Four days at the temple of eternal peace

An average day at Eiheiji starts early. On the second day we got a sleep in until 4 30, and we felt genuinely blessed at this seemingly late wake up time. On all other days, the monks came by the room with the wake up bell clanging at 3 30 in the morning, and within three seconds a thunder of footsteps begins as we scurry around packing up our futons. I have never gotten up so early, or so fast before, but something about that clangy bell had me jumping out of bed without a moment of groginess. There is nothing quite like doing complex folding procedures 5 seconds after sleeping.

By 3 50 we were in the meditation hall. Polished stone floors, and a serene buddha statue in the middle of the room with a flame in front of it create a very medieval atmosphere. We jump onto our tatami mats facing the wall to begin zazen meditation in the pre-dawn darkness. We are meant to just relax, and not do or think anything in particular. However, one thought keeps bobbing up in my mind repetitively...`my legs hurt, my legs hurt, my legs hurt`. Like someone who knocks louder and louder on the door the longer they go unanswered, the pain grows and grows until finally I give in and begin shuffling from half-lotus to regular cross-legged position. This is only a partial relief however, and most of the zazen period is consumed by struggling vainly to find a comfortable position (comfortable in this case means `without fire-like pain`).

We then attend the morning service, basically zen church. This is far, far more interesting than any church I have ever been to however. We walk out silently through the temple complex, and every now and then I get a glimpse of some beautiful temple scenery, and remember where I am. We then go into the Hattou, the main hall, with gigantic gold structures hanging from the ceilings, huge bells and drums, and a shrouded buddha on a beautiful, extravagant altar. The only thing this room does not have is chairs. We kneel in `seiza` position on the tatami mats for about an hour and a half while the service takes place. Around 100 monks are there, and the sight of a hundred monks kneeling together with identical shaved heads and jet balck robes is memorable enough in itself. Then the chanting begins - the huge drum is beaten, the zen gongs are hit, and the chanting of a hundred monk-ish voices (that nasaly chanting tone) fills the hall. We are also meant to join in, but the monks have a sense of rhythm better than most DJ`s, and most of the time chant in complex patterns and at a ridiculous pace, and other than a half-hearted sentence or two, I spend most of the time trying to figure out exactly where we are in the sutra book.

Coming back, it soon becomes time for breakfast. Ah breakfast, what a nice break...ha!
Mealtimes are among the hardest times of the day for me and my fellow foreigners, as they are also taken in the meditation hall with the fire-lit buddha statue watching me writhe around in agony. I soon learn that everything is painful here. The procedures for eating are incredibly complex, and the average meal takes between an hour and an hour and a half. We use a set of 4 bowls all set into each other, wrapped up with our napkins and tea towel in a complicated manner, and everything from setting up, to eating, to washing up and packing up is done in a precise order...literally every movement of the hands is regulated, right down to the position of the fingers when you pick up a certain implement. Every movement, right down to picking up your tea towel to wipe a bowl, is done with both hands. The actual serving of the meal is just as complex, as each dish comes out individually, and is served to us with a fair amount of mutual bowing. Despite moments of cynicism (pain can make just about anyone cynical), there are moments when the sophistication strikes me as beautiful. Before and after meals, we chant various verses dedicating this food to various things, and this time I can actually follow the much slower, easier chanting. It is a very cool feeling being part of a super-voice, a harmony that seems to come from the orange glow of the buddha altar itself.

The meals themselves are absolutely fantastic. Called Shojin Ryori, literally `pure food`, they are strictly vegan, but taste great. Miso soup, rice with a variety of flavours, pickles, and for lunch and dinner we have tofu and vegetable delicacies to accompany it. For the last dinner, we even had tempura! After the meal is eaten (with leg pain as a side dish), we begin the packing up procedures. I had read that not a grain of rice is wasted at these temple meals, but this is an understatement, as literally not a gram of food goes to waste. After we have eaten every last grain of rice, we wash our bowls out with tea, and then drink the tea along with any tiny food scraps or essence of food that may have remained. We then pour hot water through the various bowls consecutively, and drink this as well! There is very little need for washing up in the monastery - by the time our little bowls are stacked together and wrapped up once more, they are sparkling clean, with every last scrap of food residing in our tummies. This reverence and attention to detail when eating, picking every dish with both hands, was one of the things that struck me most about the monastery.

Manual labour barely makes an entrance into the program, and I have very little opportunity to scrub the toilets. This is a shame, as manual labour is one of the few things which does not require one to sit cross legged on the floor. However, the program is very well thought out, and just when the hours of sitting gets too much for us, a break of some form is provided. At the end of the night, we are taken down to the bath room as luxurious as any onsen, with modern shower fittings and a boiling hot bath to soak our joints and muscles in. Later in the program, we are even given a hike around the temple complex to shake off the austere atmosphere. The monks laugh and joke with us casually, and when we get to the top of Eiheiji hydroelectric dam (I assume that is not part of the original complex), they hand out cakes and other convenience store food, which we eat without any fanfare or prayer whatsoever. Entering the temple once more, we resume our rigid, attentive posture and the monks once again speak in strict, formal Japanese, but all our spirits are lifted.

The only thing better than the hike is the special `foreigners dharma talk` (dharma means buddhist teachings) on the lower floor. I pray to buddha and, like magic, they appear in front of my eyes...Chairs! Comfy, puffy, soft CHAIRS! Sitting down, I have never felt so happy. Here we meet two very amazing people - Kuroyanagisan, a priest who speaks wonderful english and acts as a translator for a two hour question session with the head priest (Roshi) of the monastic training.

Zen men are never what you imagined. I would say that their most defining feature is innocent humanity. This revered priest lays back in his chair, laughing heartily and appearing to thoroughly enjoy his chat with us (he stayed with us an extra hour, skipping the evening service). When asked what we should do about our leg pain, the Roshi answers `When I sit, it doesn`t hurt at all. So I get very sleepy. I think you are lucky, you don`t get sleepy`. Hmmm....come to think of it, he is right, despite the 3 30 starts I almost never feel sleepy at all. He cuts down abtruse, philosophical questions with sharp wit. I ask him if in Zen, the various deities are just metaphorical, or whether it is thought that they truly exist. His reply is to bypass the translator, and look straight at me and say `do you think this world truly exists?`, then laugh. One woman asserts that when she does Zazen, the whole world does Zazen with her, right down to the people washing their car outside. His response is a confused `no...the person washing their car is still just washing their car, aren`t they?`. We have seen him once before, in very elaborate robes with much fanfare in the centre of one of the morning services. We laugh when he tells us that at these services, sometimes he decides to chant a tone above the monotone, just for fun. In general, the room is a very happy, laughy place when he is there. He cautions us about accepting religious figures based on their `nice robes`, and indeed his infectious laughter proves to be a much better proof of spiritual accomplishment than his somber, stereotypically spiritual form at the ceremonies.

The next `tea meeting` is with Kuroyanagisan alone, and the conversation is much quicker without the two-sided translation. In this conversation he explains many aspects of Zen in a very clear, inspiring way. His manner is so innocent, and so human. He describes himself as `bashful`, and this is a good description. He has no trace of ill will, it seems as though he truly does just live every moment trying to do the right thing, and live happily. He admits that he does not try to be a perfect monk - he thinks that it would be boring, and he likes living an interesting life. He bluntly refuses to promote the benefits of zazen, and cannot give any specific benefits of his practice. He described zazen as simply `seeing the world without you in it`. He also reads us a picture book belonging to his daughter, which proves an excellent metaphor for zazen practice. A little girl tries to catch various animals, and get them to play with her, but they all run away. Finally, she gives up, and simply sits still on a log without making a sound, and all the animals come back, and they are all playing with her.

He quotes what roshi said yesterday, that spiritual accomplishment is like walking through a fog...you don`t know how or when your clothes got damp, just that they are damp now. In an attempt to decide whether his monastic lifestyle has benefited him or not (it actually seems a difficult question!), he decides that perhaps it has, simply because he is happy. He does not know how, or when, or by what means he became happy, but he is happy now. Looking at his innocent face, I definitely believe this. He is an incredibly inspiring figure not for his commitment to training or his `nice robes`, but for the simple reason that he is innocently, completely happy, something which I have aspired to be for so many years. Seeing such hapiness right in front of me, I finally know it is possible, and not just a naive dream. There really is a way to be innocently, completely happy.

As I leave the monastery gates, this belief is the true treasure that makes all that pain worthwhile.