Hiya, Hope all’s well and you’re enjoying the way the world’s brightening up a bit. I’ve been having a wonderful retreat in an oast house (an old house for drying hops) in the High Weald of Kent. I’ve been writing about my pilgrimage on Shikoku -and things leading up to it. Here’s a little extract: Zen In the drugs business, my particular speciality was employee health. People worked for us, handling materials that are designed to get into the human body and have strong effects. My job was to make sure the processes were designed and operated in a way that no one got sick. But I found myself looking beyond health and towards well-being. The people who worked forty hours a week on our production lines were so obviously bored, bored, bored. They had tacitly agreed on a trade-off – a dull and repetitive work life for a feeling of security and a few hours amusement at the end of the week. My spirit squirmed. There had to be better than this. The pharmaceuticals industries were some of the most lucrative and technologically advanced in the world, and still they turned their people into robots. Something was wrong. I began to research job satisfaction. I discovered the work of the Chicago University psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi on what he called experiences of flow. Later I discovered how his name was pronounced – Chik-sent-me-hye. His findings on what constitutes meaningful and optimal experience echoed much of what I was finding in a more traditional source – Zen. When the Buddhist tradition spread from its Indian homeland to China, it began to adapt. The Indian monks were required to live by mendicancy – surviving on the food given to them by lay donors. In China, a beggar, even a holy beggar, was looked upon with horror as a parasite on the fabric of society. Some monks, particularly those in the more remote areas, quietly began to grow their own food, and make this labour a part of their meditation practice. “A day without work is a day without food,” was the motto. In later centuries, as the tradition expanded to Japan, this practice of meditation in action took on an artistic form in many of the traditional “Ways” such a tea ceremony and pottery. Even the martial arts were heavily influenced. At weekends, I began driving out across the broad empty fells of the North Pennines to a Zen monastery. We worked, we chanted the sutras, the ancient Buddhist texts, but the core practice was zazen, literally “sitting in meditation.” This is how you do it: – Posture is important. You need to sit as best you can with a straight spine, the body balanced and the neck soft and long. – You can cross your legs and sit on a cushion. Try to get both knees on the floor, but don’t force anything. Adapt as necessary but keep the upper body straight and balanced. – Lower the eyes but don’t close them. – Sit like a Buddha, allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go without getting involved in them in any way. Whenever you get distracted, just come back to this simple sitting. – That’s it. There are other ways, but this was how I first learned to practice zazen. See how there’s no focus on trying to get anywhere. The emphasis is on accepting the fabric of the here and now experience without trying to change or manipulate anything. In this acceptance, we were told, enlightenment could be found. My fascination grew. Zen had so many things going for it – a clear focus on experiencing enlightenment, this ability to expand the practice of meditation beyond the sitting cushion, a deep and austere feel for beauty, poetry galore, I couldn’t resist it for long. As I went further into daily zazen practice, a question arose. How seriously are you going to take this? I considered throwing my life into the practice and becoming a Zen monk. The Japanese name was so seductive – an unsui, a cloud-water person, free as clouds and water to seek for the truth. “You have to stay here as a layman for three months,” the Abbot told me, “so we can get to know you.” I was expecting this. “I have a mortgage, I can manage two,” I said. He agreed. I accepted a job I’d been headhunted for, on the proviso I started in three months. Now all I had to do was resign and work out my month’s notice. There was no real time. I had to move now. I was due to meet my boss at a business conference in Philadelphia in a few days. As I flew over, I wondered if I’d have the guts to go through with this. In the company, my star was in the ascendant. I’d already expanded my operations into the whole of Europe. Now Africa was being dangled before me. I loved travel, I loved my little house, I loved having a red-headed pre-raphaelite on my arm, I already knew that one of my favourite things was sex. What was on offer was a poor and celibate life of labour in a cold monastery. “Who am I to think I can realize enlightenment?” I wondered. I was still wondering as I arrived in the Philadelphia Sheraton Hotel. It seemed like almost the whole place had been taken over by my company. We had strategic plans to develop, the day was packed. It wasn’t until the evening that I had the chance to go through with my plan. As I sat in my room in the zazen position, bed pillow tucked under me, I began to meditate, trying to steady my jittery nerves. The air conditioning was on full but I sweated like a pig. I took off my shirt, then my trousers, still the sweat poured off me. It seemed like every fibre in my being was screaming, “Don’t do it, this is crazy.” As I sat there, naked, the carpet around me darkened with sweat. I stood up and pulled out some hotel stationary. My first try at writing a letter of resignation was hopeless. The paper stained with drops of sweat. I wiped my hands and tried again. This time it looked ok. My nerves were steadying. I was going to go through with it. All I had to do now was slide the letter under my boss’s door, just down the corridor. I found an envelope and addressed it. I could imagine the disappointment in his eyes. He was a hands-off boss. As long as he didn’t get any grief arising from my activities, I could pretty much go about things as I chose. In so many ways it was a dream job. I grabbed a sheet off the bed, wrapped it round me and picked up the envelope. Yes, I was going to do it. Ten seconds later the envelope was under his door. I turned back, tried my door handle. It was locked. I couldn’t get in. Bugger! I was out in the corridor covered in sweat with nothing on but a bedsheet. It was the middle of the evening, company people were everywhere. I thought about finding somewhere to hide until the later when I could get a staff member to let me back in. I even tried a couple of doors that looked like they could be storage or something. No good, all locked. Any moment I’d be spotted. What could I do? This was going to be embarrassing. Up-and-coming corporate types don’t wander round hotels in bedsheets. A thought flashed across my brain, “But Buddhist monks do.” I almost laughed. As I walked down to reception, I arranged my bedsheet a little more artistically. This was it, I knew. Things had changed forever. * * * If you’re a poetry reader you may well notice some of my stuff appearing over the next little while. My wonderful poetry agent, Pip Antell has got twelve poems published in the last month and more under consideration. Give me a shout if you want a listing. Look forward to catching up soon. Cheers Daizan

10/28/04

How goes it? Typhoon stories! It’s been a helluva stormy autumn this year. You’ll have heard about the 70-odd people killed by typhoon 23. My Shikoku pilgrimage finished that day, just as it started – amidst the pitching and yawing trees at Kobo Daishi’s grave on the holy mountain Koya San. Although some beautiful and powerful things happened up there, I don’t want to talk about that now. My mind’s turning more to temple 60, Yokomineji a few hundred kilometres back down the road. In tradtitional accounts of the pilgrimage, certain sites are designated mansho temples – barriers. Number 19 is a famous one. Only those who are pure in their intentions are supposed to be able to travel any fruther. Well, since I’d been ambling round without any particularobstructions cropping up (bar meteorological ones), the nansho thing had somewhat passed me by. Until temple 60 that is.

The weather was fine. The first intimation of trouble was when I pitched up at the foot of the henro path upwards, to find a road crew who told me there is no path any longer, typhoon 21 obliterated it. “Try the road,” they suggested.

So I hitched around the mountain base with a 21 year old Japanese punk and his 28 year old bad girl partner. (“Sid Vicious, you like Sid Vicious?). Pretty soon we ht another road crew. The road’s down too, they said. Walking maybe ok. The punk hit the pedal and we drove on. Two hundred paces round the bend he hit the brakes. No road. Just pieces of concrete and tarmac scattered amongst the trees in the valley below. I jumped out, promised to pray for the success of his band, and started threading my way through the trees above where the road used to be. It was about four in the afternoon by this time, two hours of daylight. Yokomineji was 12k above. “Where are you going to sleep,” a guy re-threading the electric cables asked me. “In the temple,” I said.

The typhoon had really done some damage. Bits of tarmac were thrown around like old carpet scraps. Trees were down everywhere. But it was four or five k further up where it got really messy. I found a sign that showed the main mountain road with four or five nature-trail roads leading off to left and right. Looked straight forward enough. Almost imediately the road started disapearing. Huge mudslides had completely covered it in glutinous goop. Trees were down at all kinds of crazy angles. I past a farmer and his wife trying to salvage something from their house which had been devastated by a mudslide. God knows how they survived. “Gambatte, o-henro san,” he grinned, “Go for it, Mr. Pilgrim.” Pieces of concrete retaining wall were tumbled into the river. In other places the mountain drainage was so disrupted that the remaining tarmac had become the river. It was slow going.

I reached a point where the way ahead seemed completely blocked with fallen trees. I could go right without too much trouble (or was it actually the main road?) The light was beginning to fail. I carried on, reasonably sure I was off route and starting to seriously contemplate not being able to make this temple. It was getting really dark now and postively dangerous. All I was looking for now was a piece of intact road dry enough to unroll my sleeping bag.

I ended up squatting on a little island of tarmac, munching on peanut butter sandwiches and raw cabbage. The sky looked clear above and I slept pretty well.

I woke early but it was already light. The sky above was impossibly kawaii (the enormously overused Japanese word for ‘cute’, more on that later.) Square cotton wool clouds with blue seeping round the edges filled my whole range of sight. They were so delightfully regular I couldn’t help smiling, jumping out of bed, sticking my boots on, leaving everything behind and walking further up the road. It was warm so the fact I was wearing just underpants and a t shirt was really pleasant. “After all,” I thought, “If this is a nature trail road, it probably goes somewhere pretty.” Further up the road was clearer, smaller mudslides and fewer trees to climb over. It was great to walk without a heavy pack and thick black robe. As the road curved around the mountain I could see out through the trees to peaks beyond peaks. The low sun cast long shadows. Then I found a sign “Yokomineji temple 2k,” I was on the right road. “Bugger,” I thought. “I’m not really dressed for this.” No way I was going back though. I crept in and whispered my chants. I heard voices but was tip-toeing back down the mountain before anyone appeared. Lord knows what they were surviving on up there.

Half an hour later I was breakfasting on more peanut butter and cabbage, probably the first henro who’s rolled up to a temple in a pair of calvin kleins and precious little else.

Looking forward to catching up soon. More later.

Cheers Daizan

Hiya,

Just riding out the third typhoon of this pilgrimage in Takamatsu city. The first one was right at the beginning. Traditionally, everything begins on Honshu, the central island of Japan. There, on Mount Koya is the mauseleum of Kobo Daishi. He’s believed to be not dead, but rather in “eternal meditation”, a state where he is able to be a source of help for any who request it. So the pilgrim comes first to Koya san to ask the Daishi, the great spiritual teacher, to come on pilgrimage tooDEach pilgrim carries a staff with the words “Dogyo Ninin” inscribed on it, literally “two people going together.” The staff is the reminder of the presence of Kobo Daishi. So, first stop was the mauseleum on Koya san. Except a typhoon was blowing up, it was pouring with rain and the people at the entrance of the huge wooded graveyard declared it closed and “abonai” – dangerous. The trees were swaying like metronomes, maybe it was time to turn back. My friend Richard and I looked at each other, and quietly carried on. No one came out in the rain and shouted at the crazy gaijin. The wind whipped and the trees roared and a quarter of a mile into the graveyard we found it – the hall of lanterns, some of them alight for nine hundred years. The few monks in the hall were quietly going about their business, “Oh, we’re supposed to be closed, are we?” Behind the lantern hall on the hillside was the simple wooden shrine that is the mauseleum itself. Completely deserted and surrounded by waving treetops and strangely peaceful. So we made it – I asked for help and, soaked and windblown, the pilgrimage began.