san talks about 'artificial mindfulness,' which my teacher back in LA, Brad Warner, and his master, Nishijima-Roshi, have been harping on recently. There is a trend in Buddhism to put a great emphasis on so-called 'mindfulness.' However, when people put emphasis on being mindful, it is more like they are video-taping themselves being mindful - thinking to yourself "OK, now I am just peeling potatoes." When you do this, you are turning Buddhism into some sort of ideology, not a way of life. When mindfulness turns into thinking about the present moment, it stops being mindfulness. Real mindfulness is just paying attention to all of the details of something. When you are cooking your dinner, you shouldn't let the pot overflow when it starts to boil; you should wash your hands before you start preparing the food, and after any time you touch something dirty. If the pot overflows, or you contaminate your food, then you weren't actually paying attention - it's as simple as that.
Before I came to Antai-ji, I tried to take one thing at a time and focus on doing that 'mindfully.' I said, OK, for now, I will just try to be really mindful when I am taking showers. This worked pretty well, but I would become distracted once again when I was going to work. I would browse internet websites, check my e-mail, etc. At Antai-ji, you are essentially forced to pay attention to all details of your life. If you don't take your shoes off the right way, or if you put a personal item in the wrong place, you are going to be corrected. During sesshin, you can't go back to your room after a bathroom break, you have to use the toilet and go immediately back to the meditation hall. You can't talk during samu. All of these sorts of things create an external enrivonment where it is impossible not to pay attention to all the details of your life. Hopefully, when you leave Antai-ji, these conditions will have permeated into your brain and will be an internal environment that you can apply to everything that you do out in the world of householders. Will I be able to live up to that challenge? I don't know.
The important thing is paying attention to the details. This is the teaching of the Buddha. Most of the original Buddhist meditations are simply paying attention to detail. You just sit down and watch your body, or your mind. If you think about driving to work, you say to yourself 'I am thinking about driving to work. If your leg starts to hurt, you say to yourself - 'my leg hurts' or possibly just 'pain.'
The point to this is to notice how our reality simply consists of the 5 aggregates, which arise due to causes and conditions. The Buddha taught that the 5 aggregates are the world, and the 5 aggregates are suffering. There are no 5 aggregates outside of suffering, and there is no suffering outside of the aggregates. In fact, if you carefully read my brief introduction to Abhidharma, you'll have noticed that the only type of reality aside from the aggregates is Nirvana. The more familiar we become with the 5 aggregates, and their inherent empty self-nature (due to the fact that they only arise because of the presence of particular causes and conditions), we can actually put an end to the aggregates (if we are practicing Nikaya Buddhism). But in Mahayana Buddhism (which Zen belongs to), we only learn the emptiness of the aggregates, we don't actually put them to an end. In fact, we commit ourselves to continually re-appropriate these aggregates throughout many, many lifetimes. The Mahayana path is to learn emptiness, and be able to teach it to others, so that all sentient beings will be freed from suffering (the aggregates).
My 20 Girlfriends
So, I guess I haven't written on here since the last sesshin. A lot has happened since then, and Antai-ji has an entirely different feel.
By breakfast time on the day after sesshin, about 10 people had left. The abbot and his family went to Europe to lead some retreats and do some travelling. Most of the Germans also went back home. Now, there are only 5 people living at Antai-ji. Of course, I am here, there is a Japanese monk (committed to stay for 3 years), a Canadian monk (who has been here for a year) who leaves in mid-July, an Australian lay practitioner, and an Austrian lay practitioner who has recently committed to stay at Antai-ji for the next 3 years.
After sesshin, we had two free days in a row - it was almost like having a real weekend. The first free day was Oo-Hosan, which means that you have absolutely no obligations, but there is no guaranteed food. I wound up going down to Hamasaka where I got a haircut and ate Ramen for breakfast and lunch. The second free day was a normal Hosan, which means that everyone has to clean out the Hondo, and you are required to attend the two meals. Hosan is called a free day, but really, it is not quite so free.
After the two free days, we had three days of work. The samu (work) schedule has been reduced, and now we finish work at 12, which is really nice. So, a normal samu day consists of 4 hours of meditation, 3.5 hours of work, three meals, snack break (between breakfast and lunch), and a tea meeting. This leaves us with about 4 hours of free time per day, which is great. I have taken a few 1-hour naps during that free time, which almost make up for the fact that we wake up at 3:45.
Yesterday we had a One-Day sesshin. This means that there is 10 hours of meditation (broken into two 5-hour blocks), two meals, and free time after the second meal which ends around 3:45 PM. So, although the day begins out pretty rough, you wind up having most of the afternoon and the entire evening to yourself. At the end of the day, we watched a little bit of a Bob Dylan documentary and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou while drinking a little bit of Asahi beer and some Japanese-style snacks. The Japanese guy didn't understand anything that was going on, so he wandered off after the first 45 minutes or so.
Today is Hosan. As I already said, Hosan is not much of a free day, and I actually wound up working about the same amount that I do on a normal work day. I slept in until 6 - yayyy!!! And had to be down in the kitchen by 7 in order to help prepare breakfast. I am tenzo-in-training, so I have to watch what the cook is doing, and in a few days, I will have the responsibility of cooking for everyone. This is actually really exciting, because in a traditional monastery the tenzo is a highly revered position and only given to a person who has been living at the monastery for many years. In other words, it is a very senior position. But here at Antai-ji, we don't have too many people, so everyone will assume this responsibility on a rotating basis.
After breakfast, I went with Daisen-san (the Japanese monk) to let the chickens out of their 'barn' for a little stress relief. Although they left the barn, they didn't stray too far, which surprised me. After we let them wander around and eat the bushes for about 20 minutes, we put them back and I began to clean out their bedding. Their old bedding was essentially wood chips and had started to get very soggy with chicken shit - so it was time to replace it. I removed about 15 large bushels of bedding and put them in the compost heap. The compost heap is pretty far away from the chicken barn, so I got to drive one of our trucks back and forth - my first time driving a car with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. After I removed all of the old bedding, I drove out to the baseball field and collected grass cuttings into the same bushels. I put all of this new bedding in the chicken barn to make the chickens happy.
I am taking good care of my 20 girlfriends. ;)
By breakfast time on the day after sesshin, about 10 people had left. The abbot and his family went to Europe to lead some retreats and do some travelling. Most of the Germans also went back home. Now, there are only 5 people living at Antai-ji. Of course, I am here, there is a Japanese monk (committed to stay for 3 years), a Canadian monk (who has been here for a year) who leaves in mid-July, an Australian lay practitioner, and an Austrian lay practitioner who has recently committed to stay at Antai-ji for the next 3 years.
After sesshin, we had two free days in a row - it was almost like having a real weekend. The first free day was Oo-Hosan, which means that you have absolutely no obligations, but there is no guaranteed food. I wound up going down to Hamasaka where I got a haircut and ate Ramen for breakfast and lunch. The second free day was a normal Hosan, which means that everyone has to clean out the Hondo, and you are required to attend the two meals. Hosan is called a free day, but really, it is not quite so free.
After the two free days, we had three days of work. The samu (work) schedule has been reduced, and now we finish work at 12, which is really nice. So, a normal samu day consists of 4 hours of meditation, 3.5 hours of work, three meals, snack break (between breakfast and lunch), and a tea meeting. This leaves us with about 4 hours of free time per day, which is great. I have taken a few 1-hour naps during that free time, which almost make up for the fact that we wake up at 3:45.
Yesterday we had a One-Day sesshin. This means that there is 10 hours of meditation (broken into two 5-hour blocks), two meals, and free time after the second meal which ends around 3:45 PM. So, although the day begins out pretty rough, you wind up having most of the afternoon and the entire evening to yourself. At the end of the day, we watched a little bit of a Bob Dylan documentary and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou while drinking a little bit of Asahi beer and some Japanese-style snacks. The Japanese guy didn't understand anything that was going on, so he wandered off after the first 45 minutes or so.
Today is Hosan. As I already said, Hosan is not much of a free day, and I actually wound up working about the same amount that I do on a normal work day. I slept in until 6 - yayyy!!! And had to be down in the kitchen by 7 in order to help prepare breakfast. I am tenzo-in-training, so I have to watch what the cook is doing, and in a few days, I will have the responsibility of cooking for everyone. This is actually really exciting, because in a traditional monastery the tenzo is a highly revered position and only given to a person who has been living at the monastery for many years. In other words, it is a very senior position. But here at Antai-ji, we don't have too many people, so everyone will assume this responsibility on a rotating basis.
After breakfast, I went with Daisen-san (the Japanese monk) to let the chickens out of their 'barn' for a little stress relief. Although they left the barn, they didn't stray too far, which surprised me. After we let them wander around and eat the bushes for about 20 minutes, we put them back and I began to clean out their bedding. Their old bedding was essentially wood chips and had started to get very soggy with chicken shit - so it was time to replace it. I removed about 15 large bushels of bedding and put them in the compost heap. The compost heap is pretty far away from the chicken barn, so I got to drive one of our trucks back and forth - my first time driving a car with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. After I removed all of the old bedding, I drove out to the baseball field and collected grass cuttings into the same bushels. I put all of this new bedding in the chicken barn to make the chickens happy.
I am taking good care of my 20 girlfriends. ;)
Friday, June 6, 2008
June 4th
During the second session of zazen during the second 5 hour block (the 7th hour of zazen of the day, from 11-12), Docho-san screamed 'DOOOOOONNNNNTTTTTT MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE'. At first, I had no idea what had happened. I thought maybe a tree fell on the Hondo, or everyone was starting some chant. Then after a few seconds, my mind kicked in - 'oh, that was Docho-san, he just yelled at us about not moving.'
He wasn't yelling at me. I hadn't moved a muscle for about 15 minutes by the time he had screamed that. I saw someone on the right side of the Hondo sort of adjust themselves after he said this, so maybe it was that person, I don't know.
I can now see why Brad said, 'Oh... you're doing Antai-ji. They're a bunch of Nazis there.'
He wasn't yelling at me. I hadn't moved a muscle for about 15 minutes by the time he had screamed that. I saw someone on the right side of the Hondo sort of adjust themselves after he said this, so maybe it was that person, I don't know.
I can now see why Brad said, 'Oh... you're doing Antai-ji. They're a bunch of Nazis there.'
June 2nd
11:01 AM
Sesshin is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Although, maybe that is because I am half-asleep for most of the zazen. I try to stay awake in the morning, but it is practically impossible. Four hours is a long time to be sitting, especially when you just woke up at 3:45 after six hours of sleep. And to think that it will always be 5 hours from now on, since today is my last day as assistant tenzo....
At breakfast this morning, I finally got the right amount of food. Daisen cooked up some extra okayu (rice gruel). It was very nice with some brown sugar. After the meal, Docho-san announced 'we are having a problem,' - immediately my throat closed up, thinking that it was something that I did wrong, either closing my eyes during morning zazen, or having that cup of coffee while setting up breakfast yesterday, to which, Daisen-san said, 'ummmm... ummmm... This is a leetle beet nawt good-to.' But Docho-san continued, 'with insects in the rice field. We will skip zazen from 10:15-11 and meet in front of the blue barn.'
So, I took a 15 minute nap, grabbed some coffee, and we went out to the rice field with sticks in hand. We worked our way through the field, brushing each rice plant so that the bugs would fall off. They will keep climbing up, but we will just keep doing that, becausewe don't kill living beings .After working in the rice field for about 30 minutes, Docho-san announced that we could take a shower. This was really nice, since I thought that I wouldn't get that change. All in all, we missed 1 session of zazen. Now it's time to get back to the cushion.
Sesshin is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Although, maybe that is because I am half-asleep for most of the zazen. I try to stay awake in the morning, but it is practically impossible. Four hours is a long time to be sitting, especially when you just woke up at 3:45 after six hours of sleep. And to think that it will always be 5 hours from now on, since today is my last day as assistant tenzo....
At breakfast this morning, I finally got the right amount of food. Daisen cooked up some extra okayu (rice gruel). It was very nice with some brown sugar. After the meal, Docho-san announced 'we are having a problem,' - immediately my throat closed up, thinking that it was something that I did wrong, either closing my eyes during morning zazen, or having that cup of coffee while setting up breakfast yesterday, to which, Daisen-san said, 'ummmm... ummmm... This is a leetle beet nawt good-to.' But Docho-san continued, 'with insects in the rice field. We will skip zazen from 10:15-11 and meet in front of the blue barn.'
So, I took a 15 minute nap, grabbed some coffee, and we went out to the rice field with sticks in hand. We worked our way through the field, brushing each rice plant so that the bugs would fall off. They will keep climbing up, but we will just keep doing that, becausewe don't kill living beings .After working in the rice field for about 30 minutes, Docho-san announced that we could take a shower. This was really nice, since I thought that I wouldn't get that change. All in all, we missed 1 session of zazen. Now it's time to get back to the cushion.
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