The one in one hundred

“Teaching is in each moment, in every existence.”

—Shunryu Suzuki

(from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind)

“Eigo no sensei desu,” and I bow my head.

I’m an English teacher.

I’m a teacher of English.

I teach the English language.

I bow my head.

I’m a student, a learner, a beginner.

*            *            *

“Let’s sing a song.”

Clapping hands, I lead:

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.”

Stand. Squat. Stand. Squat.

The kids follow suit.

Faster.

“Head shoulders knees and toes knees and toes. Head shoulders knees and toes knees and toes.”

Stand. Squat. Stand. Squat.

The kids follow suit.

Faster.

“Headshoulderskneesandtoeskneesandtoes. Headshoulderskneesandtoeskneesandtoes.”

Stand. Squat. Stand. Squat.

Laughter and we all fall down.

Our metronomic hand beats speed up so much they start to go off-kilter. The spaces between one child’s clap fill with the clap of another child. My claps lose their rhythmic potency. The room swells with one sound from one hundred tiny sounds. I fold my rug-burned knees under themselves and lower to the floor.

The kids follow suit, their giggles subsiding with the descent.

“Let’s read a book.”

Eyes widen. We take turns touching the textured pictures, counting the birds, pulling the arrows to make an image pop out of the pages. We turn to the picture of a little mouse. I know what comes next. The kids squeal and race to see who can be the first to touch it with a finger. I quickly slide my finger into their pile of little fingers. We cover the mouse and say "mouse."

They giggle.

I follow suit.

Yasu sniffles. Hoshino rubs his feet on my knees. Maki opens her mouth and tilts her head back in a gesture of glee. A little bit of saliva drops onto my pants. A tumbleweed of dust rolls across the carpet. I shift my weight onto one shin and then the other. My left foot falls asleep. I wiggle my toes, readjust, and settle into any lingering discomfort.

I’ve read this book over a hundred times with these kids. I like the way they gather round it with continued excitement, despite knowing exactly what comes next. Every page is a new page because reading the book today is different from reading it yesterday.

When the last page peels away from the back cover, we pause, take a breath, and start all over again.

The kids smile in unison.

I follow suit.

Call of the Kimono

In Japan, almost every month has a national holiday. This is a recent initiative created by the government to give hardworking Japanese people a built-in day off.

The day is random.

The holiday is random.

And most people don’t actually celebrate, except perhaps by luxuriating in the opportunity to sleep in.

In September we had a day off to appreciate the elderly.

In October we had a day off for Sports Day.

Today is Culture Day—I must say my favorite of these holidays so far.

Culture Day. What does this mean?

Perhaps lounging in pajamas all day.

Perhaps eating sweets.

Perhaps watching traditional performances.

Perhaps participating in Japanese arts and crafts.

For me, Culture Day was a day of seduction.

I let myself be seduced.

My plans to attend a culture fair unraveled when I stepped outside and saw the way the light hit the autumn leaves.

After three days of constant rain, I let myself luxuriate in the sun.

I gave myself permission to meander.

Walking about town, I willingly succumbed to the call of the kimonos, like seductive sirens beckoning me to take their photograph.

Hand-painted silk threads.

Creative color pairings.

Ode to the seasons.

Radiance.

Elegance.

History reinventing itself.

The Teachings of Tea

The scroll has three characters on it. Three hundred brush strokes. Three thousand meanings.

“Calm in busyness,” she translates and bows to the scroll. For a moment her face is folded in the fabric that drips down to her ankles. A thin wisp of air separates her forehead from the floor.

Shuffling back to the entrance, she exits the tearoom, carefully sliding the rice paper screen door closed in three precise movements.

If you listen hard enough you can hear a muffle of a sound when the screen shuts against its wooden frame.

A bird coos in the garden.

An old man coughs.

In the space that silence opens, her words reverberate.

Calm in busyness.

She slides across the tatami mat on her knees with a tray of pink confections.

Another bow.

Then swiftly she spreads her kimono wings, and they sway under each movement.

Wipes the bowl. Folds the wipe. Dips the ladle. Ladles the water.

Steam rises in sync to the sound of the cast iron lid as it scrapes the pot and seals the heat in.

Whips the tea. Sets down the whip. Nothing is tossed. Nothing is torn.

If you look closely enough you can see what appears to be one movement is really one hundred. Like the way a centipede crawls. Like the way a spine bends backwards.

And each sip of tea is followed by fifty swallows.

And each shuffle across the room is a journey of a thousand years.

*          *          *

These days there’s a bite to the night air. It’s softened during the day by the scent of fading roses and fallen leaves.

A misty rain descends and sometimes feels like the weight of a thousand swords. But when it clears, the greens are greener and the cricket sounds echo a little louder.

I forgot how exquisite the landscape is after a storm. Life has so many details to offer if one chooses to be aware of them.

Soliloquy on the Seasons

Sometimes I wonder if I left my sense of humor back in summer.

I’m smiling less. Brilliant, sun-soaked flowers are fading fast. Blues freeze to grays, and yellows burn to browns.

Fall is a season of fluctuation. The corners of my mouth seem to rise and fall with the weather.

“Don’t let the weather get you down,” says a friend. “Curl up with a book and some hot cocoa.”

Hot cocoa?

As a foreigner in Japan, I’m noticing the seasons change, but I can’t find my usual autumn comforts.

I’m a bit thrown off.

Sweet beans become my chocolate, figs my fruit of choice.

There’s an unidentifiable smell in the air. I can’t tell if it’s a flower at its peak or a plum tree beyond its prime. Winter looms too close for me.

When the wind blows, the leaves rustle at my feet. I’m callously floating, being blown around.

And then one day I ask my students what their favorite season is. Everyone always says fall or spring.

“Winter,” he says.

“Why?” I retort with an unconscious defensiveness.

“It’s peaceful time.”

“It’s A peaceful time.” But my correction seems less about correcting.

Those words are gnawing at me.

*            *            *

The days are getting shorter. My eyes linger a little longer on the sunsets.

The nights are getting cooler. I’m snuggling deeper into my comforter. I think there’s a print of my body in its folds.

I crave steaming pots of tea and soup.

As I settle into this new season, I have to shed my old habits.

There’s a hole where traces of summer used to dwell.

I’m slowly filling it with the Japanese version of hot cocoa and marshmellows.

Maybe winter can be “peaceful time” for me, too.

From bus to bus to plane to train…enjoy the journey…

Today is the fall equinox. Usually for me, this day passes like any other. My busy life topples over itself. One day I look up and watch a drop of rain knock the last red leaf off a branch. Snow sets in. I gather my acorns and hibernate.

“Travel slowly,” I read once on a flight to Japan. Wise words crammed against a magazine advertisement for neck pillows.

These days I’m discovering that it’s good to have a destination, but it’s even better to savor the process of getting there.

I cast another quizzical glance at my itinerary:

Goal: Get from point A (Kanazawa) to point B (Tokyo) in time for the wedding

Point A: Time of Departure from Kanazawa: 12:20 PM

Point B: Time of Wedding in Tokyo: 2:30 PM

To Do List for the hours between 12:20-2:30 PM:

1) Take a bus from my apartment to the train station in Kanazawa

2) At the station, somehow figure out how to buy a ticket for the airport shuttle bus

3) Somehow figure out where in the station to catch the airport shuttle bus

4) Get to the airport for the 12:20 PM flight to Tokyo

5) Land in Tokyo and find a restroom

6) Change into my wedding outfit and somehow not look like I got dressed in a public restroom

7) Once dressed, somehow figure out how to get on the monorail bound for station H. (I can’t pronounce the name)

8) Once on the monorail, somehow figure out which station is station H.

9) Get off the train, and somehow find the south exit at station H. What’s the Japanese word for south?

10) Somehow recognize the person who is picking me up from station H. and walking me to the wedding

11) Somehow get to the wedding before the bride gets married

I commit the steps to memory, but with every “somehow,” my anxiety level rises.

Suitcase in hand, I step outside my apartment, walk down four flights of stairs, and wait at the bus stop.

The air is cool.

A butterfly dashes by.

I get lost in the space between its flutters.

Maybe things aren’t so complicated after all.

I’m beginning to see my journey less as an obstacle course from point A to point B, and more as a series of moments flapping against moments that congeal over time to create a memory…

SCCRREEEEETCH…and I’m startled from my philosophical reverie…

The bus doors close. I’m not in them.

Panic.

12:00 becomes 12:01

Will I make it?

Panic.

Pause.

12:02

12:03

12:04

I guess I’ll just wait for the next one.

*     *     *

*     *     *

Possibility

I often fear the unknown. 

But what lies in that space of uncertainty is possibility.

Can I reprogram myself to perceive without a program, without a set of assumptions or judgments?

Thinking about this question, I come across an answer:

“The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.”

—Richard Baker

Introduction to Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Embracing doubt and the unknown, I head to Daijoji Temple for an afternoon of Zen meditation.

It is cloudy, and the air is heavy with moisture. I meander through a garden of tombs, haunted by spirits from the past…

Demons chasing demons…

History hangs heavy on this weathered wood.

There’s a scent I can’t identify, and a sense I don’t understand.

But I’m curious.

In all my doubt and all my fear, I take a step with the wrong foot first.

Sitting in stillness, but moving on a circuitous path going nowhere in particular.

Three hours later, the grounds are still empty. The crickets swell in all the silence.

I stand on tiptoes to ring the metal bell.

Weighty reverberations and a hollow sky.

I head home with no feeling of closure or certainty.

Only possibility.

Imperfection is my teacher

“In doing nothing, in simply stopping, we can live freely and true to ourselves.”

From Nothing to Do, Nowhere to Go (2007) by Thich Nhat Hanh.

When the urge to know surfaces, stop.

Get lost.

What’s good is bad, and what’s bad is good.

Trying to get home from Kanazawa Castle…

I got lost.

I got on the wrong bus, and I got off at the wrong stop.

I thought: this is bad, until I started walking.

I discovered the river path.

It’s so close to my apartment.

A beautiful path along the Asanogawa river lead me home.

This is what I discovered from making a mistake:

Imperfection is my teacher.