First Day

At 3:45 this morning, the Jikido came running down the hall ringing a bell as a wake up call. Everyone hurried to the bathroom to freshen up and then quickly went into the hondo (meditation hall). The Jikido bows down at a 90 degree angle as we enter the hondo. We shashu to the Jikido, step in, then gassho. We sat two one-hour periods of zazen. Immediately after zazen, those with robes put them on their head and did the robe chant.

After zazen, everyone hurries to breakfast. The protocol for meal is quite complicated, and I don't have enough time at the moment to explain that. We had rice, soup (I don't know what kind, but there were potatoes in it), eggs, and a few other unknown vegetables. After breakfast, everything gets crazy. Everyone rushes around to wash the dishes. Everyone seems to know how it works, and people break up into groups to do certain things. Washing all dishes took about 3 minutes.

After dish-washing was cleaning of the monestary. I swept up the floor of about 1/4 of the building. After this, we had a short break to get into work clothes, wash up, and then it was off to work. I was in the rice field pushing a machine to break up the weeds. We did this for 2 hours, then took another break. Breaks are really nice. I was just sipping some tea, reclining on a log, and staring at the forest. The weather was really beautiful today. All day long we are serenaded by a variety of birds and frogs.

We returned to work for another two hours after the break. I continued to de-weed the rice field. My legs started to hurt a lot. After the second work session, we came back to have lunch. This lunch was informal, but there is still opening and closing chant. Following lunch, we went back to work, I was in the field for another two hours. By the time this was done, I am completely exhausted and glad to be able to take a shower and have a couple hours off.

My couple hours off turned into basically no time off. Things kept cropping up, and I also volunteered to strain the rice. This just means putting rice into a strainer, moving it around to get rid of the bad rice (the bad rice goes to the chickens), and dumping the good rice into a machine that dispenses the rice in specific amounts.

We had dinner, again a formal meal. Immediately following dish-washing after dinner, we had a tea meeting. Again, this is somewhat involved, and I will explain it later. We just discuss what was done that day and what we will do tomorrow.

We had 10 minutes break after tea meeting, which I used to go to the bathroom and wash up - and then it was back to the hondo. We did two more one-hour sessions of zazen, and that brings me here... which is time for bed!

This seems like it should be a usual day, so I probably won't be posting a item-by-item list of what I do in a day from now on, unless it is completely unusual.