Hiya, hope you’re having a good summer.  When we were on our Zen Enlightenment trip in Japan last month, we visited the home temple and grave of the founder of the Rinzai Zen style of practice we have today, Hakuin Zenji. Shoinji, his tiny temple is sited at the foot of Mount Fuji and as we approached in the car, the mountain top was tantalisingly hidden in the clouds. With Shinzan Roshi, we made a translation of one of Hakuin’s famous poems:

Miss Fuji-san,

Please take off your robe,

I want to see

Your white skin.

On that day it wasn’t to be. She stayed stubbornly covered-up until nightfall.

In the meditation hall of Shoinji, beneath the fierce eyes of the founder’s statue, Shinzan Roshi gave a dynamic talk on Hakuin’s famous koan or spritual problem:

“You can hear the sound of two hands clapping, now what is the sound of one hand?”

Meditating with a koan is a fast way to create the conditions most conducive to kensho or spiritual experience. Here in London, many members of the Zenways community are working with koans, using them to probe deep inside and realise the true nature of their being.

At the grave of Hakuin Zenji

If you’re interested in discovering your true nature and beginning to live in a dynamic and fearless way, we have a few places on the Zenways summer retreat in the Scottish Highlands during the last week in August. You can find full details here:

http://www.anamcara.org/zen_retreat.htm

Lst year’s summer retreat was life-changing for many of the students. Now I have two full years of experience teaching back in the UK, I’m making sure that this one will be even more powerful and transformative. Although it will be suitable for beginners as well as experienced Zen practitioners, I can guarantee that a lot of the material we cover will be new to you, probably never having been covered in English before. Looks like it’s going to be quite a summer!

Cheers 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