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Final Reflections
Before I left for this trip, I was thinking mostly about the political position of traditional practitioners, practices, and arts in Japan. As my focus was on tea ceremony, I read most of Kristin Surak’s Making Tea, Making Japan: Cultural … Continue reading
Posted in kyoto-2018
Tagged noh, noh performance, tea ceremony, zazen, zen
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Kyoto Day 10: The Kōan, Tōfuku-ji, Fushimi Inari Taisha, Kusama
Today, we woke up drowsy (I won’t go into it) and headed back to Taikō-an to meet the Zen priest Kei-san for our second session of zazen and to discuss the kōan he gave us at our first meeting. After … Continue reading
Day 6 – Dairik Amae
Today we were given the opportunity to follow the tea master Dairik Amae through his process of tea ceremony. We began with collection of the pure water from a spring, then purchase of the tea and sweets, and finally our … Continue reading
Zen temples and Buddhist statues… oh my!
At a blistering 8:55am, we met in the front of Terminal Kyoto for our talk on Zen Temples, by Catherine Ludvik. The lecture was quite engaging and interesting, with bits of humor from Ludvik-sensei’s personality showing through on the occasion. … Continue reading
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Tagged buddhist statues, zen
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Kyoto Day 6: Zen Lecture, Daitoku-ji, and Gakyu Miyamoto
Today was an extremely full day. We started out at 9 am with a lecture on Zen by Professor Catherine Ludvik at Terminal Kyoto. Then, after the lecture, we all headed together to Daitoku-ji (one of my favorite places in … Continue reading
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Tagged catherine ludvik, craftsmen, daitoku-ji, gakyu miyamoto, zen
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Day 5 – Professor Catherine Ludvik, Daitoku-ji, and Gakyu-san
Today will most likely be my favorite out of all of our programmed events in this course because of its focus on Zen and art. The first activity of the day was a lecture by Professor Ludvik. She told us … Continue reading
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Tagged artisan, buddhist statues, daitoku-ji, zen
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Kyoto Day 4: Takabayashi Family and Other Adventures
This morning we went to have a workshop with the Takabayashi family at their home. The workshop was led by a father-son pair, who started out by demonstrating a couple of shimai (simplified dances). One of the dances was from … Continue reading
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Tagged arashiyama, noh, onsen, osaka, takabayashi family, temple, zen
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Kyoto Day 2: Noh Lecture and Exploring!
Today we attended a lecture by Monica Bethe on Noh theatre, and then had the afternoon free. The Noh lecture was very engaging, and I think that the things that we learned, particularly about how to watch the dance, instrumental … Continue reading
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Tagged noh, noh and noh performers, zen
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Day One: Kokoro
Today was quite the eventful day in Kyoto, a city that I grow fonder of with every step taken. Jet lag had me awake at 5 AM and out the door by 6, after which Leah, Franky, Joanne, and I … Continue reading
Kyoto Day 1: Isobe Yukei and Zazen
This afternoon we went to meet the Zen priest Isobe Yukei (Kei-san). Kei-san is the priest at Taikō-an, a subtemple of Tōfuku-ji. He spoke about the origins of zazen and gave a kōan, and then we sat zazen. At the … Continue reading
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Tagged zazen, zen, zen and zen priests
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