Look out for the viper!

Friday, I went with Docho-san (the abbot), Osei-san (a Japanese monk staying at Antai-ji for 3 years), Doko-san (a polish monk), and the small Japanese kid to plant rice at a Soto priest:s farm in Tottori. On the drive there, we took Docho-san's children to school and dropped off his wife at a bus station. It took almost 2 hours to arrive at the farm. On the way, we saw several sections of Japanese beaches. They don't get big waves here... :( I was sitting cross-legged in the trunk of the van on top of a piece of cardboard until we dropped off the abbot's wife.

The Soto priest in Tottori is a very typical looking Zen master - short, skinny, bald-headed Japanese man whose facial expressions portray a man who has seen it all. He supposedly lived at Antai-ji for 30 years. Now he is old, has a wife, and his own temple where he does funerals.

The rice fields are big rectangular shaped plots of land with mud that are flooded with water. There are lines cut into the mud in a grid pattern. You strap a basket to your waist, fill it with rice plants, and walk through the field barefoot. The idea is that you put a plant at each corner in the grid (which are a foot apart in both directions). It isn't the most difficult work, but it does start to take a toll on your back and legs after a while. The more worrisome part of the job was when Doko-san shouted to me - 'Look out for the viper!'

The Soto priest gave us a lot of breaks, offering us drinks - juices and canned coffee. After a few hours, we went to his temple to have lunch. His temple is so awesome! It has the typical Japanese roof style. There is a Zen garden in front with raked stones and a cement Shakyamuni statue covered with moss. Facing the temple, to the left, is a huge Zen styled bell covered by its own roof - the kind where there is a log hanging in the air used to strike the bell. There is a big wooden porch with a few steps in front of the temple. The front of the temple was completely open. The altar has five golden buddha statues, in front of the altar is a prostration cushion flanked by golden lotuses. There were some special rooms next to the altar with soe more statues and relics that I didn't get close enough to check out.

For lunch, we sat on the porch in front of the temple and had delicious noodles, tempura, and rice bals stuffed with some kind of vegetable. You fill your bowl with a soup that tastes like soy sauce and dip the noodles into the soup before you eat them. Since we only had one bowl, I was dipping the tempura as well.

Driving to and from Tottori, I started to discover just how pervasive Buddhism is in japan. Almost every corner you reach, there is a Buddha, Kannon, or Jizo statue. It's crazy! Thee is a fair amount of Shinto shrines as well.

While driving back to Antai-ji, everyone was so exhausted. I intermittently shut my eyes for a few minutes. Osei-san fell asleep and keep hitting his head against me. Docho-san was driving and told us that the van has a problem - the steering wheel is always shaking - he was worried that a wheel might fall off while we were driving. After five years of driving the van up and down the mountain, that thing is about to kick the bucket.

When we got back, I immediately hopped into the shower. To my dismay, the dinner clappers started sounding and I had to dry off without washing anything, put my dirty clothes back on, and hurry to the dinner table. Everyone was already there - somehow I wasn't clued in. I apologized about this at the tea meeting... but apparently being late to a meal (or zazen session) is about the worst thing you can do here.

Today, Saturday, we have a half-day of work. I was working with Max trying to fix one of the walls. We had to mix cement with sand and water, mash it up, and stir it. Then we strapped as much bamboo, cardboard, and sticks to the wall to hold the cement in the back. In the front, we temporarily screwed some boards to the wall and poured the concrete in between the two sections of wood. We got so much mud and cement everywhere, it was a pain to clean up.

Tomorrow will be a one-day sesshin(meditation retreat - in Japanese, sesshin literally 'unify the mind'), hence the half-day of work today. Tonight there will be a talk at 6. One of the guys here is going to talk about one of the chapters in Master Dogen's Shogobenzo - about his interpretation of the Noble Eightfold Path. The sesshin tomorrow will be 10 hours of zazen. This is not as much as the schedule on the 5-day sesshin, which involves 15 hours. You aren' supposed to move during those entire 10 hours (aside from kinhin - walking meditation). Supposedly, Docho-san shouts at people if they move, and if they move too much, he will even come over and whack you with the kyosaku (wooden stick used to correct postures... or I guess whip lazy monks into line).