Butterflies and rain

Today it rains. It rains in a way that even though you might have an umbrella, all it does is give the illusion of keeping you dry - meaning that you hair doesn't get wet. Everything that is lower than your elbows... No hope. Shoes? Better go barefoot. I tried to cram my shoes full of newspaper in the vain hope that they might dry sometime in the near future, but it might take some time. The same goes for my skirt, I so wish I'd have a radiator here on which I could put stuff to dry. Well, shikata ga nai. Can't be helped.

At least I solved the problem of practise space yesterday evening. I gathered my courage when leaving the zazenkai and went to ask jûshoku whether it would be possible for me to come there and practise a few times before my shinsa. I was a bit unsure about asking this in the first place, since even though I've been going to the temple now every week for some 5 or 6 weeks, in my books it's still a short time to start asking for favors. Luckily jûshoku himself is a budôka, and understood my problem (and it's a problem of me being unsure and stressed more than anything else), and promised that he'll "find me something, come whenever you want". There's 3 rooms I could use and one of them is bound to be empty, even though the hondô would be the best - the other ones have ceilings that might be a bit low for standing techniques (plus, I want to have a look at the bookshelf I've seen there... *g*). Anyways, I'm happy for anything I can get, and I'm planning to go there next tuesday evening. :)

I also took a friend with me yesterday. She wanted to come "just once to look how it's like, and please let's not stay there for very long, ok?" Ha, as if! We left after 1am, she was totally comfortable there speaking with people, and certainly wasn't nudging me in order to leave sooner than we did... And I think she's thinking of coming again. See how nice the place is? Anyone else want to come and try? *g* This time I also did buy the sûtra book, and at last wrote my name in the volunteering list for o-segaki-e, the memorial day we folded the letters for some weeks before. I'll have to leave a bit earlier to have enough time to go to practise, but I'm looking forward to seeing how a buddhist festival looks like - this far I've been only in shintô matsuri. It's also always more interesting to see things from the point of view of the arranging side, because that's when you get to the backstage, so to say. I just hope that I won't cause any heart attacks to old ladies - coming to a temple for memorial services and then being served tea by a foreigner could be a shock.

The conversations yesterday weren't bad either. First of all, I think I managed to explain my whole studies and topics of interest several times in japanese, and the people I was talking with faked understanding very convincingly. Good practise if I want to convince someone to help me with my research. Then we talked about tea, haiku and why Manabe-san decided to become a monk. And then some more of my studies and zen stuff (and impressed some japanese, which in itself isn't that hard to do - esp if you study zen and know something about it, gets them every time). A good evening, I must have understood at least 85% of everything I listened. I also got invited to 2 different tea ceremonies (the one they practise at Rinsenji, and another ryûha), and the offer for Kabuki is still on. There was also an invitation for a takigyô, shintô purification rituals done under a waterfall, but it falls on the exactly same date when I should be moving out from my dorm... Also, the guy who invited me is slightly weird (and that's something coming from me!), and I'm kind of "want to go but...", so I told him it's difficult but that I'll think about it and see whether it would be possible to arrange somehow. The perfect japanese answer, leaving everything open. There's so many interesting things happening after the zazenkai that you might almost forget why you came in the first place - to sit. And because I went for the introduction with my friend, I got to sit for maybe 5 minutes yesterday... Have to catch up on sitting time next monday morning.

Oh, and since there's been no bad poetry for such a long time, here's the one I did for yesterday:

羨むや　爽涼な君　夏の蝶 - I'm jealous! You look so refreshingly cool, Summer butterfly

Comments: This is actually the corrected version, since there wasn't that much wrong with it. This came to my head on tuesday, when it was nearly 30C and I was walking outside, feeling hot, sticky and overall uncomfortable - and then there's this light yellow butterfly flying by, looking so refreshingly cool and like it didn't feel the heat at all. And when I say that "it came to my head" it means that I sat with the idea yesterday for some 2-3 hrs before I had the poem itself pinned down. So, it's not easy, far from it.

I also bought a proper haiku handbook on tuesday (and a ton of other books - eternal thanks to Waseda and the scholarship money they pay for me!), so I hope I'll start catching this haiku business at some point. The haiku book claims to be for people who start with no previous knowledge whatsoever: 全然知らないから始める. Just what I need. I don't know how serious the japanese were when they forst gave me the kigo and told me to write something, but they seem to like my enthusiasm (everyone likes it when there's someone who is interested in the same things as they are). I'm surprising myself too with this poetry business. It's very educational trying to find words short enough, meaning mainly words consisting from 2 kanji, to express an image in your head, trying to pin it down... Not to mention that you need to find a situation where you can use some of the 3 words given for the week. It makes me look at my surroundings in a new way. It's a bit similar to blogging - in order not to deteriorate to the level of "I woke up, ate, and went to school", I need to observe the things I do and think in a slightly different manner, so as to be able to write about them in a manner that wouldn't be boring to read. You see, this ain't my personal diary - it's a completely constructed narrative. All the persons and events described might be fictional. Or then not. *g* (this is the sign I've been reading too much japanese literature)

Hit me, I'm falling asleep!

I almost asked for kyosaku today - to be hitten with the not-so-proverbial zen stick (at least the sound it makes in the zendô is a very real one). In the end I didn't, but maybe I should have... My zazen was the worst ever. Every time I managed to silence the voices inside my head (yes, I do have them, don't you? Try meditation and I promise that you'll find them) my eyes wanted to shut down and fall asleep, and each time I corrected my posture to wake myself up the guys talking in my head woke up too. I feel I fidgeted around so much that I seriously admire the zazen skills and calmness of the calligraphy lady (who everyone calls something like Kis-san, which could be Kishi-san. Or then not, hard to know with japanese names) who was sitting next to me - at some point I felt that SHE should be the one allowed to call the kyosaku on me.

When my alarm started ringing at 4.45 my first thought was to skip the whole thing and wake early (but later) to do homework. The next one was on the lines of "but you're already awake, and if you now try going back to sleep and sleep 2hrs you'll be just pissed off and you'll do no homework anyways". So, I got up and dragged myself to the temple. And it did pay off, kind of. I found out that one of the men who come for morning zazen but usually don't stay for drinks on wednesday studies Pali in Komazawa Daigaku (Komadai), the university of sôtô zen where I'm planning to enter in a few years. He graduated from Waseda, worked 20 years as a salariiman, and then entered the graduate school of Komadai, where he's now studying. Maybe he could show me the place sometime... *g* Another payoff was that we had been talking about Kabuki last wednesday, and I mentioned that I'd like to go and see it since it's one of the forms of japanese theater I haven't seen yet. So, japanese being what they are (meaning totally kind and helpful) Maru-san told me that his wife had proposed to take me see some kabuki, if I'd still be interested. I mean, what kind of question is that?! Of course I am! :) It's always nicer to go and see something for the first time with someone who actually knows something about it. So, I told him my mondays and wednesdays are all free, yoroshiku onegaishimasu. いつも、いろいろお世話に...

The prostrations and the morning meal seemed to go more smoothly now that I knew what to expect (and I'm already a pro in the field toilet scrubbing), but even so I ended up having to slurp my kayu (rice gruel) in a hurry because everyone else was already done. I think the morning meal takes about 20 min, because it's more or less the time my legs take to fall asleep while sitting in seiza. The kayu is very hot when served, and as I don't have the ability to drink boiling water like the japanese do (maybe my zazen isn't yet strong enough to have magical abilities like that), I have to start eating really slow, and then slurp it down quickly after the seconds have been offered and it has cooled down to an eatable level. And just as I start wondering whether my legs have died for good or can I still get them to function, the meal is over and up we stand. I officially offer thanks to my budo training which makes it possible to revive my legs from total numbness to full usability in a matter of seconds. Or at least makes it possible to stand, walk and climb stairs, even though it feels that I'm walking on small needles.

The downside of my budo training is that I was told that my shodan shinsa (examination for the first grade black belt) will be held on June 14. That gives me only 3 more times to practise, plus the day when the shinsa will be held. The thing that kind of makes me wonder is that I haven't almost any shoden from seiza in ... 3 months now. In every practise I'm told to work on my tôhô, with both sensei (and last time also Satô-san was assigned to teach me) watching me, correcting me and telling me how to do it. It leaves me no time to actually work on the things they are teaching me, since every 10 minutes there's something new that I should concentrate on, and I can keep only so many things in my head at a time. I get the feeling that it's the same as why getting hit and shouted at are a part of zen: they're just trying to break me down and see how well I can keep my act together. If all this doesn't either scare me away or give me a total breakdown making me a drooling nutcase (not drooling yet, though I've already heard some comments on my mental health...), and I still have enough courage to present myself at the shinsa, no matter what, I'll be taken as someone who is serious about iai and I'll get the shodan (if I can show some waza at the shinsa it's a bonus). *g*

What bothers me is that I have no place to practise at home - room is too small and people who don't belong in the various budô-saakuru (clubs) at the university aren't allowed to use their practise places. And practising outside in seiza isn't really an option, even less because it's raining half of the time. I'd just want to go through the shoden a few times with no one breathing down my neck for a few times, given that I haven't done it in such a long time. I know it's more important to work on my shizei in tôhô, because it really does look bad, and if I've not learned the shoden well enough in these 5 years of practise, well, in that case I don't really deserve the shodan anyways, but still. It would be nice to get some solo practise... Any ideas, anyone? :)

Never enough!

Recently, I've really got intimate with the downsides of learning something. Maybe for the first time in my life I really understand what it means when they say that "the more you learn the more you see how much you don't know yet".

I brushed the subject with the comment on how conversational japanese is actually the worst kind. If you can handle a normal everyday conversation in japanese you're labeled as "fluent", even though at that point you start noticing how bad your japanese really is. What's the use of speaking japanese if you can't speak of anything interesting? And then when your frustration hits the roof, along comes someone who starts underlining your supposed "fluency" in the language and brands you a perfectionist for not being happy at what you can do. Let's make it clear - fluent is when you're able to express yourself in the way you want. I'm not.

Another one is this buddhism thing. I admit I know enough stuff to be branded knowledgeable but a bit weird, by both my foreign and japanese friends (apparently my hannya shingyô -fan has also something to do with the "weird" part), but from where I'm standing it seems more and more to be like background information - something I need to know to able to get to the really interesting stuff. And even the background information isn't yet enough, but I need to read more and more, and the more I read the more I find out about books I should read... It's a vicious circle, I tell you.

And then there's iai, and things that go along with that. I feel stupid being told by my japanese women kôhai (who both are older than me) that wearing a kimono at enbu isn't a problem for me because "my posture is always so good" - after trying to get the damn collar in place for 10minutes, and being again and again told by sensei in practise that my posture sucks big time (not to mention watching the video my friend took about me and noticing the all-too-familiar leaning forward -posture, which is exactly the thing I'm being scolded about over and over again). Or being told my iai looks sooooo good, while the thing I was thinking all the time while performing was not to drop my sandal in the middle of the demonstration.

I admit I'm reasonably good in all the things mentioned, given how much time and interest I put into them. But I'm also uncomfortably aware of how much ground to cover there still lies ahead, and compliments just make me think about it even more. How much time still until I can really say I'm fluent? How much time until my posture is good enough not to warrant a comment every time I practise? How much time until... I know I ask a lot from myself, and I wouldn't want it otherwise. I don't feel the things I expect are unreasonable - they keep me going.

Sometimes it's just so disheartening to listen to the comments about your supposed fluency while all you can think about is how last wednesday you understood just enough of the conversations in the zazenkai to somehow keep up about what people were talking about, but still being unable to take part because the listening part took all your energy. Or the fact that even though you might know things about Shinran, Shinshû and buddhism, you don't feel like you'd have anything interesting to say about them - they're just facts in your head (and once again, to stand even less a chance to say it in japanese, which kind of is your reason for continuing the language studies in the first place).

Yes, I'm bad at receiving compliments. Yes, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. But this isn't all about false modesty. I mean what I say when I say that my japanese isn't good enough. It isn't, at least for what I want to use it. And I claim the right of feeling that way.

Dream job: owner of a japanese secondhand bookshop

Secondhand bookshops:

Every time I visit one, there's the owner reading one or another of his books, or perhaps chatting with a friend. Usually there's also a full ashtray on the counter, and the tobacco smoke mingles with the absolutely lovely smell of old books. You cram yourself between the high bookshelves and start browsing with your eyes: Dôgen, Eiheiji, Shinran, Pure Land, some Shingon...

First you go to the books that look old and serious, the taikei-editions in their yellowish cases. There's always something that catches the eye, and even though you try to turn your head away, thinking about how heavy it is and how much it will cost, it somehow manages to attract your gaze over and over again, until at last you give in to the temptation and reach for the book. As you slowly take the dark red book out of the cover you wonder about the price. Will it be 1000 yen? Will it be 5000 yen? You never know. You take a quick look at the last page where the price tag is fastened, and breathe in sharply - 1000 yen, must buy!

You make a silent promise not to buy anything else, but still make the mistake of staying in the shop, and turn to the newer and more colourful books. The books don't care about the fact that you just promised to take home only one of them, but start a shouting match to get your attention. "Look at me", they yell, "I've got both Shinran and discrimination!" "No, pick me, I'm all about Death!" "Ignore them and come here instead, look, shugyô at Eiheiji, what more do you still want?" "Nonono, I've got both Shinran AND Dôgen, and the four sufferings!" On and on they go, until you feel ready to faint. In the vain attempt of fighting the rising wave of panic and to do some kind of selection among the books who, by this time, are jumping into your arms, you start
looking for the signs - who is the author and from where has he graduated, are either of the 2 Honganji's mentioned in his short cv, does his name look "freaky" - anything to make possible at least some kind of selection among them all. You pick one or two, and leave the rest of them muttering in your wake as you run towards the counter...

Not so fast! Happy to have your arms full of books, you stop to take the last look at the slim and cheap bunko editions. Somehow one or two always manage to mysteriously make their way on the top of the books previously chosen - "we are small and cheap", they purr, "look, I'm only 250 yen..." By now your desperation (and budget) has overflown so badly, that you actually start feeling a kind of peace and harmony with the world. So what if I have to somehow ship all these back home in 2 months! So what that I won't eat anything in the next few weeks! Just for the heck of it (and because it has pretty pictures of young monks in nice surroundings) you grab an illustrated book about Kôyasan, with the vague intention of "using it in the future to something useful".

At last you are on the counter, giving your books to the old man whose smile grows as he counts the amount of money you will be paying for the honor of bringing your new friends back home. He wraps all your books and puts them to a bag, and says the magic words showing one of the cheaper books in your pile: "これ、サービスにします。" ("Let's just put this one on the house") And that makes your day. You don't even think of the 10 000 yen note that changes hands, thank the kind old man again and again, and leave him behind smoking his cigarette, and taking up the book he was reading when you came to disturb him with your needs.

Why I don't like poetry

(Strangely enough this claims to be written yesterday evening... Don't believe it, it's wednesday morning now.)

I managed to catch a cold somewhere during the last week, and now that all the birthday happenings are done with it seemed to get it's chance to try and take me down. The only effects of the said cold on me are a somewhat fuzzy head and a runny nose, but the latter is somewhat of a problem in Japan. For some reason, it's unpolite to blow your nose in public. I've seen people leave the table with a tissue in their hand and go to the toilet to do it, and nothing is more disgusting than sitting in a cafe trying to read, or even worse, eat something, while in the table next to you someone wearing a mask tries to avoid the horrible deed of blowing his nose to the last while sounding like ... *shudder* I don't even know what to call it, but it sure makes me want to go and offer a tissue to the poor soul with sinuses full of slime. If I'm with a sensei or in a similar situation, I try to act "properly" and disappear for the unmentionable act of blowing one's nose, but if I'm only in class, in the subway... Frankly, couldn't care less.

It would be of course a problem during zazen, but I still think I'll go tonight, if this doesn't get worse during the day.

What I meant to write about yesterday, but didn't have the time to edit to a readable form (as I said, my thinking isn't at it's clearest), is that I got into a conversation with my poetry class teacher about translation of japanese poetry and whether it's possible or not.

First of all you have to know that I'm most certainly not into poetry, and have never been. Usually I don't even like to read poetry. And even though I like to read books, including fiction, I'm not that much into "literature" as such. Translations of japanese literature were certainly not the reason I went to university to study japanese. It was simply because I didn't get any better ideas at the time and decided to take the entrance exam, since "Japanese Studies" sounded interesting. At least I could spend the year there figuring out what to do, if I even got in in the first place. (I had studied some japanese in the high school and done some kendo, but they certainly weren't enough of a reason to really REALLY push me into my studies - I just knew I didn't want to go to the University of Technology where the others from my class were going. It's actually surprising how well this subject came to suit me in the end...) Given that I've certainly done a fair amount of literature studies, but it certainly isn't my main interest - it's just something I have to do to get a better picture of the period, and to get my quota of credits full (and it's more interesting that politics and business studies). *g* I just can't ignore the literature and it's role in society. So, after reading this warning about my un-poeticness, take anything I have to say about poems and translations with a handful of salt.

It just seems to me that there's 2 kinds of extremes for translations - those that are accurate (sometimes to the point of being boringly explanative), and those that are nice to read but lose half of the content. It's even more apparent when translating classical japanese court poetry that at it's best/worst is full of pivot words, double meanings and manage to do it all in 5-7-5-7-7. You can either explain the poem and all it's meanings, or then you can try to make a nice poem out of it. Not both at the same time. What makes translating japanese court literature different of translating, say modern literature, is the fact that the literate society was much smaller and homogenous, and they were in the habit of really cramming the text full of allusions and playing with words in order to show off to others who, having memorized exactly the same poetry collections, could understand from a word and a half a whole scale of associative emotions. You might say that there is a "western literature" (about which I actually disagree - there might be an anglo-american one, but it certainly doesn't include us other western countries, like, say, most of Europe), and that there are a number of allusions inside it that are hard to translate. Fine, you might do it in footnotes, as many translators do (and I for one do think that poems might need footnotes too - it's because I never understand them without explanations). But if you have a japanese poem of 5-7-5-7-7, in which there are 3 double meanings, making it actually 2 different poems that you need to read simultaneously together and only then you get the full picture... How are you going to get that into something that resembles the original for both the meaning and the poetic beauty?

You could say "who cares as long as the reader enjoys the experience", but still, I think it's kind of sad that the interplay of the words just disappears. We read 7 translations of one poem by Ono no Komachi, and none of them had it all. Of course not all of the poems are as difficult to translate than that one, but still... I'm not saying that poetic translation is impossible, just that it's more difficult than some other kinds of translations. And anyways my view on translating things is somewhat pessimistic, I guess, maybe because I'm not too keen on translating myself (even though some people see translating as the only possible reason for wanting to study a foreign culture). I will probably have to translate at least as a part of research - but I don't see myself translating literature as such, for all the reasons given above.

I leave the translating to my friends who are better at it. Now I just need to figure out how to make a living of this thing...

My japanese friends

One question you always hear when talking about being an exchange student in Japan is "Well, do you have any japanese friends?". Don't know about "friends", that depends mostly on the way you define a friend, but I certainly do have a japanese social circle of which I'm part of. The only funny thing about it is that it's made up mostly from 40+ y.o. japanese men (but very sweet ones at that).

If you didn't already guess, I'm referring to our dojo members. I've often heard that it's difficult to get close to japanese people, to really be a part of their group, and in some ways it is true. There are often various problems like the language, cultural differences, and the kind of not shyness, but reservedness that the japanese tend to sometimes have towards others (including other japanese as well, mind you). There are some japanese with whom I don't really know where and how we stand, and those situations always feel a bit strained and uncomfortable, but once your chosen group starts teasing you mercilessly you can be more sure of your footing. :) And it's even better if you can continue the joke give back word for word.

Our basic joke includes, surprisingly, alcohol, and to be more exact, sake. As I protested some time ago, I'm not really a strong drinker - in Finland that is. Instead, I'm old enough to know how much and what I can drink and still be able to behave, plus that not being strong in Finland still means at least average in Japan. By now everyone in our dojo (and after yesterday, the new recruits too...) also knows that I really like good sake (the only sake that you can buy in Finland tastes horrible). So, at some point sensei, who's been drinking beer until now, looks up, then at me, and tells someone to open the big sake bottles so that Laeticia gets some sake (and was about time to start serving it if you ask me *g*). Well, of course it's him who wants the stuff, but still all blame is put on me. Then, the younger Suzuki-san (been training under 1 year. It's normal to refer to people's "practising age" because that's what defines the relationships at the dojo. So, even though by physical age I'm younger than everyone else but Akihiro-kun (an adorable 10 y.o. boy), I'm still "older" than some guys who are old enough to be my father) starts going around with the bottle, and, of course always pushing the sake at me, even though sometimes I could swear he was there just a few minutes ago... He's trying to pour me more, while I'm protesting in my most feminine and sweet voice that he really shouldn't and that I'm just a weak woman who can't drink... And the rest of them around us are howling with laughter. You should also know that I'm not exactly know of my femininity - actually yesterday when I showed up in the morning wearing a skirt and carrying a handbag (in addition to my backpack and swords), I was told that "今日、レッドちゃんは女性になっちゃったよ", literally "oh my, today you've turned into a woman". Anyways, back to the sake, at some point I found myself with 2 glasses of it instead of one (the brand changed and I still had my glass half-full with the previous one... So, I was given another glass) and had to start kampai-ing people with both of them, and trying to get more and more inventive when trying to "avoid" Suzuki-san pouring the stuff around. Once again one of those things that you can't really relay the meaning in writing, but trust me, it's funny as hell - at least if you're drunk with the others included. *g* Of course if I didn't look after myself and would drink myself really to oblivion, puking around as a japanese university student, no one would think it funny - that's the fact that separates dojo-drinking from student drinking. In both cases there is an endless amount of booze you can't really drink away, but when drinking with the dojo, you don't have to worry about someone puking on you in mid-sentence.

And just as an offhand remark on the glasses - no one uses those tiny sake cups. Too much bother trying to keep one's cup full...

We were really blessed with the weather for the enbu, it was kind of hazy so that the sun wasn't scorching us too badly, but still warm and nice, a perfect weather for an outdoors demonstration. Didn't drop my setta (sandals) this time (like I did in our small enbu of February), remembered to do 5 kata which apparently went ok (got approval from Rumi-sensei twice) and didn't die of sleep deprivation. What else could one ask for? My workload was also small, I was given permission to just keep company to my friends who had come there to see some iai, so I got to watch the demostrations myself, too. My only task was to put in place and remove one of the mats to be chopped by Satô-san in his tameshigiri demonstration - it was the first time I'd seen him doing it (I'd heard previously sensei commenting that he's really good), and I have to say it was really cool. There was also some Katori, which surprised me, and a guy doing "guntô", the pre-war army sword style. The funny thing was that during the guntô-guy our background music, which had been a kind of traditional japnese version of the kind of music you have in the elevators, was changed to something that sounded like (and probably was) pre-war military music. All in all, it was a great "last enbu" for me, since I will be going back to Finland in some 2 months.

And what was really touching about yesterday was the way everyone in our dojo started to ask when I'll be coming back to Japan again. Ok, them suddenly starting to sing "Happy Birthday to You" in their broken english was pretty touching too *g*. But anyways, for the first time I really felt that it wouldn't be that bad to stay here for a longer time... Say, some years more. ;)

Priests, monks and whatnot

I think there must be a rule that one should not write a blog more than once in a day, but frankly, who cares. And besides, this will just be a short note on terms, so please bear with me. Anyways, no one forces you to read this...

Speaking about buddhist monks in english is difficult. In japanese, when in doubt, always call them obôsan (お坊さん) and you will be saved from a lot of trouble. In english the 2 main words used are a) monk and b)priest. Now it might be only me, but the first picture that comes to my mind from "monk" is someone who lives in a temple, dedicated to his religious life, not smoking/drinking/eating meat, and living a celibate life - pretty close to the european medieval monastics but with buddhist rules. Of course I know this not to be true, and when I think of "obôsan", my mental image is much closer to the reality I've witnessed here this far. But the word "monk" still retains some kind of special flavor of "hard-core religiousness" in the deep recesses of my mind. The word "priest", on the other hand, summons a less intense picture of someone whose work is to be a priest but who lives a "normal" life (as opposed to the heroic monks who shine with their magical pow... Oh, sorry. *g*) - a kind of watered-down version of the former.

As you might guess, it's not this easy. First of all, buddhist monks are allowed by law to drink alcohol, eat meat, marry, and basically live as they want. They don't have to go around in robes and shave their heads, unless of course if they want to. The small buddhist temples are actually quite close to family businesses, where the son inherits the temple from his father, enabling the family to keep living on the temple grounds (read "Japanese Temple Buddhism" by Stephen G. Covell if you're interested about this kind of stuff).

The ones that would probably be closest to the common idea of a "monk" would be the shugyôsô, "ascetic monks" living in the bigger temples. They are the ones who spend their days in a monastic community, looking like the part with their robes and shaved heads etc - all the trappings that a monk should have. These can be found mainly from places like Hiei-san, Kôya-san and Eihei-ji, BIG temples where the sects' trainee monks complete their mandatory ascetic practises. The one closest to Tokyo is sôtô's Sôjiji in Tsurumi, near Yokohama. A great place to go monk-spotting around noon when the trainee monks are cleaning the complex...

I usually call all the guys who either have their own temple or work in one as monks, be they married or not. If they shave their heads, even better. Robes and rosaries? Bring it on! Butbutbut... What about people like the owner or the bar we went yesterday? He's taken the precepts, but instead of serving in a temple he owns a buddhist bar. Can't really call him a monk, now can I? Well, of course I can, but it feels somehow strange. This time I opted for the "(buddhist) priest" (even though I have a certain dislike to use "priest" when not talking about christianity), in the future I might change to "monk". Who knows?

So, be warned that even though I might use 2 different terms, the situations and religious rules regulating these peoples lives aren't actually too different. At least keep in mind that buddhist monks aren't what the sects' PR-offices try to make them look like: mountain ascetics engaged in mystical rigorous training, making them glow in the dark with their magica... Right. Well, you get my meaning.

TMB, finally

Yes. I have to join the line of females previously taken to TMB, and admit that the young priest in question is way too beautiful for his own good. Some day someone will come and steal him away, and what will we others do then?

I still want to see his "boxing ring face" to be completely won over, though.

The Monk Bar, or at it's real name Bôzu Baa (Bôzu Baa actually DOES mean "the monk bar") is a tiny place in Arakichô, a former geisha quarter in Tokyo. Tiny means here that there's under 15 seats in the place. One is occupied by a blind priest, who gives a buddhist talk once in the evening about a theme given by the customers. Then there's the owner - the pretty one. He's an ex-boxer, who went to Jôdo Shinshû (Nishi) to train as priest, then decided not to go to a temple, but rather do other stuff, like putting up a bar. He was somewhat quieter yesterday than normally, had catched a flu or something, but he's supposed to be THE man you go for if you want to discuss Shinran - now I just need to get my japanese level high enough to be able to actually do it, and not just to dream about it... (the fact that you very easily just fall into watching his pretty face might make the conversation a bit awkward, though. *g*) Conversational japanese is the worst thing there is: you speak well enough to not be believed when you try to protest your japanese is no good, but it still IS bad enough not to be able to discuss anything interesting. Damn.

Still, I might have (not that I'd want to, purely for professional interests, youknowhatImean) to go there again on some occasion, and hopefully with the same company too. It's always fun to go out on a "purely academic" agenda. Unfortunately one of us had catch the trains to return to Yokohama, but after that we still continued for "one last", which then lasted until 2am. This kind of night out is something I've been missing here. What use is drinking if you can't have an interesting conversation during it? As an added bonus I figured out where I want to go for my PhD studies here. :) Many thanks to Fugu-sensei, yoroshiku onegai itashimasu!

Also, as was to be expected, I got many new food experiences - chicken sashimi for example (very good). The winner of the night was small fried and salted shrimps eaten whole. Maybe the best snack I've ever eaten. The only problem that remains is how to find again the places we went to by myself. I might have to come back with others later...

It's a slow morning (surprisingly)... Thank gods tonight is free, me needs rest. And then tomorrow morning, up at 4.30. What a week.

Wet tempura

After some 7 months in Japan I think I've finally found the most disgusting food there is on earth - wet tempura. It's tempura that has been waiting in a bentô stand long enough to become all soggy and mushy and, quite honestly, disgusting. It's mainly lukewarm mush on top of cold rice. To give you some perspective, yesterday evening I was eating something described to me as "ika no naizô" - insides of an octopus, and even that was tastier than what is next to me at the moment. Note to self: never take a tempura bentô ever again. Ever.

Yesterday's zazen went well (I was told that my posture in zazen is really good - and of course the truth is that it also hurts like hell. But then again, zazen isn't done for physical comfort is it?), didn't touch any shôchû, and even came home early. Ok, around 1am, but still, I wasn't the last one to leave... The jûshoku stayed with his budô students, but as the conversation started to slide to music etc. (and not budô / buddhism), I decided that I should maybe get some sleep to be able to go on until sunday night and slipped away with a guy who needed to catch his train. But I'm still dead tired. It's strange how my monday went so well even though I rose up at the ungodly hour of 4.45, and yet when I have to get up for my japanese class at 7.00 it's as if rising from the dead. Maybe I should start sleeping only 5hrs a night?

One guy from our zazenkai is coming to watch the demonstration on saturday, so last week I gave him the poster of the event. Because rumors fly faster between old men than teenage girls could ever manage, half of the zazenkai knows about the demonstration already, and so even yesterday the talk in the upper room turned to budô and iai (jûshoku wanted once again tell the guys who practise with him karate/shorinji kempo that the foreign girl sitting here does iai - it never ceases to amaze the japanese), and at some point he tells us he's got a sword. A real sword. "Want me to show it?" Well, sure, why not, even though the japanese guys seemed to be more excited about it than I was... And then he brings in a blade in shirazaya (plain wooden sheath used when you only have the blade of the sword and not the strappings included, like hilt etc.). It wasn't that long, I tried to draw it and it wasn't too difficult (maybe 2.40-2.50, hard to say without an obi), but the weight... Must be made from lead, that one. And from what I could see, the blade was really thick. It was so heavy (and the shirazaya so thick that I couldn't really get a good grip) that I didn't even try to swing the thing properly, and passed it to the hands of the awed budô guys.

Trust me on this: japanese don't have any inborn ability to handle swords. Even japanese budôka. ;) There was no mistaking in the classical "baseball grip" most people use when they get their hands on a sword for the first time... It was fun to watch - and thank gods the thing wasn't sharpened. It seems it was given to jûshoku by someone, and he has absolutely no idea what to do with it.

There were once again plenty of people, but some of the regulars were missing, I think because of a "Koshûkai" I heard something about on monday morning. It's a bi-annual meeting, where people come to drink vintage sake and eat well. Too bad, because I'd have liked to ask Maru-san some things about the role of godô and the kyôsaku... but now that has to wait for another time (morning zazen seems to be a better time for buddhist questions - maybe because people are less drunk?). Also, I think I'll want to buy my own sutra book (costs only 600y.), just because I like buying buddhist stuff. :) Otaku, you know..? That'll have to wait for next wednesday too, as I don't think I'll be able to go to morning zazen next monday after my busy busy weekend - I'm just getting older all the time, and need my sleep... Unfortunately. I also missed the haiku booklet, so I didn't get any comments, revisions or anything this time, only managed to snatch the word list. So, even the haiku commentaries will have to wait until next week (and you all will be saved for a while from my bad attempts at japanese poetry).

Now it's back to the wonderful world of homework, so that I'll be able to leave to town straight after my class, if need be. And yes, the tempura (or actually the rice, I managed to eat the vegetables) still sits there beside me... At least I'll have something to eat tomorrow morning, mixing leftover rice with miso soup works reasonably well as a breakfast.

Post-onsen haze

Yesterday was a good day even without the zazen (I'm still amazed by the fact that getting up at 4.45 didn't ruin my whole day by making me a walking corpse...). I had made plans to see a friend and her mother, who has been visiting here for some 2 weeks, for a day of hanging around in Ueno and Asakusa, the older parts of Tokyo, but in the end me and my friend just decided to go to an onsen (mother declined and stayed at home cleaning). I hadn't been in LaQua before, but it was a nice though a bit pricey place. Nothing unusual, but great for a bit of relaxation.

Onsen are perhaps my main reason for not getting any tattoos. I've been thinking for a long time of having one, but never got around to it. In Japan, as you might know, tattoos are often connected with organized crime, so there's usually a strong "no tattoos" policy in most onsen. I've heard about foreigners who could get inside despite having whole of their back tattooed, but there's always been a "high-ranking" japanese friend included in the explaining process, and usually at a local onsen where he was well known. So, I'd rather not try. (Besides, the tattoos I was thinking have become mostly if not meaningless, at least so much weaker in their meaning for me in the last month that even though I wouldn't probably want them removed or anything like that, I'd probably not view them in the same way. Maybe I should take the hint and decide for once and for all NOT to take any permanent pics on myself...)

So anyways, 3,5hrs of lying in hot waters, talking and a nice tofu-kaiseki (japanese "fancy" meal with some 8 small plates, all had some kind of tofu as the main ingredient). Gooood... And my friend's mother paid it all. Even better. :) So, after we were all soft-headed from the afternoon of pure relaxation, we got a long-awaited phonecall.

Our dear friend and tutor had finally remembered that he was supposed to contact us after he came to Japan, and we arranged a night out for the 15th. The guy knows the best places to drink and eat in Tokyo, be it high-end restaurants or tiny street bars, so we're looking forward to a night of good (and I do mean GOOD) sake and food, and hopefully, as he already promised to take me there, The Monk Bar. It's not it's real name, but that's how this legendary place is known between us. It's a tiny bar run by a young buddhist priest (and I think by now everyone knows what I think about buddhist monks... *g*), who's supposed to be really fun and good company. There's also a legendary quote from him or some other, I forget, that goes something like: "Praying/chanting a mantra... It's like having sex with Buddha. " Absolutely brilliant, I say! :D Who still tries to tell me buddhism is a boring intellectual religion? So, hopefully...

At first we mixed the dates and thought that 15th is on wednesday, and I already told my polish friend I can't make it to zazen, but today morning I realized that it isn't the case at all! So happy! Now I can go both to zazen and then on the next day to TMB, two nights spent drinking with monks instead of just one. ;)

And just as a disclaimer - even though my stories, esp about zazen, seem to always include drinking, I most certainly am NOT an alcoholic. :) Actually, my friends always whine that I don't drink much at all. The fact that I must be able to speak in japanese at these places hopefully acts as evidence that I'm actually not very drunk at those times... Plus, I have to be able to go to the japanese class next morning at 9am, and if I'd be really drinking, my hangover would keep me in bed until early afternoon (not young anymore, apparently). The polish friend, who actually introduced me to the zen temple (of which I'm eternally grateful to her) always teases me that I get through the zazen only because there's drinks afterwards. I hope it's mostly because she always leaves before me from the gathering and I stay until late talking with people (well my japanese is better, so think i get more of the mostly japanese conversations... Although there's a big number of people who can AND are willing to talk in english too. She also commented to me last friday that she thinks I've really become "one of them", by which I was kind of moved). It's not the drinking itself, but I've yet to find a relaxed gathering between the japanese where alcohol ISN'T served. As I said in an earlier post, drinking and socializing go hand in hand.

The bad news is that I still don't have the haiku for tomorrow. I was almost relieved when it seemed that I wouldn't be able to go and so get an extra week (plus my friend promised to get me the words for next week), but now... Of course they don't kick me out or even frown on me if I don't have the poems (they are so nice), but I want to have something written. At least one... Will need to think on "first leaves" and "beginning of summer". Sometimes I get really storng images and feelings for the words, sometimes I have to dig deeper. I actually have a kind of "feeling" for the leaves, but I need some time to really find the words to express it. It's the feeling when you see the new birch leaves in Finland, which usually the same time when the lectures in our university start ending - you read for the exams and think about the summer that is beginning.

And now the same in japanese, 5-7-5. Sigh...

Me 1 - Ego 0, or, more samu

Written originally May 12, 2008

Today I finally did it! :D

Got up at 4.45 am in the morning and dragged my sorry and protesting ego to the morning zazen, that is. And as I was told on my first time, it was very different from the wednesday evening... First of all, there was only 9 of us, instead of the 40+ people who come for the evening zazen. Also, the outside streets were so much more quieter - think about the difference between any city at 6.00 am and 8.00 pm. We actually heard birds singing, and not people on their way from work to izakaya (japanese bars).

I've come to notice that zen temples are way noisier than what I thought. If it's not the giggling office ladies going past the temple when you try to do zazen, it's the old ladies/teenage girls chattering away while you try to meditate on the beauty of a famous zen garden. Makes you think very un-zen and un-enlightened thoughts, mainly about shoving your sutra book down their throat and strangling them with your prayer beads. But I digress...

On a related note to my last post, the morning zazen includes samu: cleaning the temple grounds, scrubbing the toilets etc. Guess who got the toilets? ;) Not that I mind of course, they were almost spotless anyways, and that's supposed to be the "worst" job there is (at least for the japanese), which of course means best for taming your ego. After that there was still cleaning the cemetery and the morning meal. The temple meal was also an interesting experience. I was very grateful for the nice calligraphy teacher lady who helped me through it, how to hold my cups and chopsticks, how to wash my bowl with tea, how to this and how to that. I'm becoming very good at imitating people at only a seconds notice. I also learned how to do the full prostrations that we usually don't do in the evening (too many people). I was expecting to just bow standing and suddenly everyone is on their bellies on the floor... Once again the budo training of being able to go on your knees and raise yourself up quickly came in handy. :)

There wasn't any booze included (it WAS morning, even we don't drink all the time!), but after the meal was cleaned up we still sat for a while drinking tea in a more relaxed atmosphere, and the assisting priest (whose name I still don't know) told about his experiences in winter sesshin. I also explained a bit about my studies - and I once again got the "what, you've been in Japan only since last september?" -line because half of the people there talked with me for the first time today. Maru-san also taught me how to serve tea properly so that if it spills I have the towel in my hand. After some years of budo training I have the "pouring reflex" in me (the one that makes you subconsciously notice how much tea/sake/etc. there is left in your sensei's cup and then pouring more before he thinks of asking it), even though it's not yet as strong as in japanese women. But it's still strong enough that I do get up and start serving tea after a while has passed... When I do it on my own without no one asking, it usually both amuses and impresses the japanese - both because a foreigner who in some ways is very unladylike (at least by the japanese standards which I resist until the end) knows how to behave like a woman should (again by the local standards). Keeps them on their toes, it does...

Samu - working together

Written originally May 11, 2008

I've been involved lately in a lot of "office work", cutting, stapling, folding letters and filling envelopes. I haven't started a new job, though. In fact no one pays me for the work, and I wouldn't expect to be paid either - not to mention that all these activities have taken only some hours of my time this last week. What is worse is that I'll have to get up next saturday around 4.30 to be in Kanazawa Hakkei at 7.30 and working for the whole day as "enbu assistant" (enbu being a budo demonstration) on top of taking part in the enbu itself.

All these activities fall under the very broad concept relations between one and others that underline the japanese way of thinking. You could really say that "you're not an individual, but only a part of the group". Or more like it, if you want to be a part of a group, REALLY be a part of it, you'll work for the group when it's called for. This side of japanese society is sometimes seen (often by westerners, but also by the japanese themselves) as "restricting" or "forcing people" to do something they don't want to. It's only half of the truth.

On wednesday night in the end of the charei (short tea-service with dharma-talk at the end of zazenkai) it was announced that after people went to change their clothes they should come back downstairs for samu if they were not in a particular hurry. In zen samu means work that is done for the community of buddhists. Unlike the popular image, monks in zen temples spend most of their time working, not sitting in meditation. On normal days the ascetic monks (shugyôsô) sleep for about 6hrs, meditate for maybe 5hrs, and the rest of their time is certainly not spent idling away. They clean (ever noticed how the corridors in Shôjiji shine?), make food, clean some more, take care of a hundred different things - all as a form of meditation and working for the community. In short, keeping the temple on its feet. The temple where I go is of course way smaller and isn't meant for shugyôsô, so normally we don't have any special form of samu on wednesdays. This time, though, was different. In about a month the temple will host a big event for the whole of it's congregation (families who have their graves there). The members of our zazenkai are asked to help with the event itself (of course only if we have time), and last wednesday we filled what seemed to be an endless amount of envelopes - the invites of the event. Folded the letters and 2 different kinds of information leaflets, glued the address stickers on envelopes and put all the things in the envelopes, finally shutting them with glue.

My other work was done this weekend was when we made the programs for saturdays enbu. Once again folding papers, cutting binding tape to the exact length of the papers, stapling... The invitations were done in the beginning of March if I remember correctly, with the same routine: folding, stickers, glue, insert papers into envelope in the right order. And on saturday we'll be on the grounds from 7.30 putting things into place, trying to keep the whole thing running, calling the ambulance if someone cuts himself with his sword (happened last November), and cleaning the place afterwards.

Of course no one's forcing any of us into this. And at least half of these things happen when people would be there anyways, like during the latter half of the practise or after the zazenkai when everyone is anyways staying for the socializing. Of course some of the work is done on people's "own time", like photocopying hundreds of pages or spending your saturday morning
cleaning the shrine grounds. You could make reasons for not participating, even if it meant avoiding practise on days when you knew there will be work included, and no one would probably say anything to your face. But if you do that, then you can't really complain if you're seen as someone who's half-hearted about your membership to the group. You must really show that you want to be a part of that.

If you're not giving, why should you receive? Receive trust, teaching, friendship, commitment... Because you pay your membership fees? Think again.

The system is far from being one-sided. The most obvious thing, both in iai and zen, is that I receive the teaching of my teacher. My relationship with my Jûshoku isn't yet deep enough (and no dirty jokes about this one, please *g*), but my relationship with my iai sensei brings me other things too: if I need equipment I just need to mention about it and they will order it for me, getting discount prices and good quality. I get advise about daily life in Japan. I've been taken to onsen for free. I've been introduced to some interesting people (like the head priest of Kamakura Hachimangû). If I have problems I can always contact them and I know they'll be there for me. And what do I give back? Of course I pay a monthly and a yearly membership fee, but on top of that: I come to practise, as often as I can even though the 2-way trip takes 6hrs in total and costs almost as much as the monthly fee itself. I participate in the enbu, and there do and look my best (you have to wear special formal wear that isn't too cheap). And of course I fold letters and fill envelopes when needed. And when you do all these things with your fellow dojo members - getting up early, practising together, filling envelopes together, and finally drinking together (it's not just me - the japanese society IS centered around drinking together)... That's when you really become a part of the group. Not before.

Why bother writing all this in the first place? Because that's what I often feel lacking in some circles, be it budo or not. That's why we speak about "active practitioners" and "others". The thing is, there should be only "actives". Those who come, who do, who participate. Who really put themselves into what they're doing. Anything else is just wasting (my/our) time.

Gods, I'm too japanized. I need to go to bed now...

Never try to drink your Jûshoku under the table

Originally written May 8, 2008

Once again I learned a valuable lesson in the zen afterparty. I've already learned that competitive drinking with old budoka is a bad bad BAD idea. The same seems to apply to old buddhists. Boy can they drink. And never ever touch shôchû, the stuff doesn't suit me at all. I wasn't even that drunk (a bit drunk yes, but still totally able to function and walk back home), but I still had the worst hangover in a long time... And managed to completely miss the biggest earthquake in Tokyo during my stay here. I blame everything on the shôchû. :)

It was fun, though. Usually the drinking party lasts until 23-24 in a bigger room, but around midnight people have to start catching the last trains, and the room is cleaned and the dishes washed. Then the discussion (and drinking) continues in a smaller room, and apparently some of the people stay at the temple for the night, leaving only with the first trains in the morning. As I was saying my goodbyes for the night I was invited to sit for a while, and as I wasn't in any particular hurry I decided to stay for a while - which turned out to be until 2.30 in the morning. Well, I did have fun, one of the jûshoku's (temple's head priest) budo students who had been practising upstairs afer our zazen joined us for an hour or so, and there was a lot of teasing, laughter and even some serious conversations. And jûshoku taught me and a half german/half japanese guy wrist locks...

Then a bit about the haiku (so that this blog won't degenerate purely into telling about my drunken escapades in Tokyo). The guy organizing the haikukai had actually gone through the bother of rewriting my poems, so that I'd have a better idea of what they should look like. Very nice of him. :) The comments for the two new ones I showed here too were mostly that they had too many seasonal references in them, as you're supposed to have only one. I never knew that "air-conditioner" counts as a "kigo" (seasonal word), but you learn always something new I guess... He promised to look through my new poems as well. Also, I need to think more about the rhytm of the poem. I actually had to really coax him into commenting by telling him that what use is there for me to try writing if he doesn't tell me how to come better at it... He's so sweet, fearing that he'll hurt my feelings. Nice people, all of them.

The words for next week are: 初カツオ,　初緑 and　初夏, "first katsuo (a kind of fish)", "first leaves (of sakura)" and "beginning of summer", respectively. We'll have to see what I'll come up with this time.

I was also invited by a friend to a tankakai tomorrow (same thing as haikukai but writing tanka, 5-7-5-7-7). They are going through Ki no Tsurayuki's poems, or Kokinshû (first imperial poetic anthology, I think from beginning of 900s), I didn't really catch. But anyways, for someone who has never really understood poetry, I seem to be reading and writing it a lot lately... And it's more fun than what I'd thought. My friends will think I've completely lost my mind, but well, they're not here to complain, so... :)

Lazy ego and even more haiku

Written originally May 5, 2008

Well, I didn't go to the meditation, and I'm already feeling regrets about it. I slept badly, both because of the heat and because I knew I had my alarm ringing at 4.45am. So, around 2.40am I just decided to sleep in (once again).

And now I just want to whack myself with a stick... As I have to wait until wednesday evening's zazen. I can and do meditate at home too, but it's different. There's something in sitting with a room full of people, listening to the footsteps of the godo (the priest overseeing the meditation) and the whacks of his kyosaku (the stick that's used to hit people on the shoulder, only when requested in our temple), the faint incense smoke and the fact that you actually can't move or stop even if you wanted before the 40 min is up. I'm a very restless meditator these days... I can sit 10-15min at home, but 40 minutes would be absolutely impossible.

And I love the sutra chanting after the zazen. It's somehow so relaxing to chant the hannya shingyo and other bits and pieces with the others. And steal glances at our handsome Jûshoku, the resident priest of the temple. ;)

The other reason I keep myself from going is that on top of the fact that my ego is lazy, she's too self-conscious and afraid. I have this stupid idea in my head that I will seem like a freak or something if I get up before 5am to show up at a temple to do zazen. Maybe my un-understanding acquintances would think that, but, and this is funny, I'm afraid that the japanese people at the temple would think so too. I mean, if they see me there, they must be feeling the need to do it too, right? So why on earth would they think I'm crazy? Wouldn't they be the ones to understand, and not the other way around?

No-one ever said that the ego and it's reasons are reasonable... That's probably why it needs to be whacked with a stick from time to time.

And last but not least, as I got some responses to posting haiku yesterday, here's another one that I made for wednesday:

夏籠り　エアコンの前　冷麦茶 ...translated: Shutting myself up in my room in summer, cold barley tea in front the airconditioner.

Commentary: Another one with "natsu", "summer". Why I like this poem is that I transformed a seasonal word for winter, fuyugomori (shutting oneself in in winter), to a summer equivalent, natsugomori, thus making myself a "new" seasonal word (which in itself is of course kinda breaking the rules, but hey, who cares... I'll just call it a word pun). It's not even summer yet, and I'm still starting to feel uncomfortably hot and sticky as there's always some kind of humidity - in Finland the summers are always dry and under +30C. So, my summer plans are as above - shutting myslef in my room in front of my air conditioner with some cold drinks. :)

I'll tell you the comments I get for them later. For my first tries I was told they're too much like waka (tanka - 5-7-5-7-7), meaning that they're too explanatory and I should leave more stuff out (and I do agree). So, now I've been reading some modern and classical haiku, including humorous haiku, trying to get a feeling for what a haiku should be like, and I'm eagerly awaiting for the judgement.

Summer heat and haiku

Written originally May 4, 2008

Have had recently some stress-related problems, not sleeping etc...

I'm even contemplating of going to the morning meditation tomorrow, which means I'll have to get up at latest at 5am, to have the time to walk to the temple for 6am... Depends mostly on my evening, last sunday I had a migraine and decided to sleep instead of going. Zazen calms me down, so it's a viable option.

Anyways, I find I like composing haiku. I readily admit that they're FAR from being "real" fancy haiku, but as I was only told to put things I see and feel in a loose 5-7-5 form, they kind of work. Plus, as a foreigner even the fact that I manage to put together some kind of a poem makes the japanese all happy and excited. :) So, I don't know whether you're supposed to mention things like "sweat" in the summer poems, but hey, that's what I'm experiencing... I take the whole affair as a kind of a word play.

Here's one I just made for next wednesday's haikukai:

玉の汗　くっついた柄　夏稽古 ...and in english: Sweat drops, sticky hilt - Summer practise

Commentary: I practise iaido, a japanese sword martial art, and we use a practise sword modeled after real katana - meaning that the hilt is bound with cord. This cord becomes full of sweat, oil and dirt from your hands with time. It's bound to happen and doesn't bother for most of the time, but in summer the hilt feels even stickier than usually because the hands sweat more than when it's cooler. And with temps over 20C I'm usually red-faced and sweating like a pig. So that pretty much sums up how I felt today. :)

First attempts at haiku

Originally written on April 25, 2008

Last wednesday was my second time in zazenkai, a zen meditation. Thanks to a friend I managed to find a jewel amongst the thousands of small temples in Tokyo - a temple that has a potluck-type thing after the meditation, where the people who come for the zazenkai can talk, eat and, you guessed it, drink together. Lots of fun, lots of different people with different interests, and all willing to take newcomers to their social circle.

Once again a bunch of Japanese who obviously haven't been told that the Japanese are supposed to be quiet and calm. (for some reason I keep running into these kinds of Japanese people quite often)

So, as last wednesday was my second time, I of course started noticing how there's actually a few smaller circles included in the larger gathering. People arranging future events, some older guys who've obviously known each other for years etc, but as I was in the middle of a conversation about the religious politics of medieval Japan (the guy I was talking with must be the only 30-something Japanese that I've met so far who actually understood what I study - plus he patiently waited while I tried to do it in japanese) I didn't really think too much about them. Not even when a man I'd been talking with the week before walks past me when leaving and gives me a piece of paper with japanese writing, telling me it's my "homework". I just put the paper in my pocket without really looking at it.

Later when I went talk with my acquintances from my first visit I saw they have a haikukai, a haiku circle, going on. The slip of paper given to me was actually the 3 seasonal words for next week's meeting, which will of course be held after the zazenkai. And thus I became adopted (abducted) to a haikukai. Now the problem is of course that I should have at least one haiku for next weeks meeting, and my inspiration has taken a vacation. I've never been one to write poetry, and even less in foreign languages. Their attempts at reassuring me didn't help too much either: "Just write things that you see around you, or your feelings." It reminds me too much of being told to relax and sit in a natural position, just before my iai teacher comes and starts to draw my shoulders back and straightening my spine to resemble that "natural position" I should be having. You never knew that "relaxing" can be so painful..

Of course I'll come up with something. I want to be included to all the fun next time too. :)

Stupid stories

Originally written on April 20, 2008

I was recently reading somewhere about the different stories we tell ourselves about us, usually feeding our negative self-images. My first reaction was of course "Well, I'm not doing anything like that!"

Then it hit me a few days after. My particular story is that I'm a boring person. On top of that I study boring stuff, and if people find out what I do they will think me as a freak with no life. Reasonable? Right, thought so.

After this revelation I started to think about how I always seem to try be as unclear about my study interests as possible, to brush them off and change the subject of the conversation. I'm evasive about the level of my studies and about what kind of work I do for them. The same thing with my hobbies, and I never ever speak about my religious interests. These subjects are only spoken of with certain persons, who change according the subject.

The funny thing here is of course that I'm passionate about my studies, and I seriously think about PhD studies and research as a profession, even though I know that it certainly won't make me rich. I think it's one of the most interesting things there is, and it's something I'm good at. I might not have the "common and correct" reasons for doing it, like money and career prospects, and when asked WHY I'm interested about the subject, I have difficulties answering. Isn't being interested enough? Do I need to analyse the reasons for it over and over again, until all the world is happy and convinced? Must everything be a path to a well-paid job?

So, I decided to make these changes to my inner story:

-I have decided to prove to the world that young women who are studying Japanese Buddhism seriously aren't either boring or freaky new-agers.

-That young women who prefer philosophy to fashion are fun to hang out with.

-That you don't need to be able to drink yourself to oblivion and still know how to have FUN.

-That zen and "zenier than thou" are things that actually rule each other out.

P.S. Coming to Japan has certainly changed my view of monks. First, they smoke like chimneys and certainly see no problem in drinking beer and sake. Second, some of them look hotter than I'd ever have believed. And thirdly, every one that I've talked with, which unfortunately isn't that many yet, has been fun to talk to, and certainly more interesting than most japanese.

To blog or not to blog?

Now there's a question I've been thinking for a time. It's been suggested to me from time to time that I should have write a budo blog, something about Japan, its customs, history and culture, how they relate to what we practise, and also from time to time to explain what our sensei REALLY meant when he said this or that. Until now I never wanted to start blogging, for several reasons.

One of them is my deep mistrust of anything that has to do with the wide and faceless thing that's called internet. Another one is that I don't really feel the need to tell everything that I do to everyone that might happen to find my scribblings in the said internet. Still one is that I've always been a very lazy writer - never kept a diary for longer than a few weeks, and if you've ever had to wait for my email replies, well... All I can do is apologize. :) So there's a big chance that this blog will die in some months, but then again, that's life.

Now, however, I decided to put this thing up. It will actually begin with some posts I've written earlier elsewhere, so that anyone interested will catch up on things I've been writing previously. Also, be aware that unlike suggested, this won't be dedicated purely to budo. There will probably be a lot of zen and buddhism, as that's something I know and like to talk about (as some of you might have noticed). Be warned by the title of the blog. I will try to keep it Japan-related, though.

What a mission statement...