Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan's Most Rigorous Zen Temple
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Eat Sleep Sit Eat Sleep Sit My Year at Japan’s Most Rigorous Zen Temple Kaoru Nonomura Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter KODANSHA INTERNATIONAL Tokyo • New York • London Originally published by Shinchosha, Tokyo, in 1996, under the title Ku neru suwaru: Eiheiji shugyoki. Distributed in the United States by Kodansha America LLC, and in the United Kingdom and continental Europe by Kodansha Europe Ltd. Published by Kodansha International Ltd., 17–14, Otowa 1- chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 112–8652. Copyright ©1996 by Kaoru Nonomura. All rights reserved. Printed in Japan. ISBN 978–4–7700–3075–7 First edition, 2008 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nonomura, Kaoru, 1959- [Ku neru suwaru. English] Eat sleep sit : my year at Japan's most rigorous zen temple / Kaoru Nonomura ; translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. -- 1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-4-7700-3075-7 1. Monastic and religious life (Zen Buddhism)--Japan-- Eiheiji-cho. 2. Spiritual life--Sotoshu. 3. Eiheiji. 4. Nono- mura, Kaoru, 1959- 5. Spiritual biography--Japan. I. Title. BQ9444.4.J32E34 2008 294.3'675092--dc22 [B] 2008040875 www.kodansha-intl.com CONTENTS PART ONE The End and the Beginning Resolve Jizo Cloister Dragon Gate Main Gate Temporary Quarters Lavatory Facing the Wall Buddha Bowl Evening Service Evening Meal Night Sitting PART TWO Etiquette Is Zen Morning Service Morning Meal Cleaning the Corridors Dignified Dress Washing the Face Verses Noon Stick PART THREE Alone in the Freezing Dark Entering the Hall Monks’ Hall Common Quarters Wake-up Bell Bell Tower Self-reflection Food Server Monks’ Food Shaving the Head Daikan Hunger PART FOUR The Passage of Time Escape Registration Ceremony First Bath Beginning Intensive Training Manual Labor Penance Main Lecture Transfer PART FIVE The Source of the Warmth of Life New Job Sales Distribution of Goods Guest Pavilion Inspection Washrags Ending Intensive Training PART SIX The Colors of the Peak, the Echo in the Valley Attendant to the Director Conference Room In Attendance Morning Session Incense Bearer Preparations for Winter Intensive Sitting Year-end Cleaning New Year’s Day New Arrivals Just Sit Departure Survey Leaving Afterword to the Japanese First Edition Afterword to the Japanese Paperback Edition Notes PART ONE The End and the Beginning Resolve I awoke to the sound of rain. The long dark night, stretching interminably without beginning or end, I’d gone through alone. Yet at some point in the blackness of night I’d fallen asleep, slipping into what now seemed an unthinkably deep and quiet slumber. It’s raining, I thought. From between the covers I listened to the cold splat of rain on leaves in the garden, surprised to find myself so clear-headed. Apart from the unaccustomed interior of the room before my eyes, this was a perfectly ordinary morning, no different from any other. When I left the old-fashioned inn, the wall clock was about to strike noon. After settling my bill, I placed my few remaining coins in the charity collection box on the counter and slid open the latticed front door. Fat drops of rain were still striking the cobblestones in the narrow lane outside. For a moment I hesitated, unwilling for the rain to stain the new split-toe socks in which my feet were awkwardly ensconced, but once I stepped outside it wouldn’t matter anymore. I was dressed in the standard travel garb of a Japanese Buddhist monk. On my freshly shaven pate was a mushroom-shaped hat of finely woven rice straw; my figure was draped in a black robe, with a wicker pack on my chest and another on my back; my legs and feet were encased in white leggings, white split-toe socks, and simple straw sandals. Thus attired, I plunged out into the rain. The road to the Eiheiji monastic complex stretched peacefully through rolling hills that spread out in all directions like ripples on a lake. A single road. I pondered this. Roads come into being as people begin to travel with new purpose in places previously unmarked, each minuscule step helping to wear a path in the ground. This road in particular evoked that image for me. I started walking in silence, possessed of neither the means nor the will to fend off the falling rain, heading doggedly toward Eiheiji. Branches of ancient trees intertwined thickly overhead, covering the leaden sky, while on either side, craggy rocks reminiscent of an ancient Chinese landscape painting jutted out of the hills. Everything in sight—road, trees, rocks—gleamed darkly in the spring rain, and through my feet rose the feel of the quickening earth. An eerie solemnity enveloped me and nearly took my breath away. The notion of going off to become a Zen monk had hardened quickly to resolve. I told my parents about it one evening as we sat at the supper table. “I’ve decided to go to Eiheiji.” “Oh, really?” responded my mother. “When are you going?” She sounded like she wanted to come along. The meaning of my “going” there had completely passed her by. After I explained my decision, my parents’ reaction was so muted that I felt rather deflated. They were of course surprised; but compared with having me forever popping off to unstable Asian countries or remote spots where no tourist ever set foot, my imminent death a continual worry, Eiheiji must have sounded far safer. And so I went about my preparations to enter the monastery, settling first one matter, then another, sensing society’s gravitational pull on me beginning to weaken little by little. It was comical, in a way: I’d grown weary of my life, had come to feel the entanglements of society so burdensome and disagreeable that I’d resolved to flee them by becoming a Zen Buddhist monk—and yet now that society’s hold on me was slipping, I felt increasingly sad and sentimental. In April, at the swimming pool where I swam a few laps every day on my way home from work, I would look out the big windows at the cherry trees in full bloom and murmur under my breath, The last cherry blossoms. On occasional clear days during the June rainy season, too-soon glimpses of summer’s blue sky were oppressive. This, too, is the last time: the repeated thought made me want to gather all I saw in my arms and cherish it; and the subtle shifting of the seasons, gathering speed, filled me with sorrow and dread. One weekend at the end of summer, Mineko came to visit me at my rented house in Zushi, a seaside town near Tokyo. Though it was past the season for sea bathing, we went for a swim. Afterward, we sat side by side on the veranda looking out at the little garden as if watching a movie. “You know,” she said, “when I heard you were going to become a monk, it didn’t surprise me in the least.” “No? Why not?” “I don’t know. It just seemed so natural, I thought, well of course.” “Huh.” Mineko and I had been seeing each other since college. Our relationship was not clearly defined, but the times we shared were important to us both, the slight distance between us a sign of mutual consideration. “This isn’t a tragedy, is it?” she asked. Caught off guard, I was speechless for a second. “Well—of course not.” “Anyway, I don’t like it,” she said. “And if this turns out to be tragic, I’ll never forgive you.” I myself was confused. On the one hand, the prospect of starting my life over filled me with hope. On the other, I felt somehow like weeping out loud, as if it were indeed a tragedy. Ice clinked in the glass of cold barley tea in Mineko’s hand as she blurted out something else I hadn’t seen coming: “Is it okay if I wait?” “Wait for what?” I said, although I knew very well what she meant. “Can’t wait to see me with my head shaved so you can jump up and down laughing, is that it? Forget it. Like I’m always saying, go find yourself some nice, respectable salaryman, fall madly in love, and get married on a desert island. I guess once I’m at Eiheiji I won’t be able to go to your wedding, but I promise I’ll say a sutra for your happiness.” Mineko was silent. Crying, I thought. The silence stretched on and on—the first such silence I’d ever felt between us. I was mixed up. I’d lost any determination I’d once had to make my way in society, could no longer live like others—I was running away. Mineko shouldn’t concern herself about someone as hopeless as me. I wanted her to be happy. This was my fervent wish. Without looking each other in the face, we went on sitting on the veranda and silently contemplated the sea, its summer sparkle starting to fade, as an occasional breeze swayed the maple branches in the garden. By the time I was on the street that led up to the monastery gate, the rain had eased and the lead-colored sky was a shade lighter. On either side of the street, little souvenir shops crowded together like rows of inlaid stones, their colorful trinkets garish in the dull light. I lifted the brim of my rain-soaked hat to see what lay ahead, and stopped short.