The End of Summer at Horin-ji

The priests’ prayers before the Noh performance.  Their robes were sumptuous purple and orange silks.  Only one of them wore black silk.

The temple Horin-ji annually holds a Noh performance on September 9th.  I wrote a little about it two posts ago.  Usually Udaka Michishige performs, but two years ago I was too busy with work to go watch, and last year September 9th landed on a weekend, so Udaka-Sensei was too busy to perform.  Finally, I had another opportunity this year and made sure I was able to take time off from work to go to the temple in Arashiyama.

I joined Sensei and a troop of young people who study with him and generally support his activities, including his two sons, Tatsushige and Norishige, who are actors in their own rights, his daughter, Keiko, who carves masks, his daughter-in-law, Haruna, who is also a semi-professional actor, and Natsuko, who also studies mask-carving, but has taken on a leading role in organizing events and working PR for Sensei.  We made an excursion out of the event, for the weather had grown sunny after a few rainy days that had brought an end to the summer heat.

“Makura-Jido” at Horinji Temple

For those of you who have heard me talk about Noh and about Udaka-sensei, but have never quite understood what it was I was talking about – maybe you simply haven’t seen a Noh performance before – here is a You Tube recording that may show you some of the appeal. This video is of Udaka Michishige-sensei dancing “Makura-jido” at Horenji Temple in 2006 on September 9. I do not know who took it, and there are some shaky spots and a pillar that gets in the way of the view, but I am glad they did. I remember that morning getting a call from Sensei saying he was picking me up to go, but I was already at work and had been unable to get the day off. Seeing the video only makes me regret not having gone even more.

Watching the video, you can see the chorus sitting across from the camera. It was a pleasant surprise when I realized I knew all of them. On the left is Ono-sensei, a professor of environmental biology at Okayama University and student of Udaka-sensei, in the middle is Udaka Tatsushige-sensei, Udaka-sensei’s son, and on the right is Urushigaki-san also a student of Udaka-sensei. To the left are the musicians, and the performance is taking place facing a Buddhist altar inside a temple, which is a very rare setting. I haven’t had another opportunity to see a similar performance.

Noh Maskmaking

My mask (on the right) and the model. To the left side of my work space are my tools and to the right are the templates.

I started Noh mask making class in the beginning of February. The mask I’m working on is based on a design by Tatsuemon, a famous mask maker of the Edo period. This was one of his three koomote, or young woman, masks, this one entitled, appropriately enough for me, “Yuki” (Snow).

On the first day, after work and grabbing an extra sweater at home, because I was tippling on the edge of catching a cold, I raced to northern Kyoto to make sure I would have enough time to accomplish something. First, Sensei showed me to a cushion placed before a small Buddhist altar at the edge of his stage and had me meditate to relax in preparation for handling the sharp tools and to prepare myself for working with the mask’s spirit hidden within the wood.

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.