Practitioner’s Corner

In the years I’ve spent practicing in Japan, I’ve always assumed that what I am learning here is applicable in the West, because, as they say, the Way has no North or Southern ancestors. But recently I’ve been wondering, what if the cultures are just too different? Even if dharma is ultimately the same everywhere, what if I’m dealing with ...

We get into the van, Dojo Roshi in front, Shugetsu-san driving. D. is next to me and two monks are in the back. I’m wearing samue and my robes are folded up in a cloth in the trunk, along with my sutra book and The Tale of Genji, which I should be reading for school. We pull away from the ...

  I’m going to my monastery today for the next week. My head’s shaved and I’ve got on my black samue and I’m looking forward to being back in the monastery (however, I’m also eating caramel popcorn and listening to Pink. My friend made me an empowering dance music play list called “i’m walkin here fuckboy”… so… that’s happening, too). ...

Yesterday I paid my taxes for the first time. Hurray for me! I didn’t really need to pay my taxes. My income last year hovered right at the poverty line, and I used most of it to pay for college tuition. Since I’m poor, I am a prime candidate for Not Having to Pay Taxes, but– you know what? This ...

Aoyama Roshi once said in a dharma talk that true selflessness is unaware of itself. True selflessness, she said, is like a person in a house up in the mountains lighting a lamp in their room; a traveler wandering through the valley below, who is lost and frightened in the dark, looks up and sees that light and feels comforted. ...

Today I was waking up from a nap, dozing in that in-between state between sleeping and waking, while Beyonce’s song “Halo” was dripping through my consciousness. I think I watched the youtube video of that song in the morning, and like any catchy pop song, it stayed in my brain most of the day, even through my nap. As I ...

My mom is sitting a two-month meditation retreat right now at Spirit Rock, the Vipassana Center in Northern California. I got a letter from her asking for the kanji for when Dogen said “To forget the self is to be enlightened by (or intimate with) all beings.” She thinks the use of the word intimate is “weird and creepy,” and ...

Last week the college where I’m taking intensive Japanese had a recess from classes. Most of my friends took the opportunity to travel; some went to Kyoto, or the Sapporo Beer Museum. A few friends of mine visited Okinawa and went to a snake museum and “Okinawa World,” which I gather is kind of like Disney Land. I, on the ...

My teacher proudly says to anyone who will listen that I don’t want to practice at his monastery anymore because I don’t like the “smell of men.” That’s definitely not true, and I definitely never said that! I can prove I never said that, because the phrase he uses in Japanese to say “smells like men” (男臭い otoko kusai) is ...

More than once someone in Japan has asked me if I’m “a Japanese monk.” The first time was at Starbucks. I was minding my own business, drinking my latte and studying kanji, and I must have been wearing my Zen uniform because a female (foreign) student came up to me and breathlessly asked, “Are you a Japanese monk??” The same ...

I was sitting in my Japanese Foreign Policy class yesterday and had an epiphany (for the people reading this who don’t know, I’m enrolled in a university in Nagoya taking intensive Japanese language in the morning and regular academic classes in the afternoon). In the back of my mind were many conversations, essays I’ve read, and thoughts I’ve had about ...

I am going to try and write this blog post like I am not a privileged white person from an upper-middle class background (which I am) talking about how renouncing wealth is super noble and great and everyone should do it and be just like me. Because I recognize that some people are just trying to get by, trying to ...