1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
I have travelled by city bus to the northwest slopes of the Kyoto basin
following Aia-san’s map (I would not have found my way without her instructions
since Japanese cities have few street signs — and those are in Japanese! — and no
house numbers). The city sprawls below. Around me are houses and shops. After
a short walk, I leave the street to head north-easterly along a path that winds its
way through thick bush, bamboo and towering trees. At path’s end I find an open
gate where just inside is a tiny house. A ramshackle fence meanders away from
either gate post to be lost in the bush. Ahead is the temple:a collection of ancient-
looking ceramic-tile-roofed buildings connected to each other in the watadono
style of ancient Japan, the main buildings are connected by semi-open roofed
walkways. It all looks like Knapper’s farm house, nothing like the big historic
temples I saw yesterday across town. Could this be the right place? I wonder.
Then a monk in black robes smiles as I approach.
“Konichiwa,” he says and motions for me to wait. In a moment the monk
returns with another monk who speaks English. I explain that I’ve come from
Canada to stay at a Zen temple and learn to do zazen. I’m told to wait again. He
returns after a few minutes to say that would be fine. With him is a foreigner.
“I’m John from Kansas.”John has a shaved head like the monks and I
expect my hair and beard will soon have to go. I wonder what I’ll look like then:
No matter, I think, I’ve come to start a new life. “Follow me,” John says as we
remove our shoes, walk up some stairs and enter a large open room. Sliding back
fusuma half way along one wall he says, “You can put your knapsack in here and
I’ll show you what to do.”I follow him down a couple of stairs into a second large
room. We walk through it, turn right and proceed down a long hallway that
becomes a covered walkway open on either side. Then at the walkway’s far end
we turn left, go past a very large bell with a log-on-ropes knocker, and enter
another large room. All around its walls sit zafu on zabuton, round black cushions
sitting on flat square cushions. The floor is tatami of course; the walls are white
plaster with a bank of screen windows all around. On the north wall in a raised
alcove is a large Buddha sitting placidly on a huge lotus blossom. He is
surrounded by assorted wig-wogs of some symbolic meaning unknown to me.
Opposite the Buddha on the south wall are two doors opening onto a deck and a
garden. Beyond that is the gate where I had entered not long before.
by Morley Evans