With Matt Kuke Kane in Japan. Having completed a translation of poems by the great pilgrim monk, Enku, I left a copy on his grave at Mirokuji, and then we walked through the mountains up the valley of the Nagara River via Enku’s birthplace, the shrine where his first statues were enshrined, the waterfall where he realized enlightenment and finished at the gateway temple to Hakusan – White Mountain, the great holy peak of central Japan.

We left a copy of the poems on the mountain altar with the following poem inscribed on it:

May these leaves
flutter
all over this world mountain,
spreading Enku’s joy
wherever they land.

It’s hard to describe the mixture of pain and bliss that was the fabric of the pilgrimage. Perhaps you can imagine walking through cloud-swept mountains and actually being the mountains.

On Wednesday 7th July at 6.30pm, I’m doing a talk at the Buddhist Society, 58 Eccleston Square, near Victoria Station, London. Here’s the write-up on the flyer:

“The seventeenth-century yamabushi or mountain-practice monk Enku, completed a vow to carve and distribute 120.000 statues. He also wrote numerous poems and engaged in prodigious pilgrimages the length of Japan. Considered an enlightened man in his lifetime, the extraordinary creativity, vitality and compassion of Enku’s work make him a fascinating figure even today.`’

Please come and join us if you can. There’s no charge.

Happy New Year! We’re just back from our winter yogabreak in Egypt. Highlights include morning yoga in the sunshine and by candlelight in the evenings. We climbed Mount Sinai in the moonlight and watched the most awe-inspiring new year’s dawn from the peak. And then there was the Indian Ocean snorkling! One of the students compared it to diving into a tropical fishtank. Are we going back next year? You betcha!

With this being the time of new starts, I’ve had a lot of requests for information about Zen Yoga. What actually is it? So here’s a definition. What I teach is primarily based around the yoga I learned during my eighteen or so years of monastery practice. The style emphasises physical alignment, the flow of energy in the body and your quality of awareness. Mindfulness of the body is one of the four practices  taught by the Buddha that lead directly to enlightenment. Each pose brings new parts of the body into focus so that we can become aware of any tightness or restriction. As we bring our awareness to these areas of tension they immediately start to shift and release. The great Zen master ‘Hakuin’ taught that Buddhas are like water and ordinary people are like ice.  Zen yoga practice melts away the tightness and resistance that prevents us from enjoying the flow of liberation. If you’d like to experience Zen Yoga practice, click here http://www.zenways.org/?page_id=15   and if you might be interested in teaching Zen yoga, click here http://www.zenways.org/?page_id=223

Hope that makes sense. Wishing you a truly liberating 2010. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Daizan

Hiya, if you’re thinking ahead to where you’d like to be in your life next year. Here’s a thought. We’ve been invited back to Japan in May for another Zen enlightenment trip. It’s a life-changing experience.Here’s feedback from a few of this year’s spiritual adventurers:

You’ll feel so relaxed, you just won’t believe it. The trip is obviously about finding your true nature, but on the way I felt completely open and relaxed, coming to the point where I felt fantastic.

On the third day I was in the garden raking and there was a moment I just disappeared, there was just the raking and a kind of complete break in reality. Afterwards in sanzen (private interview) Roshi said, “you’ve passed.”

David, writer

*   *   *

Towards the end of the Sesshin I was sitting opposite Daizan Roshi when the nature of mind revealed itself. We both began to laugh uncontrollably for what seemed like ages. Daizan Roshi  later confirmed that I had had my first kensho or enlightenment experience. It was wonderful to have the experience in a Zen temple in Japan and even more so as the temple was built by one of my favourite Zen Masters – Bankei

Shinzan Roshi would often join us for tea on the temple steps. It gave us real chance to get to know him in an informal way. His teaching never seemed to stop;

John, potter

*   *   *

It’s a very small temple, but it’s just so beautiful and it gave me the chance to get close to nature. I would advise anyone to just go and realise for yourself. Open up your mind and heart to your own experience.

The Sun shines.
Rains fall.
Winds blow.
Trees grow.

I sleep.
I eat.
I sweep.
I live.

May, foreign exchange trader

*   *   *

It was absolutely amazing.

Hazel, psychology professor

*   *   *

I really liked the tea ceremony. It felt so intimate. Ikawa Sensei the tea master came across as a lovely lady. You could tell the work she had put in behind the scenes. That seemed to sum up Japan.

The location of the temple itself seemed to have a power to it

Paul; photographer

*   *   *

I felt very calm, very peaceful and a contentedness I never experienced in my life before. My meditation was so strong. It’s the power of the place. Nothing could take me out of it and I can’t say that about anywhere else. Also in the morning chanting, I felt unbelievable energy.

For me the hotspring, the onsen, was a revelation. Sitting in a beautiful hotspring looking out at the garden admiring the view, I felt totally looked after.

Mila, company director

*   *   *

If you’d like to explore Zen and Zen culture in Japan, more importantly, if you’d like to explore the depths of who you really are, send me an email to zenways@london.com. The temple is small so numbers are limited.

If your personal search is sufficiently urgent that you want to find answers this year rather than next, come up to our weeklong Zen retreat in the Scottish Highlands in the last week in August. We’ll be following the traditional schedule in a stunning setting. The retreat is called “Wake Up and Live!” and whether you’ve never practiced before or you’re a veteran, I can guarantee you’ll be learning things that are new to you, things that have never been presented in English before. For full information check www.anamcara.org.

Cheers  Daizan