Last Tuesday night was incredible. My boy Wiggy and I decided to hop a train one stop over from Tamachi station to Hamamatsu to check out the Buddhist grounds of Zo Joji Temple. Wiggy had mentioned something about “wanting to do something cultural” and I figured this was our best bet. I had explored it with Zach and Max a night or two before, and we were blown away. Between the large sanctuary housing a bronze Amida Nyorai, the collection of 300 or more little Jizo shrines, and the beautiful ambience of the cemetery behind the main living quarters, this place basically had everything I had ever imagined the spiritual side of Japan to be. As I lead Wiggy around the temple, to be honest almost a little full of myself for being so familiar with both the particular temple, and the setting of what Wiggy referred to as “something cultural” in general, I began to explain the significance of Kannon, the Boddhisattva of compassion. Then suddenly, a hauntingly beautiful melody managed to penetrate the obnoxiously high volume of my vocal projection. I was immediately silenced by this ethereal beauty as she enticed us to follow her nocturnal resonance emanating from the single lit house to the side of the main hall. What we discovered when we crept up the wooden steps was surreal.
We hid behind two pillars adjacent to each other, hoping to avoid being caught for the act of voyeurism we weren't quite sure we were actually committing. Being a foreigner in this land, there is often a grey area between what social rules we are expected to abide by, and the ones we can “bend”. Depending on the situation, the Japanese can either be militantly strict, or overly gracious. This particular time was one of the latter. Our presence was soon detected by a sharp-looking middle-aged Japanese man standing on the other side of the wooden sliding door. Having both only really been exposed to the western way of dealing with intruders and curious passer-bys, we fully expected him to start dictating to us in his native tongue something along the lines of “this is a private event, so fuck off”. But instead I watched as he did what to me is to date one of the most unfamiliar things i've ever seen anyone do: he invited us in. no entry fees, no grief for spying, not even a trace of minor annoyance; he displayed only the most welcoming smile I had seen in ages and the sheer kindness of utter inclusion as he slid the door open about two and a half inches to make clear that it was okay to enter. And so Wigs and I followed the man's lead, took our shoes off, turned off our cell phones and cautiously stepped inside.
As I tip-toed through the threshold, I stared out in awe of what was occurring before us. The small room was brightly lit and filled with the smell of some kind of intense I wish I knew the name of. In the center of the room stood a man, not much older than us, clad in a sharp white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black pants, and a black vest. He gently plucked at a large traditional Japanese instrument that seemed to be carved straight out of a very large tree trunk. The most exotic and mysterious noises were summoned from the large device as he seemed to gently cox them out, one or two at a time in perfect harmony. He would finish playing a song, then step to the front after the applause to give what I am assuming to be either an explanation about the song he had just played, or an introduction to the song he was about to play. After about two more songs, the man who had invited us in crouched beside my friend and I. Again anticipating the boot of exclusivity, I began to regain my posture as I floated back down to earth to listen to what he was about to say.
“We will chant now”, he whispered as I began to pack, “will you join us?”
I couldn't believe my ears. Wiggy and I exchanged excited glances.
“H-huh-hai!” I whispered back, too ecstatic to even entertain any thoughts of the large mound of Hiragana homework that waited for me impatiently back in my dorm. I had seen this before in video, and in more obscure and less formal forms back home, but never had I even thought that I would get a chance to pray with an actual authentic Buddhist monastery in Japan.
I settled back down into a traditional Japanese sitting posture called “seiza” as the kind man tip-toed away, quickly returning with a small wooden drum for each of us with which we were to synchronize with the chanting. The next half hour was one of the most relaxing segments of time I have had since my late night hot tub dives with Cory back in Lafayette Hill. The room vibrated with the harmonized hymns of the faith of another tongue. At first only understanding bits a pieces, I began to catch my own rhythm as I let go of all of my inhibiting thoughts and focused solely on the mantra being hummed.
Then I noticed something not so strange happen to me.
Much like the recurring bad dreams, thoughts would intrusively float through the empty space in my mind that would normally by occupied by my daily distractions, and as hard as I tried to kick them out, they refused to leave. Every last little ambition I had was screaming to be heard. But like a good boy, like Eddy (Fotheringil) taught me, I breathed and one by one, drove all of my demons away. It was sometime between this and the free green tea and onigiri afterward that I felt truly and uninhibitedly liberated for the first time in months; to have visited the ether like a vacation spot (without the need of a passport).
I know it seems easy but it's not quite as simple as it sounds. Anyone who has ever meditated can attest to just how next-to impossible it is to actually give yourself the permission to stop doing; to stop thinking. Try as one might, all of the all too unimportant little details and obligations often continue to haunt the mind even, or perhaps ESPECIALLY during times of permissible rest. The more one chooses to entertain these thoughts, the more agitated they become, multiplying like rabbits and commandeering all of the ample space in the unoccupied mind until one has no choice but to give in to them, or exterminate them. But there is really only one way to effectively make happen the latter, and it is the one thing I have discovered to be almost universally impossible to accomplish. The endeavor I speak of is that of just letting go.
I know, pretty anticlimactic, right? But no truer words have ever been spoken. To let go of all of the anxious, impatient, jealous, driving thoughts and tendancies we are all possessed by is to truly free oneself of all the mechanisms that propel us to run ourselves ragged everyday, doing tons of busy little things that indulge our busy little lives. Then, and only then, are we truly free to float through the blissful void of our own cultivated nothingness. That is, for if only a short time, to be freed of all that we choose to let hold us down.
When the service concluded, Wiggy and I got a chance to mingle with our fellow worshippers. The one other american there, Russel, was cool enough to act as a middleman and translate for the conversations we had with the local color. It turns out the sharp guy in the sharp vest with the sharp instrument had an interesting backstory all his own. To paraphrase it, his name is Nakai Tomoya and he plays a 25 string instrument called a Koto. This particular kind of Koto is a bit of an endangered species, and playing it is a dying art, seeing as how all the kids are opting to learn the 13 sting Koto which is apparently much easier to manage. The difficulty curve of the 25 string koto is so steep, in fact, that Tomoya himself apparently almost gave up on it completely. But like any great artist, he pushed through his own limitations and wound up playing a song he wrote (the last song he played for us) and played for the emperor of Japan! Google this kid. He's insane.
We exchanged pleasantries with him, and I even gave him my own little contribution to the arts for that night: a small piece of visual journalism I captured of him playing music earlier that evening. He smiled widely, and bowed, asking (as if he even needed to) if he could keep it. Then we bowed, thanked everyone for the awesome memory, and slid through the sliding door, still almost spiritually comatose from the esoteric ecstasy of the events of the night.
Something I've notice when living in tokyo is that on what seems to be a pretty regular basis, I'll have pretty strange interactions with folks of all shapes and sizes. These interactions usually occur when I least expect them to, and they almost always lead me to things I thought I would only ever read about in travel guidebooks. Sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of a passing stranger who sticks out to me, or I catch the aroma of food that not even Anthony Bordaine has been lucky enough to have tried, or perhaps if I'm really lucky, my ears might just pick up the faintest sound of the most beautiful music I've ever heard coming from the only lit house in the middle of a huge buddhist monastery in the middle of the bustling district of Hamamatsucho. Every time this kind of thing happens, a little part of my inner adventurer starts to dance around in place and only one statement comes to mind. Only this one statement could be so bold and so accurate as to properly capture all of the little sensations I feel when I experience something new and incredible for the first time, and at the acknowledged and accepted risk of sounding completely cliché, I will leave you all with this little gem: this is truly the stuff dreams are made of.
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