Saturday, June 9, 2012

Two weeks ago tonight Laura and Costa and I were eating Texas style bar-b-que. Tonight I cooked curried vegetable soup. I have helped in the kitchen but this was my first time as tenzo at Toshoji. The real tenzo (cook monk) is 72 years old and had the day off.

I am settling in well, I think. Hoko says the honeymoon has just not ended yet. I did wonder if it was ending on a recent evening after a long and tiring day. I was struggling with sleepiness and had the horrid thought, "I wonder how big of an earthquake it would take to get this last round of zazen canceled."

The schedule is:
4:00am - up
4:20am - two rounds of zazen
6:00am - chanting
7:00am - breakfast
7:45am - caretaking (routine cleaning)
8:20am - formal tea
9:00am - 10:30am - work
10:55am - chanting
11:20am - lunch and break
1:30pm - work
3:00pm - informal tea and break
4:25pm - chanting
4:55pm - dinner and bath and free time
7:30pm - two rounds of zazen
9:30pm - lights out

I have been here nine days and have yet to see this schedule followed but it does provide the basic structure of the day.

This temple gets special visitors as well as locals dropping in - bringing something, asking for something, or showing off a new baby. because of its history, this place also gets a lot of tour groups and is a special meeting site. Everyone who comes in the door is offered tea and a sweet if not a complete meal.

We had 22 folks for formal tea one day and 42 for a lovely box lunch the next. For the later, tenzos from several temples arrived. They had trained here and some were professional cooks in their pre-monk life. Who knew you could make tempura from nori sheets, shisho leaves, umeboshi plums, and dried persimmons? It was amazingly delicious.

This constant stream of folks requires lots of cleaning and set up and dishwashing. We are rarely told of the event until right before we need to know and the plan changes frequently. As a practicer, attachment to how things are going to be would not be helpful.

We've had a class in cooking temple food for guests, a calligraphy class, a Baika class (poetry, some of it Dogen's, sung to old Japanese folk tunes), and two movies. This is not entertainment but teaching skills needed for running temples.

One day after morning tea, I was told I was going to Unsenji in 10 minutes, take an extra set of clothes and a towel, the work can be dirty. Unsenji is a high mountain temple, about an hour drive, the place where the teacher grew up, and the home of his 90+ year old mother.

I helped remove and clean wood sliding doors, remove the paper (shoji) panes, stack the doors in the sun to dry, and then carry them all back inside. I hope to be asked to go back when the paper is replaced as I would like to learn how to do it.

The temple and the location are beautiful. During break, I lay on the floor of the Buddha Hall and took pictures of the amazing ceiling. The teacher cooked udon and poached egg for the six of us. We cleaned and weeded in the afternoon. He treated us to Chinese on the way home. It was a very special day.

As a lay person, there are some things I cannot do. Mostly, though, I am treated as one of the community. I try to work hard, pay attention, and stay out of the way. Sometimes I think not understanding the language works to my advantage. I am oblivious to the chit-chat and some of the drama...not that I wasn't a bit oblivious on the other side of the planet as well!

Hoko leaves for the U.S tomorrow. I am already feeling a bit abandoned.