Drag on Peace

It was the Zen that I stumbled across during my university days that led to a deep reading on the subject after graduation, which culminated in my coming to live in Japan. Ryoan-ji was a name that appeared again and again in those old books. Naturally I made an immediate beeline to the place the first time I went to Kyoto.

 

That initial visit was a disappointment, as it was crowded and noisy. I took in the famous garden for a little bit and wandered around to the back of the temple in a dark mood. There I discovered the tsukubai sitting mossy and green and alone by itself.  And there I found the stillness that I had sought. It was only later that I learned, with great irony, that the characters on this famous stone basin can be read as “I am content with what I have.”

 

Since then I have returned dozens of times, most often as a guide. It never fails in being crowded and noisy. Like most of the iconic sites of Kyoto, I vowed I would never go as a paying civilian, except in times of great snow.

 

But the feeling still nagged me. I wanted to see the garden in the same way as the great Zenmen of old. And so it was that I woke with the sun and I arrived at the front gates not long before they opened. 

 

And I finally got the garden to myself. For seven glorious minutes…

 

 

On the turntable: Levon Helm, "Levon Helm"

Mitsuhide's Road to Infamy, Part I

 

 

I wrote last year about the Akechi Mitsuhide's attempted flight after the assassination of Oda Nobunaga.  Since writing that piece, I learned of a hiking trail that supposedly traces the route that he and his men followed into Kyoto.  This fact haunts me through the winter, and the morning after the year's heaviest snowfall, I make my move.     

Leaving the ruins of his Kameyama castle, I trace a straight line through the historical part of Kameoka. Then and now, this was the Sanin Kaidō.  I walked the old highway out of Kyoto thirteen years ago, though I'd mistakenly followed the busy Route 9 rather than the true road through Mitsuhide's old castle town.  Route markers have improved, making it easy to follow. 

The more attractive parts are north and west of the castle, but this section still holds charm. There are plenty of old sake breweries, which makes me wonder if Mitsuhide's hair-brained scheme came up while under the influence.   Traditional Edo Period homes line the way, though the further along I go the greater the colonization by suburb. Stone lanterns bearing the kanji for Atago-san suggest that pilgrims too preferred this route.   Today, the road has a little too much automobile traffic for my liking, so am happy when I cross a small river and move toward the hills.

I am led straight to a familiar friend, Hōsen-ji, where I used to practice Zen back in the previous century.  I always enjoyed the quality and balance of training here, and would drop in for a few days at a time every three months or so, in order to supplement the weekly sittings up in Yonago.  I see they've built a new zendo, and the cabins I remember have grown in number.  Around now would be the work period, but all is quiet on this snowy morn, as I move up into the hills.

 

 

 

The land loses color the higher I climb, the slate grey above preventing any shadow.  I top the ridge rather quickly, warm from the exertion, and so pause to take in the mountains rolling toward the north, each one whiter than the last.  Atago-san dominates entirely.  The sound of frequent trains pull my attention downward as I follow the ridge.  Most stop at that odd station built atop the bridge that spans the Hozu-kyō, before being consumed by the tunnels at either end. Before long I too disappear into a tunnel, dropping beneath the branches of overhanging pine.  

Karato peak gives name to this crossing, though I need to divert slightly to get there.  I keep my lunch break short for the wind is too cold for lingering.  The trail grows darker as I move closer to Kyoto, the snow lesser along here.  I stop often to gaze over the city, and imagine Mitsuhide doing the same, growing more apprehensive each time.  

By the time I descend into the bamboo forest near Jizō-in, the snow is gone.  I enter a quiet suburban neighborhood, most notable for a flower shop called Ran, bringing Kurosawa immediately to mind.  Mitsuhide played no part in the film of the same name, but it reveals that betrayal was a common practice back amongst the warlords of his day.

I wonder how far the forest continued when Mitsuhide's came through.  Being the western edge of the Katsuragawa flood plain, all that remained was a simple march into town.

However...

 

 (TO BE CONTINUED)

 

On the turntable: Modest Mussorgsky, "Pictures at an Exhibition"

 

Stuff from an Old Notebook #14

Notes from a lecture on Zen


-"Oz didn't give nothin' to the Zen man..."

-Anything is a koan if taken all the way.

-Koan was originally someone's doubt.  When resolved, awakening occurs.  

-Koan 'doubt' vs. Catholic 'doubt.'

-Shōkoku-ji owns Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji.

-"Without self, boredom is impossible."  - Jeff Shore


On the turntable:  Cannonbal Adderley, "Somethin' Else"

Heaven and Earth are Filled...

Learning to see beyond Christian dogma to recognize that Heaven is simply a present existence while engaged in good deeds.  Hell is the opposite, while engaged in bad.  Simple mathematics really:  good begets good; evil begets evil. 

The Chinese have instead looked at this in terms of heaven and earth, where earth is the physical existence we enjoy here on this planet, and Heaven is the elements moving around us, like weather patterns, natural phenomena, etc.   The landscape paintings therefore most often depicted a sage in the mountains, but it's not really him in the mountains as much as him engaging the phenomenally of existence, where the human force and the natural world come the closest to terms.  I suppose had the ancient Chinese been more of a seafaring people, more of their paintings would have depicted the open water, as there too we are the most vulnerable to the whims of nature.  

A decade of zen study in Japan had brought the idea of reincarnation to the fore, that souls eventually transmigrate into something else, as conditioned by the laws of karma.  Yet when my son died, I was puzzled by all my Japanese relatives talking about how he was now in Heaven, or the Pure Land in the Japanese Buddhist idea.  I made temporary sense of this in thinking that the subjective corporeal stamp that was Ken's "soul" was now in Heaven, while the more objective animating "spirit" would reincarnate.     

It was just after university that I started to read more about Buddhism and found myself more and more swayed by it's ideals. The Buddhist concept of the world made more sense to me, and I was able to eventually reconcile in it the Catholic ideals that I had been raised with.  But I was simply unable to make the leap from the Christian concept of Heaven to Buddhist reincarnation. It proved to be a near impenetrable chasm.

Yet Robert Linssen's Living Zen eventually helped me chose one over the other.  The book deftly explains zen usuing the language of a number of disciplines, such as religion, philosophy, psychology, and metaphysics, among others.  But I found clarity in its description of zen in terms of energy, particularly in how energy is always in balance, how atoms (and electricity) are in a constant flow of plus and minus.  I began to see Heaven, at least how Christianity defines it, as a sort of energy bank, where souls go after they die.  It made no sense to me, as it seemed contradictory to what I understood about the world.   

Bizarrely enough, as my understanding of Buddhism evolved, I found that I could no longer believe in reincarnation either. A zen teacher I studied under claimed that reincarnation has no place in traditional Buddhism, and it found its way in later due to the Vedanta-inflected Buddhism that developed later in Tibet.  And this began to make sense.  

Now I feel that reincarnation is simply a metaphor for the body decomposing and its remains going on to feed already existing life forms like worms and vegetation,  then working its way from there up the food chain to create life in new bodies.  

In a metaphorical sense, perhaps the word 'reincarnation' should be replaced instead by 'reanimation.'   Which brings us back to the Christians again.  After all, wasn't Jesus reborn three day after death, like a hermit meditating in cave, this new person born after some sort of enlightened experience?  

Or as others would have it, Christmas's proximity to the Winter Solstice speaks volumes, for on December 21st the sun stops moving southward, pauses, and then starts moving northward.  The very word "solstice," derived from the Latin "sol" for "sun" and "sisto" for "stop."

Thus the confusion continues.  Doubt, I suppose, is a wonderful catalyst for resurrection, of ideas both old and new.   


On the turntable:  Bach, "Cantatas"

Original Face

A trip to Okinawa, three months after Ken died. Drunk on awamori and exhausted by the late hour, I peer into a mirror and catch a glimpse of my late son's face in my own.

A few days ago, the light catches the gray at my temples, and I see myself in ten years.

Everything exists in an instant...


On the turntable:   Beck, Bogart, and Appice, "Beck, Bogart, and Appice"

Take this Brother, May It Serve You Well

A few weeks into my time at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, I was sitting in my room, listening to The Beatles on my iPod.  The song "Revolution #9" came on, and my attention was immediately riveted.  I'd heard the song dozens of times over the previous 30 years or so, but for the first time I really got it, or at least got it in a way understandable to a mind currently undergoing a crash course in awareness and meditation.  The swirling elliptical loop of sounds and voices is of course 'monkey mind,' leaping here and there and everywhere.  The refrain, "Number 9, Number 9,' is the return to the breath, the attempt to cut through the nonsense of mental clutter.  

Though the song has been for many an audio representation of the psychedelic experience (which of course is also true), it really is a meditation in itself.  


Revolution 9 from Eduardo Correia Pinto on Vimeo.




On the turntable:  Bill Laswell, "Final Oscillations" 

Retained in Memory

It was a cold snowy night when Lord Kira's head left its body.  That tale is one oft-told, in puppet plays, kabuki, thirty-four TV presentations, and numerous films (I lost count at fifty).    I will start my own tale as it began during the hot summer of 2003, a time when I was just emerging from a shell of grief, and thought it would be a nice distraction to spend a summer in Kyoto interning for Kyoto Journal.  Little did I understand that the magazine was put together remotely, a collaboration by like-minded individuals spread across dozens of postal codes.  The work I was given for the special Streets issue involved little more than internet research, leaving me free to pass my days bicycling the city and visiting its sights.  Off the bike, I prepared myself for my third-degree blackbelt examination in iaido by practicing cuts behind the trees of Yoshida Jinja, the Imperial Palace grounds, or the forest of Shimogamo.

I based myself in a small subtemple of Daitoku-ji, which disappointed somewhat in not offering daily zazen meditation.  For most of the summer I had a small six mat room to myself, but as the heat of August built up, so did the visitors to the city, and for one week I was asked to share a room with a quiet, unassuming man from Tokyo.  It turned out that he was staying at Daitoku-ji for the same reason as I.  Gary Snyder, a hero of his, and of mine, had studied at a nearby sub-temple for a time.  (We found to our dismay the following morning was that there would be no zazen in August, as the internationally renowned priest was busy giving teachings in Europe.)  So that left us time to discuss other things, the most memorable being that he was the caretaker for the graves of the 47 Ronin.  I had visited these graves a number of years before, probably on one of my first visits to Tokyo.  I don't recall what time of year it was, but I do remember a thick haze of incense burning from the offerings of those moved by their sacrifice.  And like the dissipating nature of that smoke, the caretaker too drifted away and I never saw him again.  

I moved to Kyoto full time a few years later, and did eventually make it to zazen.   And being based here, I began further explorations, but never seemed to make it to Ako for December 14th's Gishisai, held on the day when the 47 loyal retainers finally got their revenge.  (I did however pass through Ako itself one afternoon, and found myself on the receiving end of a road-rage incident with a flash-car-driving yakuza whose low status seemed to correspond to his stature.  If you know your Chushingura, you'll be amused by the fact that what he was most upset about was that I didn't show him the proper respect.)   

This year, the weather and my schedule collaborated to allow me to attend.  I mentioned above that the night that Lord Kira's head rolled was a cold and snowy one, which offers great dramatic tension to the story,  the weather acting almost as ronin number 48.  In contrast, I stepped into a warm morning, under bright blue skies and leaves reluctant to do their duty by falling from the trees. 

And the samurai were nearly upon me before I even left the station.  A half dozen were shouting threats at one another before slashing and whirling within the narrow confines of the station hallway.  After the long train ride out here, I really needed to pee, but unfortunately the samurai were between the toilets and I.  I was reluctant to pass as they were obviously mere actors, with little of the tight control of the well-trained martial artist.  When the flailing temporarily ceased to allow for more swearing and snarls, I scooted past to go about my business.  

I only saw one more group of samurai that day, posing for photos and unable to defend themselves from the onslaught of off-key enka coming over the hedge.  What I did see was a Japanese festival at its most relaxed best.  The broad high-street of town had been closed to traffic, allowing a modest sized crowd to stroll along merrily on an unseasonably warm day free of work or school.  Food stalls of an incredible variety lined the street for the full kilometer to the castle ruins.  Access to the castle itself was barred due to the preparations for the procession about the begin.  I liked the idea of of a group of blue-pated men hunkered down within the walls of the castle, plotting something unknown to the rest of us.  So I walked the perimeter of the castle's walls, around to Oishi Jinja which eponymously commemorates the leader of the 47.  The narrow confines were busy but uncrowded, with people queuing to pray for the fallen men.   

Back on the main street, the procession had begun, kicked off by a series of elderly women clad in bright blue yukata, spinning parasols as they went.  The next few groups were also dance teams, and a glimpse of other groups further awaiting their turn revealed more flashily dressed elderly female participants, or young kids whose heights would be temporarily stunted by the weight of mikoshi.  I knew that the samurai procession would come much later, climaxing in each retainer having his name announced as the crowd roared.  

That would have to wait.  I enjoyed myself to the extent that I'd like to return for the festival in the future, and would certainly time my return to later in the afternoon in order to see that final ronin roll call.  But this day had felt just about right, and as I was weary from a recent trip abroad, thought I'd rather read of the exploits of others than to actually experience them.  So what followed was a slow and leisurely amble back to the train station, with plenty of food stops, beneath the character 'Aka' (for Ako, 赤穂) carved into the hills above.


On the turntable:  "Roots of Reggae II"

The Road to Kameoka

The bus ride was a film played in reverse, as it followed the course it had the week before.  Where on that journey I had been surrounded by young schoolgirls, today it was their male counterparts, filling the bus with their musky hormonal scent.  Along the way I noticed other hormones in action, that of a blue heron striding across a rice paddy, taking broad deliberate steps through the mud, as if tiptoeing up to its potential mate standing nearby.

The bus dropped me off it Hatta again.  I moved up the road under the bright sunshine, a brilliant example of just how good the weather can be in May.  Entering a village further on, I heard a rapid tapping from around the next bend, and assumed it was a carpenter getting an early start to the morning.  But there in the street was a lion, carrying on its shoulder a man's head, which was smoking a cigarette.  There was another lion a few houses away, swirling and spinning in the gravel yard.  Beside him was the source of the banging, a tall man beating a simple tattoo on a small drum to keep time, as a pair of flutes trilled a repetitious tune into the morning air.

A housewife standing nearby told me that this troupe came up from Ise once a year, traveling and performing around Kansai and the Chugoku areas. As a fan of classic Japanese cinema, I have a number of times seen films that used these traveling actors as protagonists.  I'd like to pursue this more as a subject of research for a book, these old troupes that would wander the roads of Japan, literally singing for their supper.  It was quite fortuitous then to come across this lion dance, this shishimai, going house to house.  I had originally intended to do this walk a couple of days before, but the bad weather had forced me to postpone. Had I done so, I'd have missed this encounter completely.  Blessed by the gods I am.

The villages here were more spread out than they had been over the passes to the west, the patchwork of fields between much broader.  There were fewer shrines and temples as well.  I did find a Inari shrine up a low hillside, weathered and dull.  A trio of dull orange torii leads further up the hill before giving up, almost in exhaustion.  The forest beyond was overgrown and strewn with bamboo fallen in a long ago storm.  Back on the road below, I saw a number of stone lantern written with the characters for Atago, as well as one old road marker pointing the way, a testament to the fact that pilgrims had once followed this road while on pilgrimage to that sacred peak.   

I crested a low pass, then dropped toward Kameoka.  Along the way, I passed Yu no Hana Onsen, or 'Flowering Hot Springs.'  Though what was really flowering was an acidic cocktail of sulfur and burning plastic.  Perhaps what I was smelling was the captive oni of legend, whose tears contributed to the magical qualities of the waters.  Apparently that had been good enough reason for John Lennon and Yoko Ono to once pass the night here.

On the outskirts of town, a series of streams crisscrossed the plain, its clean waters providing raison d'etre for the sake brewery which imposed a proud presence in wattle and brick amongst all the surrounding shops and homes. As the town's density increased,  I grew a little concerned that I'd have difficulties following the path.  I'd already spotted its likely path on my GPS, but was concerned by my rapidly dwindling battery.  Yet the road itself never let me down, never lost the traditional look of low homes lining its narrow passage.   

The townspeople had come through too.  Once in the town proper, the signage began, leading me through a number of right-angled turns befitting a castle town.  And if the direction continued to remain in doubt, both sides of the road were paved with light brick.  I followed this yellow brick road and navigated the turns, paralleling the old castle moats whose waters were partly responsible for the riot of colors in bloom everywhere I turned.

I quite liked this town, having never seen its true face before.  My only experiences here had been traveling the unattractively busy Route 9 along the outskirts, or walking through the bland suburbs up to the hilltop temple of Hōsen-ji where I'd polish my zen a few times a year.  Today I saw well preserved homes, narrow lanes free of utility lines, and ample signage to explain it all. 

I arrived finally at Umahori Station, reuniting me with a section of the San-in-do that I'd followed out of Kyoto back in 2008.  Not far from the station stood a single fifteen-story monolith, rising to flip the bird at the traditional part of town.  I remember many nights sitting in meditation at the temple in the hills above, looking down at these lights ablaze, the darkness beneath cut only by the trains pulling in and out like glow worms.  Since I knew that the trains ran through at twenty minute intervals, I was able to cheat and use them to time the meditation, waiting for the 8:39 to come in to signal a mere minute remaining until I could relieve the pain in my knees.  Today too, the train proved a respite for weary legs, as it bisected the steep gorges that cut into Atago's flanks, then dropped me into the heart of the Old Capital.



On the turntable:  J.J. Cale, "J.J. Cale Live"

Sitting Zen, Swatting Zen

Watching the mind
Mind-watching.

*           *            *

Time flies.
Mind flies.
Mind flies?
Shoo fly shoo!


On the turntable:  Clarence Gatemouth Brown, "Texas Swing"

Rohatsu

Even the Buddha

Would find it hard to meditate,

When the inside temperature  

Is three degrees.

On the turntable:  Oingo Boingo, "Anthology"

Five p.m.

The tree trunk was swinging back and forth, back and forth, in an ever increasing trajectory.  It took a few moments before I saw the man whose hand was on the rope, moving the trunk with the strength  of his black-clad back and shoulders.

The end of this wooden striker was getting closer and closer to the inevitable point where the momentum, aided by gravity, causes it fall forward and strike emptiness, an emptiness given tone, as defined by the iron that surrounded it.  

Dwarfed by the high glass and steel of the city looming above him, the man was standing upon an almost anachronistic platform of wood, nearly the height of the elevated concrete platform upon which I was passing.  This train was of a similar elongated narrow shape as the striker, and it was similarly propelled forward by the hands of a single man.  The train too was operating according the dictates of the clock, and the man with the hands on the controls and the man with his hands on the rope were fated to pass one another in the sky at the same point in the day, though not of the day, as such things are defined by the movement of bodies far larger than those of the two men. 

And as the front end of the train struck out over the front edge of the river, so did the front end of the striker make contact with the iron bell, the sound just audible over the roar of the city and the train and whatever was spilling from my earbuds, a sound that is the traditional marking of time by a religion that doesn't believe in such concepts anyway.    


On the turntable:  Live, "Mental Jewelry"

Inter-dependant Arising at SamSarasa

Cooling with iced coffee at Sarasa Nishijin, perhaps my favorite Kyoto cafe.  When I lived at Daitokuji in the summer of '03, I used to come here a couple times a week, to have a Guinness (rare in those days) and a chat with the owner Aki-san about Tibetan Buddhism, Krishnamurti, and other things that go so well with an Irish stout. 

Anyway, I haven't seen Aki-san in years (a busy man, with six Sarasa branches to manage), but today the guy in charge was wearing a shirt with the words, "Number 2."  Ignoring the obvious scatological references, I was tempted to ask him, "Who is Number 1?" yet was afraid that he'd laugh in my face for assuming that I was a free man, and at my delusion in thinking that the decision to come in here today was of my own volition.  

On the turntable:  Slim Harpo, "The Excello Singles"

Takuhatsu

A group of monks going about the their begging rounds startle my daughter from her breakfast.  Her eyes are upon my face, but here ears are pointed completely outside, taking in the 'Hoooooooo!" as it rolls up the street.  

The monks' chant takes me back 12 years to my own begging rounds while I was staying at Hosenji up in Kameoka.  As a country temple, it is pretty self-sufficient in terms of things like rice and veggies and herbs, but the monks needed to beg once a week in order to buy tofu.  Being July, it was a hot torturous afternoon, the conical sedge hats doing little to cool a body wrapped in multiple black robes.  On the way back to the temple, we stopped at the supermarket so that the head monk could buy the tofu.  When he returned, no amount of detachment could've prevented the smiles from crossing our faces when we saw that he'd also bought us all ice cream cones.

On the turntable:  Tim O"Brien, "Traveler'

The Grass is always Tastier...

A decade ago, on a visit to the States from my home in rural Japan, I entered for the first time that yuppie food mecca of Whole Foods for the first time. I'd been struggling for years as a vegetarian in a country that had forgotten that that had been its traditional diet for centuries. After WWII, when the nation was occupied by an army of big-bodied meat eaters, animal parts were seen as a status symbol, a way of elevating you above your poor, malnourished, millet-eating neighbor. The custom stuck and by the '90s, finding a restaurant meal sans meat was an exercise in developing the purest Zen-like patience. Pork oil in the ramen. Beef stock in the soups. The real whack of the keisaku was settling yet again on a salad, only to find bacon in the dressing. I eventually found Tengu Foods in Saitama, and mail order became a monthly exercise, though admittedly, this wasn't the most eco-friendly, sustainable solution. Thus, entering Whole Foods was an epiphany. In the States, I could eat in a way that was healthy for both myself and the planet. I toyed with the idea of returning to the States within the year.

Life is a fickle percussionist, and I didn't get back here until a year ago. And now, I can barely stand Whole Foods, the extremities of its prices nearly equaling that of the pretension. Meanwhile, I've been visiting the blogs of a handful of expats who've done an I-turn into the Japanese countryside. Many have recipes included. So here I sit, mouth watering over photos of homegrown veggies, mulling a possible return to that great supermarket without walls...


On the turntable: Everything but the Girl, "Baby, The Stars Shine Bright"
On the nighttable: Yoshida Kiju, "Ozu's Anti-Cinema"
On the reeltable: "Food, Inc."

Shihtoushan, Dec. 2009, Pt. 2

...was awoken at 5 by a bell ringing from one of the temples on Shihtoushan. Slept again, but had to get up for 6:30 breakfast. We found ourselves the only ones there. It was a simple meal of congee and veggies, thankfully less oily than usual. There was also a triple-decker sandwich of peanut butter and tofu, as well as the obligatory steamed buns. We decided to save these for lunch, and as we walked toward the door to look for a baggie, the caretaker yelled at us for wasting food, until he figured it out. We relaxed and read in our room until 9:30 or so, then decided to go over the mountain. A long steep flight of stone steps led to the top. There was a woman about 30 meters above us. I heard her shriek, then yell something down to us. I thought she was talking about some stones that had fallen just beside her and were now rolling our way. Then I saw the snake, about two meters long, greenish yellow with black dots. It was racing downhill toward us, veering suddenly up the slope again when it got close. At the temple at the top of the hill, we again found the woman talking to a couple of old nuns, gesturing wildly to tell them that the snake had fallen from the cliffs above, landing at her feet and scaring the crap out of her. She laughed and pointed in our direction. In her broken English, I caught two words: "beautiful," and "poison." Much later, I came across a picture of this type of snake. A Russell's Viper, one of the most deadly in the world.

At the next temple, we met a friendly young nun who spoke good English. She spent the next half hour explaining all the figures here, to our relief, since they'd been puzzling us since yesterday. Our talk was occasionally broken by another visitor, who paid this nun great deference. It was apparent that she was someone of great respect and importance, but we never got her name. Further down the mountain was another temple, a cave temple like the others, but this one was an actual cavern rather than a ornate building erected across a gap in the cliff face. The entrance looked to have been re-carved, evidence of rebuilding after the 1999 earthquake. The monk we met there had a kind face but didn't speak. Miki commented that the women's temples seemed softer than those of the men. This point was proven at a small Confucian temple back up on the ridgetop. Three old men were sitting back in conversation, and seemed quite reluctant to let us enter. OK, fellas, keep your boys club...

We ate our lunch at a pavilion above Chiuanhua Hall , then dropped down a steep narrow trail through the jungle. Midway down were some Chinese characters carved into the rock wall, alongside some bizarre cuts that looked like the face of a gorilla. At the bottom of the steps was a rowhouse, abandoned but for a single residence in the middle. A man was sitting inside, watching a TV that blared its drivel into the jungle. As the bus stop was directly across the road, we in turn sat and watched him. Chinese homes are open like dollhouses, so we could his every move. When an exercise program came on, he sat astride his scooter which was close to the set, then followed the arm and neck stretches onscreen. This finished, he returned to his seat further back, yet could only remain seated for a few minutes at a time. He'd get up, go pull some weeds, then sit. get up, walk across the road, return, and sit. He repeated this for the 45 minutes we were there, though we don't know how it all turned out since the bus came by about then and took us away.

We followed the river back to the city. One stretch of hillside had been cleared of jungle in order to erect graves that were almost the size of some Japanese apartments. In Asian societies, the dead always get the best real estate. The temples that served them also made the occasional appearance, their ornate roofs always looking in need of a shave. On the train platform, we sipped our long awaited tapioca shake and nearby, a woman popped her son's pimples. We walked from Chung-li's station, past the youth culture monuments that flanked the station, moving back in time past shops that served the needs of their parents and grandparents. Later, after dark, my friend Slavek showed up with a couple of colleagues from the University, one French, the other Mongolian. We sat at a dark back table of a local drinking hole, eating wings and drinking beer. The design was of any similar establishment back in the States: long bar, funky art, pool table. A few of the local expat teaching crew were in attendance, served by a friendly Chinese girl with perfect English. Accent American, of course. I thought of all the other expat nights I've crashed -- Seoul, Nanjing, Miyake...


On the turntable: Talking Heads, "Stop Making Sense"

Shihtoushan, Dec. 2009

We were walking through the forest when I noticed the birdsong. It was different than that of the birds which had serenaded us in Shikoku and Kumano. The forest opened onto a large parking lot, revealing a pagoda atop one hill, and Chuanhua Monastery above it on another. Here we'd spend the night.

We'd left early from Zhungli. With time to kill until the train, we walked the narrow streets surrounding the station. It was a busy Sunday morning, and Miki commented that she felt that fashion here in Taiwan was a simpler, scaled down version of the fashion in Japan. We laughed at how Mr. Donuts says, "Japan's #1" where the ones in Japan tout America. Circular signs hang in front of 7-11, advertising coffee and mimicking the familiar Starbucks logo. Beauty salons have sexily-clad employees and I wonder if they're a front for prostitution. There are different faces on the streets, speaking in different rhythms, making me wonder if they are maids and if they are Filipinas.

The train we take is an exact replica of an express train in Japan. From it, we get our first glimpses of true countryside. It is landscape I'd been expecting, jungle and rice fields, none of this cold urban stuff of the last few days. A lone dirt house sits squat between these two extremes. In front, a man squats and soups the rims of a luxury car.

After 45 minutes, we are in a quieter town. Trying to find the bus, we head down a road lined with shops now becoming familiar. What surprises us is a bride and groom coming out of a comic shop and getting into a Lexus doled up for the occasion. Well-dressed young women stand nearby, taking photos and wearing wide smiles. We spy a foreign couple walking with a Chinese man. The latter helps us find our bus and after 10 minutes we're aboard. At the bus stop, a young couple expresses their affection. Behind them, a shop keeper rocks her toddler to sleep, despite Eminem blaring through the speakers above. There's a market going on at the center of town. The bus can't make a turn due to a couple of poor-looking peasant women who've set up shop at one corner, their goods overflowing into the street. The driver yells at them to move, and after a moment, we inch forward, unsnarling the traffic backed up in three directions.

The town drops away and the mountains loom up. Our eyes follow a river awhile, then taking a wild guess, we get off the bus in exactly the right place. There's just a hint of a village here, just outside the gate leading to the mountain temple complex. We enter a small restaurant and mime-order noodles and rice. A woman at the next table talks in a really loud voice, something I'd grown used to during travels in China, but hadn't yet seen in the more refined Taiwan. A boy sits in the kitchen doing his homework on a day so sunny it is shame to waste it indoors. A poster above him shows us a picture of Bigfoot on the moon, appearing from behind a rock in that familiar stride.

Next door is a small shop where we decide to stock up on snacks for the hike. The woman behind the counter is busy making betel. She is dressed much more conservatively than those binlang girls decades younger selling their wares in the glass booths in the cities, their skirts shorter than the odds of the KMT retaking the mainland. The woman seems determined that I try some of the betelnut, which she is spreading inside some sort of shell with a butterknife. I pop some in my mouth, spitting a massive blob of red out onto the road outside. The woman laughs. Miki asks for some, and the woman suddenly stops laughing, seemingly annoyed. We never find out why. Is it because Miki's a woman, and they don't do betel? Or is it because she's Japanese? The latter is doubtful, since most people think she's local, continuing to speak to her in Mandarin even after it's obvious she doesn't understand anything. On the final climb up the stone stairs to the temple, another betel seller on a landing chooses to speak with her in English, asking her how she can be so beautiful. Miki smiles, vindicated. Perhaps this man is the betel seller's husband?

We find our room at the temple, the key handed over by a woman happy to use her rusty English. It is a plush room, with a big bed and balcony. Not bad for 64 NT (1800 yen) a person. We do fell slightly disappointed at not being able to do "A Day in the Life" of the monks here. We'd expected bland common meals, tepid baths, austere sleeping quarters, crack of dawn chanting. Which is why we came. But the room pleases.

Time to explore. In the main hall, Buddha, Confucious, and Lao Tzu all sit together. Upstairs, they each have their own section, but down here, they intermingle. In front of them is Matsu, Goddess of the Sea. I know her better as Tien Hau from my time in Hong Kong. She mysteriously gets the place of honor in this, the Hall of Earth. The grounds have the usual Chinese 'look,' of lattice gates, three-legged iron incense pots, tea pavilions, phoenixes and dragons guarding every eave. A trail leads us away, where a man is playing a bamboo flute. It is similar to the shakuhachi, but with a differently carved mouthpiece. I pick one up and begin to play, and the man begins to instruct me in Japanese. We'd heard that many of the old timers can speak it, but he's the first we've come across. He plays a few songs--a couple classics, some Misora Hibari. As he plays, Miki sings along, as does a Chinese man strolling by. Later, when we meet this latter man again, we try to ask him how he knows these songs, but outside the lyrics, we don't share a common language.

The trail brings us to a Taoist temple. A nun clad in maroon is chanting, a trio kneeling behind her, their voices harmonizing beautifully. I step around back to look into the grotto itself, which contains a single statue of an immortal, its expression both soft and tough simultaneously. Coming back around again, I find that one of the chanters is now sobbing. I'm assuming that this is a memorial service of some kind. A man comes over and speaks to her kindly yet sternly, warning her perhaps that the crying may confuse the spirit, bringing it back to this world rather than allowing to pass into the next where it has already found immortality.

Further up the mountain is a temple dedicated to Kuan Yin. The statue outside looks similar to Kannon over in Japan, but with its long face and large hands it has the androgynous look of a drag queen Beside the temple is a small grotto with a small red-faced figure with bulging eyes and wild frizzy hair. His red face is that of a drunk. I wish there was an explanation somewhere, but I wouldn't be able to read it anyway. We follow the trail around, other figures looming up in the forest. One Kuan Yin sits in meditation before a high rock wall, a heart locket around her neck.

Back at the room, we read for a few hours on the balcony, eating ice cream, drinking coffee. It is peaceful here, and we decide to stay another day, rather than rush north to Wulai. Below us, someone is playing er hu, singing boisterously. Around five o'clock, the day trippers go, the shutters of the shops shut. The mountains beyond disappear into the mist and fading light, the pagoda before us blending into the trees.

In the dining hall, we have a simple dinner of tofu disguised as meat. There are no monks here. Due to the absence of these fingers, we go look at the moon. The halls are empty and we have the gold statues to ourselves. A caretaker comes up and despite our making it obvious that we don't speak Chinese, proceed to explain. We listen but don't understand. Except for the words Kung Si, Lao Si, Ami Tamo.
Confucious, Lao Tzu, Buddha...


On the turntable: Rodney Crowell, "Sex and Gasoline"

Immaterial Witness

I now live in Santa Fe. This means I live amidst a hodge-podge of religions as great as at any other place or time in history. After the indigenous earth religions of the natives came the Spanish Catholicism that attempted to eradicate it. The Third Wave brought the Anglo seekers of the original draft, those artists and writers of the early decades of the last century, who created the myth of the noble Indian, which motivated further waves of Anglos to follow. More recently came the hippies and the neo-hippies, who too came looking for that simple native spirituality, yet this round of pilgrims had one eye ever on the East, diluting the local brand with elements of Buddhism and the New Age. Most recently came Indians of a different genetic strand. There are currently a handful of vedic ashrams or ayurvedic schools in the area, with yoga schools thick on the ground. Living here I am exposed daily to a wide variety of people, all grounded (or in far too many cases, ungrounded) by some belief system or other.

Spirituality in 21st Century America is far different than what I've experienced in Asia. During my own training and travels, I have noticed no real separation at all between spirituality and daily life. The evidence is everywhere, no matter the country or culture or class. Spirituality is at once sacred and personal, and is at the same time secular and universal. They walk their talk. Or more appropriately, there is little talk at all, and why would there be, since it is like talking about how to breathe or how to eat? By contrast, expressions of personal emotion here in the US feel dramatized, but that's not really our fault considering all the way we're constantly spoon fed overblown emotions by the media.

But why then, do we Americans talk so much shit about our feelings but rarely focus on what's valid, on what's real? Self-expression sounds scripted, like in a bad TV show. I naturally find myself making comparisons with the Japanese, who are as impenetrable as the concrete that they're so busy girding their nation with: a cultural and historic hardening and protecting from the inside out. By contrast, American emotions run as wild and unpredictable as a river. The approach to spirituality is interesting, frequently talked-up and emphasized as a sort of adventure. Which strikes me as odd considering that spirituality's purpose is to dam that unpredictable river of the emotions. Long ago, Trungpa Rinpoche downplayed this as spiritual materialism. In Japan, I found most people just turned up at a retreat and silently did their thing, uncomplaining about the omnipresent pain, physical or psychic. In the US, it's like it didn't happen unless we promote it. We wear our spirituality like a coat, putting it on and taking it off with every slight change in the weather. The worst are those who talk up others' spirituality, spouting aphorisms or stories of long-dead sages, as if we haven't already heard them. I often want to say to them, firmly but politely, "Just do your practice and cut the Zen talk already!"



On the turntable: Krishna Das, "Heart as Big as the World"
On the nighttable: Jack Kutz, "Mysteries and Miracles of New Mexico"

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind

I'm not after mindfulness as much as knowing the self.

Obsession on Emptiness and Form. Astronomical black holes as tangible evidence of this duality. Spending a day in silence doesn't cover the cacophony of thought. The two Suzukis: D.T.'s emptiness of zen scholarship vs. Shunryu's form of practice. (Or vice versa perhaps?) Shunryu's sowing the seeds of practice in American soil, hoping some would blow back across the sea to Japan and germinate as revolution in temples there.

The way Americans overuse the word 'Master.' But who truly knows everything about something? No one I've ever met. We can't even master the fundamentals of being human. Breathing? Not from what I've seen as a yoga teacher. Eating? I see obesity everywhere. Defecation? The TV is loaded with commercials for irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, hemorrhoids. Let's save the word "Master' for golf, shall we?

Having children is an act of optimism.

Ken looks younger every time I see his photo, as if he is receding while I grow older...


On the turntable: Tounami Diabate, "The Mande Variations"

Notes from Upaya

I'm housed in a room called 'Tatami," which is a wide space over the offices. To enter, you need to express humility by ducking through a low door, then do a Quasimoto-like lurch beneath the 5 foot ceiling. The very first night, I smash my head into the metal latch that hangs down from the center of the doorframe. It takes over an hour for the blood to clot.

One night in zazen, I'm obsessing on my desire for popcorn. Just after we finish sitting, I go over to the Querencia kitchen to find that one of the priests has just freshly popped some. (Cue The Police.)

Throughout the month, I'm enchanted by the colorful birds, mostly hues I'd rarely seen in Japan. They are a living palate against the monochromatic winter desert landscape. One afternoon I go sit above the snow-obscured stream to watch them. Time, and the afternoon, soon disappears. At night I'm serenaded by coyote song, their yip yip yips awakening me. I aurally track their progress along the stream below. Some nights they are echoed by the barks of dogs, apparent frustration at a cruel twist of DNA.

One silent lunch period, I find myself staring down into my bowl of quinoa. The cooking directions say that they are ready when the white DNA ring is visible. But caught up as I am in the concentration of the retreat, I'm hypnotized by the sight of the atomic element on display before me, momentarily having penetrating into the heart of reality.

One afternoon, there is a wedding. The bride is in a beautiful, though unorthodox, white dress. Like a geisha's, her dress was dipping in the back, but it didn't stop at the upper shoulders. Instead it hung all the way down to the small of her back. Traditionally in Japan,the back of the neck is considered the most sensuous part of a woman's body. In seeing all the way from nape to waist, I felt like I was exposed to secrets I wasn't privy to, the dark mole set against white skin, the knobs of vertebra leading downward to softer, rounder, fleshier bits.

The energy rushing up my spine, swirling around my heart, softening flesh that has been like protective leather for so long. Healing.

At breakfast, I smear what I think is green chili on my eggs, then, while expecting the usual blast of huevos rancheros, my taste buds instead are numbed by the taste of tahini.

All month, sitting eyeball to eyeball with Green Tara's dog (which I later learn is named Dominga, and belongs to Roshi). On my cushion in front of the painting, every day I'd find my attention drawn deeply into a different detail. Like the mind. Like life.

When I first started sitting zazen at temples in Japan, I loved all the accompanying ritual. Here I find resistance to it, especially the English chants. The Japanese use the phonetically (Sino-ized) Sansrkit. Why can't the Yanks?

As the snow continues to build up, I'm beginning to get worn down by the lack of color. The sudden glimpse of a blue shovel leaning against a fence is the most colorful thing in the world.

Watching guests do their training brings to mind how attached we are to habits. One guy does zazen in his jeans, cell phone still strapped to hip. A women does outdoor walking meditation with sunglasses on. Another woman in expensive designer wear looks terribly uncomfortable pushing a mop. But who am I to judge? Most of these people have a stronger meditation practice than my own. (Where the dharma sideswipes my bad habits would fill an entire blog.)

During the silent retreats, I find myself doing zazen everywhere, eyes pointed down in that 50 yard stare, following a breath coming with ease.

Getting vibed by a few women after Eve Ensler's talk. It reminds me of how teen boys, after seeing a kung fu film, leave the theater jumping around and kicking stuff.

Outdoor kinhin, like a samba line of awareness.

During a meditation exercise, the difficulty I had in connecting with a childhood memory. The way my back softened when I looked into my partner's eyes. How hard it was to hold it.

Natalie Goldberg's comment: "Why would you write a memoir if you have no regrets?"

How anger can be fuel for powerful meditations.

The final day, a thunderstorm comes over violently. We keep to our cushions, sitting strongly, holding the space, the silence. I feel a connection with everyone then, and my eyes fill, feeling the love.


On the turntable: Midlake, "The Trials of Van Occupanther"

Dust

I'm in Santa Fe, training for a month at Upaya Zen Center, and having a fine time, thank you. The hours of meditation, the long work periods, and all the snow are helping to ground me in this land of big skies.
Yesterday, while sitting on my cushion and polishing the mirror, a limerick showed up in my head like a surprise guest:

There once was a person of zen
Who pondered the now and the then.
He sat on his seat,
Losing touch with his feet,
Counting breaths that never seemed to reach ten.


On the turntable: Morcheeba, "Dive Deep"
On the nighttable: Michael Downing, "Shoes Outside the Door"