What is all this Buddhism about?

Bell ringing in Bukkokuji

"I know many Buddhist monks, but Tangen Roshi is absolutely extraordinary", my Japanese friend said to me and I agreed that something is in it because I was myself in Bukkokuji all four weeks and two days. Why did I go there? Probably to learn what Buddhism is about. Anyway this question was in the air when I entered the gate of Bukkokuji for the first time; I have hitchhiked to Obama, found the temple at the very edge of the town at the foot of a sugar loaf mountain that stood there in the middle of a plain as flat as a table, entered the gate and found myself on the monastery yard. In front of me there was an ancient building with paper walls, behind it there was a bamboo grove on the rising slope, on the right and left other buildings and a small graveyard with little stone pagodas, everything beautiful, but there was an absolute silence, not a soul around despite all doors being open. I stood disoriented when from the building on my left (zendo, as I learned later) people started coming out. The first one was an old monk with a shiny bold head and dressed in a grey robe, he came to me and taking my hand led me outside the gate. He didn't say anything, but he seemed to watch to make sure I don't run away while calling someone from inside the monastery. He disappeared only when Jikaku-san came, a young monk in an ordinary black robe, and in imperfect English explained that at the moment I cannot stay because they have a week long sesshin. I asked whether I could join the sesshin, Jikaku-san disappeared behind the gate and a minute later came with an answer: right now there is no room in the zendo, I could come a week later, when some people would be gone. What Buddhism is about? I was under the impression of that silent touch. The very fact is unusual in Japan, where people avoid even looking at strangers, but in the touch of Tangen Roshi there was something special, a message or something.

Tangen Roshi

The first thing Jikaku-san told me when I arrived a week later was that I am to go to the zendo and sit in zazen until Roshi-sama calls me. He led me there, showed me where I was to sit, told me that I am not supposed to leave this place except for going to the toilet, he showed me also the toilet, an impeccably clean place with a little altar of a boddhisattva purifier, and left me there. For the next two hours I sat facing the wall and was for the first time experiencing what Buddhism is about: it is about pain in your knees. I could then just about sit in the half lotus position, but to just about sit is not the same as to sit for hours on end; after ten minutes the first pain came, went away after fifteen, came back after half an hour an soon became unbearable, going to the toilet helped only for a short time, all that I read about Zen concentration ceased to mean anything, all my sitting was only just successful attempt of remaining motionless despite the excruciating pain... well, I have been honoured with a version of the traditional trial of waiting, which in old Zen monasteries lasted many days, but can my waiting be compared to that of the Second Patriarch, who waited in front of the cave of Boddhidharma several weeks completely ignored, snow was already starting to cover him, in the and he cut off his own arm and threw it in the cave to attract attention?

Relief that I can make a few steps was my main feeling when Jikaku-san came to call me and led me to the hondo, where, however, I had to sit again in the Japanese manner on the floor. At a low table by the wall Roshi-sama was waiting for me.

"What did you came here for?"

"I'd like to learn zazen."

"What do you want to learn zazen for? You want to stay here some time and then to go back and make money again?" Those seemingly hostile words Roshi-sama spoke with trembling voice, as if he was greeting a prodigal son. I had an impression he was going to cry.

"How long do you want to stay?"

"A month if possible. But there is a problem: I have very little money and I wouldn't be able to pay for my stay." "If you sincerely came here to learn zazen, you can stay here without paying. But if you want to keep your ego, if you don't want to be in harmony, don't stay. Only one month? OK, in the beginning of the next month we have another week long sesshin, this will be a good start for you. But you have to be patient: this is a poor temple and the food is not always enough..."

Takuhatsu

Next day I was given a piece of a wall in the zendo to sit in front of and a task during samu, which is work, this task was emptying the cesspool. I was doing it with Avishai, a lad from Israel, who had read a lot about Zen and came with an aim of achieving Awakening; it was a typical Japanese cesspool, very small and emptied with a big ladle on a long pole, the substance was poured into a 20-litre bucket and carried on a bamboo pole to a vegetable garden, where it served as organic fertiliser. I was also given orioki, which are used at the ritual Zen meals. In Bukkokuji all three meals of the day were ritual, eaten in total silence and preceded by a short sutra chanting, during which the orioki - three bowls put one into another and tied with a piece of cloth - are unwrapped, food is put into them and a few grains of rice are put aside for hungry demons. All meals in Bukkokuji are also scant, like those of a beggar: in the morning a watery rice with a Japanese pickled apricot, and necessarily also a slice of a pickled radish, at midday brown rice, soy paste soup and some vegetable, and also the slice of the pickled radish, which is used after the meal to clean the bowls - hot water is poured in and the radish held with the chopsticks is used to scrub the remains of food; after that the bowls are tied again, all at the table. All the meals look like those of a beggar. This is because Buddhism is about begging.

At least once a month and during some periods every third day Bukkokuji goes out for takuhatsu: all monks in special robes, in straw hats in which they look like huge mushrooms, in straw sandals, jingling with little bells they walk along a street in a group, but only one holds a begging bowl. they stop in front of the first house, chant a sutra without knocking the wooden fish, but with the same rhythm:

"Kan-ji-zai Bo-satsu gyo-jin Han-nya Ha-ra-mi-ta ji..." (Boddhisattva Listener of the World's Cries using his transcendental wisdom...)

The door opens, an old lady with a face of a person honoured with the visit throws a coin into the bowl. But the sutra is chanted to the end:

"...shiki-fu-i-ku, ku-fu-i-shiki..." (...form is no different from void, void is no different from form...) The mushrooms bow deeply, little bells jingling. In front of the next house they chant the same sutra, a short one, called Hannya Shingyo, which means "Heart of Wisdom".

"...mu-ken-ni-bi-zes-shin-i, mu-shiki-so-ku-mi-soku-ko, mu-ken-kai nai-shi mu-i-shiki-kai..." (unimportant ear eye nose tongue, body mind, unimportant colour, sound, smell taste touch, object, unimportant the visible world, unimportant the invisible world...)

Nobody opens the door but when the sutra nears the end a housewife in an apron comes hastily from a neighbourhood and throws a note in. The mushrooms bow and go farther along the narrow lane, between gardens full of bamboo grass and little pines trained to be low and bent. From one of the houses nobody comes out, but when the sutra is finished the mushrooms bow just the same.

Chanting sutras

"...mu mu-myo yaku mu mu-myo jin..." (...unimportant ignorance and unimportant end of ignorance...)

Or perhaps Buddhism is not about begging, but something quite contrary? What might have this 'bowl of the most high class' meant? It was a 'bath day'. every fifth day there is no samu but instead of it ofuro, the Japanese hot bath, and a lot of free time, during this free time Roshi-sama sat at the doorstep of the hondo talking to someone, while Kornelius - with a tea bowl in his hand - run across the yard first one way, then back; Roshi-sama commented: Kornelius itsumo fura fura shimasu ('always runs to and fro'), this is no good for zazen"; Kornelius approached saying: I understand... suddenly Roshi-sama jumped up:

"Chawan from my treasure box!"

"From you treasure box? You gave it to me when I was here last year!"

"Is that so? I have another one, similar."

Roshi-sama rose, went to the hondo and after a while came back with a wooden box in hand, opened it and took a bowl out, it was indeed similar in shape and colour, beautiful, light green and covered in thousands of tiny dark green cracks in the glaze.

"The most high class. When you drink from it, always with dignity, inner quiet. No rush fura fura."

Kornelius looked at it with his eyes wide open, slowly turning it around in his hands. Roshi-sama took it back, put it into the box, shut it and gave it to Kornelius, saying:

"Write on the top the date I gave it to you."

Zendo

Whatever the case, Bukkokuji lives - as Buddha commanded - off begging and gifts that sometimes are brought to the temple. Often these are gifts in kind, standing for some time in front of the altar in the hondo, it may be a big box of rice or a bottle of oil, once for a whole day a washing machine stood there, sometimes it is a box of sweets, in which case an additional meal is organised, tea time, without sutras, without silence. Roshi-sama comes as well for that, he actually likes to talk, like when everyone gathered in a little room between the hondo and the kitchen and someone asked him what sort of music he liked, he talked about Beethoven: "The last evening before I joined the army during the war I went to my room and I sat there listening to the gramophone, an old one, no electricity, Beethoven's Symphony No 9, again and again, at two o'clock I wrote on the sleeve: 'I am listening to it now, maybe the last time'. I joined the air forces and the day my last flight was due the war ended; if my last flight was just a day earlier, nobody of you would be sitting here. But I went back home, the record was still where I left it, I opened it and the inscription was there. But I didn't listen to it any more. After the war I met a nun who introduced me to the Dharma. She took me to the zazen in Kannon temple in Tokyo and then when I heard the Shiseigando sutra, even though I didn't understand the meaning because I didn't have the written text, I knew this was the harmony I was seeking. I couldn't stop crying, it was raining when I was going home, but the rain of my tears was even bigger. I didn't listen to the classical music any more. Beethoven is powerful, but the silence is even more powerful. This is the Tenth Symphony of Beethoven."

Silence: whatever Buddhism is about, silence is the chief activity in Bukkokuji. At least five times forty minutes a day, starting at four in the morning, at 3:50 one of the monks runs through the corridor ringing the bell and at four everyone must be in the zendo, forty minutes of silence with the spine straight and facing the wall while behind your back one of the monks walks slowly with a kyosaku stock in his hands. Only walks, he wouldn't strike unless someone asks: feeling his presence behind the back one has to fold palms and bow; sharp pain helps to concentrate on silence when thoughts jump all over the place like a pack of monkeys. During the second morning zazen Roshi-sama rings a gong in the hondo and then whoever wants jumps and runs to the room between the hondo and the kitchen and waits there in silence for his or her turn because only one person at a time may go for a dokusan, to a room behind the altar where Roshi-sama sits with a picture of his own master, Harada Sogaku, behind his back. He sits there in the lotus position, kyosaku on his lap, his eyes closed, mysterious smile, every entering person is a surprise to him, the smile becomes warm. My first dokusan: I didn't ask the question, but Roshi-sama answered: "Watch your breath. Breathe slowly: in... out... in... out... but not only air. Spirit." "What shall do with the pain in my knees, Roshi-sama?" "The pain is there, but the body is empty. If you can't stand it, try to sit in another position." With a little bell Roshi-sama gives a sign that the dokusan is over, the next person enters. Sometimes Roshi-sama comes to the zendo and walks between rows, sometimes without being asked he strikes with his stick, like the time when he stopped behind us - Avishai on my left, Klaus on my right - roared like a bear: "Always like great mountain!!! Always like a great mountain!!!", he stood behind Klaus, touched his shoulder, and then WALLOP on one side, WALLOP on the other, then the same with Avishai: WALLOP on one shoulder, WALLOP on the other, with all his strength, even with a shout, I thought he was going to break his stick. During the sesshin there is even more silence, eleven times forty minutes, and no talk allowed at all except during dokusan. 

Bukkokuji main altar. Behind it dokusan room with a picture of Harada Sogaku Roshi.

During a sesshin Roshi-sama comes to the midday zazen to say a teishio, or a Buddhist sermon. He starts with a reading from a book of koans and then he talks for an hour; he likes to talk. From a book of koans he reads with a changed voice, sings almost: "Whenever master Gutei was asked about Zen, he simply raised his finger. Once a visitor asked Gutei's boy attendant: 'What does you master teach?' The boy, too, raised his finger. Hearing of this, Gutei cut off the boy's finger with a sharp knife. The boy, screaming, began to run away. Gutei called him and when he turned around, Gutei raised his finger. The boy suddenly became enlightened."

A finger?

 Well, I have read already that it may be better even to cut off an arm or pull out an eye if it obstructs the way. But what else was in that sermon? There was a phrase: "Kyorei raises his hand and Mount Kansan breaks in two." There was also another one: "If there is at least one person who cries and you hear this cry as your own, I could stop this teisho and speak no more."

Breathe in, breathe out, but not just air... What is all this Buddhism about? This question was not spoken during my last dokusan when Roshi-sama asked (alluding to our previous talk): "Where is your flower?" I answered (alluding to his previous answer): "Roshi-sama said that I shouldn't...", he made a big circle in the air and said: "A big flower...". This question was not spoken when after the sesshin I spoke to Tom and Tom said: "This is my seventh sesshin, but the first one really hard psychically, before I just had pain in the knees, like you, but now I almost prayed for the pain to come back, especially the third day, when things start coming up; I have done many things in my life, in Hungary I was in the communist army, you know yourself what it is, then in Australia I was training karate for ten years and sometimes the trainer really got our guts out, but all this is nothing compared to this place, and nothing really holds you here, any time you can get up and go, but you won't escape, because this is all your own rubbish..." This question was not spoken during my last talk with Roshi-san, who with equal joy welcomes every person and with equal ease says goodbye, he said: "Go now because we start a tea ceremony here" and when I, with my backpack on by back, crossed the monastery gate again, I heard the huge drum in the hondo being struck to call for the ceremony. I went along the lanes between the bamboo grass and kinky little pines, everything was wet after the night rain. What is all this Buddhism about? 

Drops on a pine tree
           hang over misty air;
                    a moment passes.

If you want to see more pictures from Bukkokuji, visit my picture blog:

http://worldin8pics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/bukkokuji.html

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".