Temple Time

Temple Time

I like temples and monasteries, and monks and nuns, and all those things. And so the past few weekends, I have been spending at a Zen Monastery in the mountains. It’s called Kyoto Kokusai Zendo and I discovered it by typing “Zen Monastery in the mountains” into google. I called them

and said I would like to come for the weekend and the monk said I should come for the weekend then. So I came. To go to my Zen Monastery in the Mountains you have to take a train from Osaka to Kyoto and then from Kyoto to Kameoka, then you take a bus number 60 until the last stop (far far far away) and then you walk for forty minutes, and then you’re there. It’s a cool place.

There lives a Buddhist monk called Genshu who either laughs at me, scolds me or complains. There’s also a strange German boy who says he had forgotten his name and who really dislikes me. (I think he started disliking me after I told him that in the past I have been associated with Yale University. He asked me what famous person had gone to Yale. I told him George W. Judging from his expression, I don’t think he particularly likes George W.). There’s also a Dutch lady called Maria, who first scared me with her first few frontal teeth missing but then she made me a plum tea, after which I became friends with her.

The Monastery life is very strict. I think. They make you wake up at 4:30 AM. Then you recite prayers in Japanese for an hour and then you clean the garden. Meals are very meager. Rice and cucumbers; sometimes tofu. After you’re done with your food, Genshu pours hot water into your bowl which means you have to clean it up with chopsticks and then drink up the leftovers. I noticed that when you’re hungry even cucumber-rice-hot water tastes good. Then there’s meditation until lunch. Then there’s free time during which I usually take a nap. Then there’s tea time (just me and Maria ). At 4 PM, the evening service begin

s. At 5, we eat rice and cucumbers again. You’re supposed to do zazen till 9 PM but both Maria and the German boy just go for a walk, and so I hang out with Genshu, who does really not say much besides complaining.

I would like to devote an entire paragraph to Genshu’s complaining. Genshu’s 37 and he’s been at the monastery for the past 3 years. As a Buddhist monk, he always hoped he’d get assigned to a monastery on Mount Fuji but, until the local priest finds a replacement, Genshu is stuck at this Zen monastery. Genshu’s main problem is the fact that the monastery is popular among foreigners (like me). He thinks all foreign people are bad at using chopsticks, don’t know how to recite properly, and are too tall for the low ceilings at the monastery. He calls foreign people “変“ which translates into “weird.”Sometimes I pretend I’m Japanese to commiserate with Genshu. I say things like “don’t the foreigners also smell terribly?” or “look how they cannot sit in lotus” or “why can’t they hold chopsticks!” Sometimes I just say: “Aren’t the foreigners so weird!” Genshu often dreams about a companion like me and so when forgetting my whiteness, he has a twinkle in his eyes while complaining to me. Then he remembers, however, that I too smell pretty bad, cannot sit in lotus, and drop pieces of rice all over the table. He remembers that I too am a terrible foreigner.

But I don’t mind. Because I just really like temples, monasteries, nuns and monks like Genshu.