Japanese life

["Morris Krok" essence@xxxxxxxx]

from Morris,

        I am attaching a fairly long file on Japan, their thinking,
logic, Zen, music and a young man's odyssey. I found it to be a mind opener
and delightful, but if you are not interested do not open it. I am sure Rene
who lives in Japan will find it fascinating and no doubt familiar with some
of the ideas expressed. His comments will be welcomed.

	^So You Can Meet the Something Wonderful Happen
		By John Turest Swartz

	Well, I'm home now, back in Cape Town - and yet I'm not in the same place. I keep hearing and
seeing familiar things and unfamiliar eyes. What was it T S Eliot said?
	"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where
we started and know the place for the first time."
	It feels rather like that - somehow my perception has shifted. I keep seeing the flipside of ideas
and opinions, particularly my own. Prejudices (pre-judgments) and beliefs I have held for most of my
life - they just go flip! I guess that's from my time in Japan. Japanese thinking is so often the
reverse of logic of ours. They seem to think from the other side of the head.
	My dream of going to Japan began when I was eleven years old and my grandmother returned from a
visit to the East. That was 28 years ago. Before she left, she had asked me if there was something I
wanted her to bring back for me. I had asked her to bring me anything she liked, as long as it was
beautiful. So she'd brought me a very old Japanese love-poem, on parchment, in beautiful Japanese
calligraphy, with a sprinkling of gold leaf and a painting of the poet at the bottom.
	This became a treasure, and 'going to Japan' became my life-long dream. I knew that one day I would
get there. How it came about is a story of 'en - I'll try to explain.
	I grew up, went to university, married, became a father, struggled, divorced, worked, and fell in
love again. I went through some good and some very heavy times, and at those times all I could think
about was scrambling like a mole through my own tunnel. Yet, although the dream receded, it was
still there, hovering on the horizon. Twice I come close to going, but both times the plans aborted.
	Then, two years ago, I met someone who had been living and working in China and I told her I has
always dreamed of going to Japan, She said, 'Well, why don't you go? Right there and then I
decided: 'Yes! I am going to Japan.'
	It was at about this time came that I came across these words, written in relation to the 1963
Everest Expedition, words which guided me in my intention and the truth of which was subsequently
proved to me.
	"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, a chance to drawback.......always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative and creation there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which
kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself then providence moves
too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream
of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and
meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way."
	There was something about Japan that I didn't understand and that I needed to meet. And it had
something that I had to connect with and confront. People would tell me that I had romantic
illusions about Japan and that it was not what I thought it was. But my feeling was: "I don't
know what to think it is, and it doesn't matter what it is - I just need to get there. Then I will
see. Then it won't be a dream any more, but something real that I can deal with.
	Some months later I was commissioned to co-produce a video on South Africa with an American TV
crew. We worked very hard and the American producer and I became close friends. One evening we were
sitting talking about our dreams and I go to telling him of my big dream. It turned out that his
wife, Riko is Japanese. She subsequently decided to help me get to Japan. She contacted her brother,
a writer and spiritual teacher in Japan. This man was later to become a very significant person in
my life. For some reason they felt it was important that I should go there.
	A year ago I embarked on my dream journey and left Cape Town with the girl I love, to travel the
world.
	Awaiting me in London was a letter from Riko's brother: "Please try to come to Japan and have
a nice day. With good dream, Sanshin Asakura."
	The Japanese government was at that time making it extremely difficult for South African citizens
to visit Japan. Getting the visa was an arduous process that took many months. Eventually the
Japanese government kindly gave me a special visa which allowed me to travel to Japan on a spiritual
mission. In fact, in my South African passport the purpose of my visit was officially given as: 'to
practise Zen.' So I went to Japan as a Zen Buddhist monk. In fact, a Jewish Zen Monk.
	For me, it was a spiritual journey, I felt compelled to make, on my own.
	After six months of travelling in Europe and America, I was told I had to return from San Francisco
to London, just to collect my visa.
	Visa in hand, I left London on Monday morning, bound for Japan the long way East - flying into
tomorrow. At midnight on Wednesday I landed in Tokyo exhausted, like a baby after a long labour,
having arrived in another world - and what an extraordinary world it is.
	From my first day in Japan it seemed to me as though I were receiving instructions from the
surroundings. And as Ram Das says, whoever is writing the script clearly has a sense of humour.
	I found my way to an inn and slept for 24 hours. When I awoke at 2 am a day later, I got up walked
down the corridor, at the end of which I found a wash basin. Beside the basin was a bottle of blue
liquid soap. And on this bottle was a label with Japanese writing, below which was printed in
English: LET'S BEGIN!
	I went and fetched my camera and tripod and took a photograph of the bottle - just to prove to
myself that this was really true.
	Next day, walking around Tokyo, I went into a convenience store for a cup of coffee. Now I know it
sounds weird to say, "Well God spoke to me from a polystyrene coffee cup, but I was drinking
this coffee when I noticed what was printed on the side of the cup: "Relax and have a nice
coffee break. So you can meet the something wonderful happen." (some wonderful happening).
	That became the message that stayed with me all through the journey. "Relax......so that you
can meet the something wonderful happen". It was strange how these kept coming. Quite prosaic.
Nothing highflown. Just bottles and polystyrene coffee cups.
	Everything is so different in Japan, so upside down and other way around. For instance, I found it
disconcerting that women stand back for men to go through doorways first. In the West, a carpenter
working with a saw uses a pushing action. In Japan they pull the saw, and the teeth of the saw are
designed to cut that way. They pull carts or wheelbarrows, instead of pushing them.
	People are addressed first by their surnames, or family names, followed by their personal names.
With postal addresses, the name of the country is written first, followed sequentially by the
province, city, suburb, street, house number and, at the end, the name of the individual to whom the
letter is directed. From the point of view of the postman, this does make sense. Japanese logic has
a beautiful logic of its own.
	Many of the Zen koans are designed to trick the mind through paradox. They open up the mind and you
fall, momentarily into the space between. I found that I kept bumping into Japanese thoughts that
were just like these koans, so they are very much a product of the culture as well.
	On a smart building in Tokyo, attached to the wall in metal letters - and spotlit - were the words:
"There is no such thing as a free goose." And there was I, wandering around, free as a
goose....
	When I first arrived in Japan I went to Kyushu to meet Sanshin Asakura, the man who had made it all
possible. Our meeting was a significant event, as is the wonderful relationship that has grown out
of it.
	Asakura Asakura is an extraordinary man of varied talents and pursuits - a writer, teacher, healer,
business consultant and a renowned authority on crystals.
	At this first meeting I told him of my dream and said how grateful I was that he had been willing
to help me. He then told me that what had probably brought me to Japan was 'en. He described 'en as
an invisible line or cord which connects people and events in such a way that when they coincide,
when they meet in particular circumstances and recognise the nature of their meeting to be such,
then it is a matter of 'en.
	That's about the clearest I can put it.
	A friend of mine explained it in this way. 'If you're driving down the road in your car and you see
a beautiful woman walking, and as you go by you turn your head to catch a glimpse of her face, if
there is 'en between you, she will look up at that moment and your eyes will meet. And if no 'en,
there will be a pole in the way.'
	One day I got lost. This was something that happened often. In fact, one of the major things I
learned in Japan was not to mind being lost. The paradox is that, having been lost, I now feel more
found. Getting lost doesn't matter to me any more: in fact, getting lost can be really interesting.
When you're lost, something has to happen. You may end up somewhere different to where you thought
you were going, but invariably it's more interesting anyway. And you get to meet the something
wonderful happen...
	I got lost a lot. In a city like Tokyo, which has 40 million people by day, the density and
intensity of it is beyond belief. I would get off a station and start walking, and things would
happen. Half the time I was in a dream, anyway. Sort of wide-asleep. A waking dream. Or maybe a
wakening dream?
	I would watch people as they got off the trains and I would read what was written on their T-shirts
and jackets. You could see these extraordinary snatches of Japanese thinking stuck all over people's
clothing, usually in English or French. Often I would write the words down or try to photograph the
back of the person's jacket. Sometimes the doors would open and the person would get off the train -
and I would follow, oblivious to my surroundings, trying to record the message on camera. Then I
would look around and say to myself, 'Oh-oh, now where am I?'
	But one day, after I had been in Japan for three months, I found myself again. It was mid-winter
and I had flu. I had wanted to go to Kyoto, but I took the wrong bus and ended up somewhere
completely different.
	When the bus on which I was travelling reached the terminus, I went to the station to work out
where I was and how I could find my way to Kyoto. But I was told there was no easy direct route.
	As it happened, I had spent all of the previous evening and that morning sitting with my diary and
writing down all the imponderables in my life. I was trying to get some sense of what I wanted from
my life, and what the next chapters would look like. Being so distant from my known terrain afforded
me an opportunity to get an outside perspective on myself. When everything in your environment is so
different, so upside-down, you keep bumping into yourself and discovering yourself in new ways.
	Having manifested the major dream of my life life, the next question was, 'Now what?' I was really
looking at 'What am I on about?' And 'What do I really want?' Wondering about what kind of work I
should be doing and in what part of the world. Should I go into law or should I follow my other
lifelong dream - my love of music and making music?
	As I turned away from the information desk at the station, a young man ran past me at full tilt. As
he flashed past I saw, on the back of his leather jacket in large applique letters, the words
"Keep the Dreams of Your Boyhood, Kansai Man."
	It just so happened that Kansai was the area in which I was living.
	I forgot about going to Kyoto and caught the next bus back to where I was living. That was the day,
I decided that I would go into music.
	While in Japan, through an extraordinary chain of circumstances, I met Sasaki Sofu Sensei, a
remarkable and truly humble man. You never know when a meeting like this is going to happen. And
then it happens. My meeting with Sasaki Sensei was a matter of 'en.
	I had never before in my life met anyone who was so skilled a craftsman, both in the playing of the
shakuhaci - the classical Japanese bamboo flute, which I had always longed to learn - and in the
making of it. I went to him to learn how to play the shakuhachi and found that what he taught me
went far beyond even music.
	He and his wife lived in a tiny apartment in the suburb of Yoga in Tokyo. He spoke no English and I
spoke no Japanese, so we has some extraordinary conversations - which were later assisted by a
dictionary, and sometimes by an interpreter.
	The shakuhachi is of ancient origin. Although today it is mostly played as a classical performance
instrument, there is also a way of playing this bamboo flite as a spiritual discipline, a way known
as Fuke Shakuhachi, or Blowing emptiness', which has been practised for 1000 years and originated
with a Chinese Zen master named Fuke. The members of the once-powerful Fuke sect in Japan were known
as Komuso, the 'Monks of Nothingness.' Sasaki Sensei is one of the few eponents of this
almost-forgotten tradition of Fuke Shakuhachi.
	Sensaki Sensei met his master in Manchuria in China when he was a boy of 16. Later he found his
teacher again in Japan and studied with him. This master gave Sasaki his shakuhachi initiation name
of Sofu which, as far as I could understand, has the meaning 'invisible spirit wind'.
	The making of a handcrafted shakuhachi is an extremely complicated and lengthy procedure. In his
philosophy and in his craftmanship Sasaki Sensei has an attitude different from much of modern
Japanese culture, which seems very presentation-based and lays strong emphasis on outward
appearances and packaging. What he says is that it is not important to him how a thing looks - in
fact, he would go as far as to make it look very ordinary. What matters is what is inside, and what
is its hidden potential.
	Sensei usually taught students on two days a week for an hour at a time. During our 15 days
together, I spent seven hours with him each day. For me, being in Tokyo was about being with this
beautiful man, sitting on the floor, listening, talking, playing, and watching him at work with the
shakuhachi. Watching his accuracy, his endless patience.
	I had many questions - about his work, music, Zen life. But any time I asked philosophical
questions, he would just laugh at me. The message I got was: 'You think too much. It's not that
difficult.' He just made fun of me in a lovely way.
	For example on his shakuhachi he had, years ago, painted, in Japanese, a Zen aphorism: 'No head, no
tail.' Later feeling it was too pretentious, he had lacquered over it, but you could still see the
markings. I spent hours trying to work out its significance and get him to explain it to me. In
response to everything that I came up with, he just laughed and laughed, saying, 'Why does it have
to mean something?
	Eventually he gave in, looked at me very seriously and said (translated): 'John-san, you may say,
"It is a good man," or "It is a bad man." And I may say, "It's just a
man."
	He had written a manual on learning to play shakuhachi. He went through it quickly with me and
showed me what I would have to practise for many years to come. He also recommended the I not play
for people for at least ten years.
	At my last lesson I sat across the little table from him. He showed me the last exercise in the
book, then closed it and put it aside. Then he told me to pay attention to concentrate. He opened a
folder inside which was some very old music, beautiful to look at. He explained that this was an
ancient Chinese Zen story which had been translated into Japanese hundreds of years ago. From the
Japanese poem music had been written.
	I'd always thought of Zen as being very spontaneous. But spontaneity arises from absolute precision
in ritual - simple ritual, like sitting still, absolutely still.
	He said to me: 'This is Zen music. Now, look and listen.'
 	And he played me this piece of music. I tried to follow,but became confused, and then something in
me just gave up. Because, try as I might, I could not understand what he was playing. It was so
simple, so beautiful, utterly empty and timeless. It was just a few minutes, but when he'd finished
I didn't know where I'd been or what happened.
	Then, he folded the paper and gave it to me, saying, 'This is for you. It will take many years
before you are ready to play it. Maybe ten years. But it's for you.'
	And that was my last lesson.
	The next day I asked a Japanese friend to telephone him, as interpreter, and asked him if I could
visit him one more time and whether he would play piece again so that I could record it; so that,
even if it took me years, at least I would know what it was that I was aiming for. Typical
Westerner! She called me back and said, 'John, Sasaki Sensei says, "Tough luck!"
	A week later, before I left Tokyo, it was arranged that we could go and have tea with him.
	At tea he told me he felt I had come to him by 'en; that he felt I had the potential to master the
shakuhachi, and that he wanted me to have the opportunity to experience the true potential of
bamboo. And the only way to know that is to play a good instrument. He also said that I reminded him
of himself when he was a young man in China, when he had first met his own master; and that my
enthusiasm for what he did had re-awakened in him his own enthusiasm.
	And so saying, he presented me with his own beloved shakuhachi.
	Moved to tears, I received from him this treasure - this instrument of Zen.
	He told me why the way of shakuhachi is so difficult. In the usual Zen meditation, zazan, you have
'merely' to sit and do nothing: in shakuhachi zen you have to blow and also do nothing at the same
time.
	When I apologised for my impertinence in asking to record that piece of Zen music, he laughed and
said, 'Dai-jo-bu. Never mind. No matter.'
	I tried to explain that while he was playing my mind simply stopped and that I could not remember
the notes.
	He said, 'Never mind.'
	'If, one day you bump into the right notes, you will know.
	'And if, one day, you think you are getting better and you play for people, and if the people tell
you that you are playing shakuhachi - know that this is not Fuke Shakuhachi; know that this is not
Zen music.
	'For, if you are really playing Zen shakuhachi you will not know. And whoever is listening will
experience nothing.
	A few days later the Showa Emperor died and a new era began, an era called Heisei; 'Forward to
peace.'
	And as, in Japan, calendar time is counted according to the birth of each era, so for me began the
first day of the first year of a new era.