The power of the broom

Walk through any neighbourhood early in the morning, and you can't miss it. The old ladies with brooms. And, no, this doesn't mean that Tokyo neighbourhoods are full of witches (though that certainly would explain some things...), but that the japanese ladies feel some kind of obligation of sweeping the street in front of the house in the morning.

You'd think trees drop their leaves only in the autumn, but no. After some times of sweeping the temple grounds, I can tell you that japanese trees apparently haven't been told this, and instead they drop them whenever they feel like it. I'm afraid to think how it must be in the autumn... And the brooms themselves! You'd never think a bunch of sticks like that would be of any good with leaves, not to mention dust - but it works surprisingly well. Even though it looks like something that would useful only for decorative purposes. I noticed yesterday evening that all this sweeping has also affected my views of what is clean. Or "clean" isn't actually the right word, it's just that I notice the leaves, even when there's few of them, and automatically my thought's go to the broom rack on the temple wall. I'm sad to tell you, though, that sweeping leaves has had no effect what so ever to the order in my room - it's still what I call an "orderly chaos"... *g*

Another thing you see often is the wet ground. After sweeping the leaves and dust away, the ground is dowsed with water - apparently to keep the dust away. I can understand the logic if you live with dirt roads, but in modern cities..? Personally I'm more irritated by the fact that there's puddles everywhere in the mornings, rain or not.

And there certainly is an endless supply of rain these last days. I even woke up twice during the night, only because the rain was so loud (or so it seemed...). No hope of having dry shoes ever again for some time. At least that means I can shut myself in with a good conscience, and drown in with my new bollywood movies - and maybe some of the older ones, too. I'm once again in the bollywood mood, you see. And the sound of rain during the morning zazen was quite nice too. Plus, we didn't have to sweep outside, but instead cleaned the floors inside. It was faster than the outdoors samu, so had to help Maru-san with the breakfast after my favourite task of scrubbing, which resulted in missing spoons and chopsticks which were noticed only after starting the meal - luckily I had left their box downstairs and hadn't taken it back in the kitchen, so that he had only to cross the room, not climb the stairs... Well, next time. :) Making mistakes isn't bad - only repeating them again and again.