An Evening of Wall Gazing

Tohoku's legendary samurai ruler, Date Masamune, had Rinnou-ji Temple built in 1441 in Fukushima and later relocated it piece by piece to its present location in Sendai. Its elegant main hall and courtyard mask its greatest showpiece, an exquisite garden designed to create the ideal atmosphere for zazen (Zen meditation). Watching over paths which seem to be metaphors for something deeper is a towering pagoda. It is mirrored mystically in a pond along with orchids, irises, and cherry blossoms—reflections suggesting strength and beauty simultaneously, and interrupted only by soft ripples from koi fish.

If only for the sights and tranquility, the garden alone is worth the visit (￥300). However, every Saturday at 18:30 (first-timers should come 15 minutes early) the resident Zen masters offer guests a chance to see something within themselves. If you don’t speak Japanese well you can figure out the ritual by observing. In my case, the monks were more than happy to offer assistance as well.

After lengthy inner debate on whether the physical pains of sitting in the full lotus position for ninety minutes would be worth the mental benefits of zazen, I finally decided to give it a go.

Two monks greeted me at the entrance to the main hall by bowing gently, and giving soft introductions. They were tall, with heavy flowing robes and shaved heads. Like the pagoda they were poised and powerful but at the same time deeply hospitable. I was escorted through the main sitting hall, a large tatami (woven straw matt flooring) room with black lacquered finishing. Shouji (translucent paper over a wood frame) sliding doors across the room allowed just the right touch of moonlight into the room to reveal delicate images of seasonal foliage painted softly on the walls. Had it been daytime the shouji would have been open to the garden outside.

Our bare feet shuffled silently on the cold black floors of a long corridor lit dimly by candles. Traces of incense filled the air as we entered a small enclosure. There was a knee-high table of sorts with a tatami surface and four little round cushions spaced evenly in a row on top. Upon two of the cushions people already sat gazing at the shouji just inches in front of them. Another monk, sitting on another perch covered in thick ornately patterned robes and a tall cloth hat, chanted quietly while waving an incense stick around.

My monk guide showed me how to first face him, clasp my palms together, and bow slowly. Next I was to turn and face a cushion on the tatami and bow to it. Then I was to fluff the cushion and rotate it 180 degrees before climbing onto the perch and tucking it under me. Facing the monk, with my feet folded under me and wrapped around the cushion, I bowed once more with hands together to the monk and he bowed back deeply. He asked me in a whisper if I was able to sit in the lotus position. He knew, for Westerners, this was often a difficult task. I wasn’t sure, but I told him I’d try. He instructed me to sit cross-legged and lift my feet up onto my knees while keeping my back straight. I managed to get one foot up but nearly fell off the perch. Thankfully he wasn’t the abusive kind of master I’d heard about who sometimes strike you hard with a bamboo stick if you so much as flinch a muscle in the wrong way. I placed one hand loosely inside the other with thumbs touching, and sat as best as I could. Immediately the discomfort became nearly unbearable. I didn’t want to move, though. I didn’t want to disturb the others trying to meditate so I fought the pain.

Since Rinnou-ji is of the Soto sect, we would be practicing the same method of meditation taught by the great master, Buddhadharma, who first introduced Zen 1500 years ago to the legendary monks of Shaolin. Here and now, the monk told me to focus on the wall in front of me while imagining my breath as it enters and exits my nostrils. Any other thought that entered my mind was to be calmly erased and I would draw my focus back to my breathing. Slowly the pain eased as I lost all sense of a physical body. An intense clarity came over me and there was nothing except an empty mind. I was keenly aware of my surroundings but they had no meaning. They were there, but they were nothing. There was only emptiness. It was marvelous.

Then a gong slowly pulled me out of my concentration and intense pain shot up my legs and back. I had been motionless for 45 minutes. Once more, the monk guided me through the bowing and cushion ritual. When my feet touched the floor I found I could hardly walk, but we weren’t finished yet. We were only half done. Next, with the others in the room, I was guided (one slow step at a time thankfully) into another, much larger, room. At the entrance each of us paused to bow. There, still in a half-trance state, the whole experience had an air of clouded fantasy, like a dream. Through the incense smoke and dim candlelight I made out the shapes of dozens of people all silent in deep meditation sitting as I had just been on cushions upon perches which lined the perimeter and middle of the room--constructed for the sole purpose of unifying the souls of strangers who all share a common interest in cultivating their mind. It was beautiful in ways words cannot capture.

Again I was guided to a perch and brought back into meditation. After some time the gong struck and I was given a book. It was palm-sized and folded out like a paper fan. Each of the fifty pages was filled with lines from a Buddhist mantra. As one, the entire room, including myself, read along rhythmically. I could read the scripture but scarcely understood its meaning. But that wasn’t the point. Our voices, locked in chant, somehow illuminated an energy within each individual which, to me, was an unmistakable message that the ‘self’ we perceive is nothing more than a vessel for a collective which is much greater in power and importance.

After a day or two the pain in my legs vanished. What remains is eternal.