On Monday…

On Monday, I took a trip to Heian Shrine with my friend Hana. We were in search of wisteria, those luxurious hanging vines covered in small blue flowers. We didn't find wisteria, though we did find…

The Mindfulness of Movies

The edge of a humble path leading to an insignificant subtemple of Nanzen Temple

A great North American teacher of mindfulness wrote

When done in the right way, analytic deconstruction of emotion actually allows you to feel more deeply and intensely. . . The feelings become deeper and more intense but at the same time less problematic. Unpleasant feelings are more poignant but at the same time cause less suffering and pleasant feelings are richer but at the same time lead to less neediness. (Shinzen Young, p. 12)

From this I learned striving to remove desire and suffering from our lives does not mean to shove away emotion as well, but actually enhances them for us. This idea prompted me to sit on two cushions at the open door to my balcony for a good half hour before I grew too impatient.

But I think that meditation comes in many forms. Parts of the practice and rewards are wrapped into the tea ceremony, Noh drama, brush calligraphy, and many of the traditional Japanese arts, and I really love the time I can settle my mind fully into my lessons. Yet, I believe more paths to mindfulness exist.

One path I discovered in a conversation with Hana, my friend who lives on the other side of the Gosho, to the north. We were walking out of Daitokuji temple in search of the famous grilled mochi rice cakes sold at Kazariya, a shop just outside the gates of Imamiya shrine. Hana was talking of the pain in her legs during her efforts to meditate and her desire to overcome it so she could experience all the wonderful things she reads about Zen in books. I laughed and said, “Perhaps reading is another form of meditation.” And oh how true.

Ian in USA Today

A good friend who studied in Kyoto with me, Carmen, is now living in Shanghai with her boyfriend, Ian. Ian writes a thought-provoking blog about the recent discovery that he has a cancerous tumor in his brain. Even more recently, this blog was featured in a USA Today article.  NOTE: Ian’s blog has moved to http://www.ianhanksblog.com/ since writing this post.  It hasn’t been updated since February 2008, but I have news from Carmen that he is still active in China.

Congradulations on your great writing, Ian!

Gods and Men

Every so often even gods of small neighborhood shrines need to be taken out for a stroll. Many men assemble, wearing all white or close to nothing and in the early morning swagger around the shrine as they wait for the procession to start. It seems the most clean-shaven middle-aged men with conservatively groomed hair and designer glasses appear for this kind of event in the least amount of clothing, even going so far as to wear a sumo-wrestler-like loin cloth with the shrine-provided traditional white over shirt and cotton sweatband wrapped around their head. They chant the loudest and have the biggest smiles. Younger men with long orange hair, instead, look bored and self-confident; for them it is just another display of machismo. These are the men who will carry the portable shrine into which the god is laden for the festival. They come from the neighborhood. They come to break their regular, perhaps monotonous daily routines. This is a highly special occasion.

Having seen posters announcing this occasion a little over a week earlier, I got up as early as I could on the morning of Sunday, May 21, to view the once yearly festival at the neighborhood shrine, Shimo-Goryo Jinja, right on Teramachi street, south of Marutamachi. It was beautiful weather after a string of damp, rainy days. The god must have been pleased by the prospect of an outing.

I thought I would arrive in time to view the first procession at 10. Yet upon my arrival, very little was going on at the shrine and among the festival stands that were just opening up, except that many men in white were lounging around the streets. I must not have missed anything, I thought, as I went into the shrine to give my respects to the god and admired the ancient-looking portable shrine that was made ready in the central raised platform. It had gold tori gates on its sides, behind which curtains of gold pieces chained together hung. The top of the shrine was covered in a red cloth emblazoned with the imperial crest. Certainly a well-backed god this is, I thought.

As I wandered back out of the shrine, I could hear chanting out on the street.