Not to be too dramatic, but today, I had a bit of a life changing experience. The main activity for the day was going to Tofukuji Taikoin, where we met with Kei-san, who is a Zen priest.
We settled down in a room in the temple, where he started out with talking about the origins of Zen and also its essence, which I came to understand as the experience of understanding yourself, and through that understanding, understanding the world around you. Teachers pass on not knowledge, necessarily, to their students, but their experiences, and this essence of teaching has been passed on throughout the years. This is one of the ways the tradition of Zen has been maintained.
After Kei-san gave the explanation, he also gave us a koan, which is a sort of question that we are meant to give thought to for an extended period of time. His question to us was, in essence, what is our kokoro? If we were in Jinko’s position, and were told to bring our kokoro, what would we bring? I use kokoro here in order to use the exact word that Kei-san gave us. You cannot express what kokoro is through any language, but words that might come close are “heart mind” or “consciousness.”
After giving us the koan, we were taught the proper zazen position, in which both legs are crossed over to the opposite thigh, our back is straightened, our shoulders are loose, and our hands are cupped together with our thumbs touching. He told us that this point of the thumbs touching is also a point of consciousness or awareness of our body itself, which I found a very grounding during the meditation. Additionally, our eyes were kept relaxed and half-open, and our head was inclined at around a 45 degree angle towards the ground. We then proceeded to meditate.
This was one of the most eye-opening experiences for me. I spent a large amount of time with my eyes fixated on the tatami mat, alone with my intrusive thoughts and thinking about my existence in particular. What am I? What gave meaning to my existence? Am I a body, a group of thoughts, a name, a reputation? Am I what others think of me? What was I before my parents were born? Was I given an existence through being conceived and thought about? What about the people that I’ve met throughout my life? Have they contributed to my existence? I thought so hard that I became overly aware of my body, to the extent that I almost felt like it wasn’t my own, that I was looking at it from almost an outsider’s point of view. The only thing that made me sure that my eyes were still open was the fact that I could still see the tatami mat! I began to even think about the mat itself, how every piece of grass was woven carefully, but each original piece of grass was brought into existence from another piece or seed, and how it was given new meaning by being woven into the mat, but it was still the same piece of grass. Kei-san mentioned to us that we would have many kinds of thoughts during the meditation, but it was important to accept them. I definitely had many kind of thoughts!
These kinds of thoughts went around my head almost in slow motion, and after a while, Kei-san rang the bell. We put our hands together and bowed, and proceeded to do a slow walking zazen, where we walked clockwise in half-step motions back towards our seat. As Kei-san said, the goal was not our seat, but each step in itself was a goal. At this time, I had greater consciousness of my legs and the bottoms of my feet along the tatami mat as well. After putting our hands together and bowing once more, we had a break while staying in the zazen state of my mind. Again, after the break, we proceeded to do zazen again in the sitting position. Similar questions ran through my head, still contemplating, in a sense, what my existence was.
We aren’t supposed to have an answer yet, and I’m still mulling this over, so I hope to come up with something in the couple days we’re here in Kyoto, before we meet with Kei-san again.
After this meeting, I felt rather rested. Moving my body brought a different meaning and awareness than before, at least for a couple hours. We proceeded to go back towards our hostel area, walking through Nishiki Market and the shopping center. I found one of my favorite clothing brands, Spinns, with a clearance sale and hurried inside and made a few nice purchases for my winter wardrobe. We bought some fresh yatsuhashi for Kagaya-sensei for her birthday and also presented it to her before she left the hostel. Actually, that was also the first time I’ve ever seen someone make or put together yatsuhashi! The store worker had a large block of fresh anko and the soft skins, and handmade them for us fresh. We also got to try some samples, which were delicious.
We spent some time waiting for some of the group to get back from Fushimi Inari Taisha (and lost CJ along the way), and then went to a delicious tofu cuisine house, called Tougarden. I had a tofu croquette set that I polished off quite fast, and later on, we also had parfaits! Earlier during the day, we also had a nice walk around Nishiki market, and Kagaya-sensei also showed us a small street with very traditional houses that eventually led to Kiyomizudera. I’m back now at the hostel, writing this, and probably about to contemplate my existence yet again in the shower. Tomorrow will be a Noh lecture by Monica Bethe, which pertains to our assigned topic for the course. I’m excited to hear what she has to say!
