#antaiji

[hanh-tran]

What is left

when you lose the thing

that has never been

yours

---

Khi ta mất thứ mình chưa từng có

Như chưa yêu đã sợ mất người yêu

- TTPH

[joanpetrus]

風呂 · Bath por Norbert Huebner Por Flickr: Learn more about Antaiji.

[hanh-tran]

It's been a wild ride

Now I’ve come here to rest 

I put down my slippers

And the delusion I had 

Just green grass and a vast sky

---

Chặng đường dài ta đã đi băng rừng núi

Gác dép thiền ta cất cả giấc mơ

Ngựa đã mỏi lòng cũng đã ơ thờ

Ta nằm đây nhìn trời nghe mùi cỏ

[hanh-tran]

Life and how I age

I was so crushed. 

The pervading coldness

Drops of sun that passed before you had enough time to warm up your hands

Yet spring came

Your nails got so ruined and you gave up washing the dirt out of them.

Your hair got entangled beyond your ability to organise 

Your gave up privacy.

You could shit next to a man whose toilet is being separated from yours by a thin cotton curtain.

You gave up masturbating because you shared a room with a beautiful 20 year-old Mexican girl.

You toes got blistered.

Your gumboot stunk.

You stopped knowing who you were. 

Yet cherry blossoms bloomed in March. 

Despite your little cheap drama. 

Oh life, how you aged me.

[qpzazen]

Antaiji gehört zur japanischen Sôtô-Zen-Schule. Antaiji widmet sich der Zen-Praxis als einem natürlichen Ausdruck des täglichen Lebens. Zazen und Arbeit sind nicht einfach nur ein Teil des Lebens in Antaiji: Vielmehr sind es die 24 Stunden jedes einzelnen Tages, den du hier verbringst, die eine Manifestation von Zen sein müssen. In Antaiji werden darüber hinaus keine spirituellen Praktiken oder Meditationstechniken angeboten. Es geht nicht darum, fernöstlichen Mysterien auf den Grund zu gehen, okkulte Erfahrungen zu haben oder einfach einen Geschmack von japanischer Kultur zu bekommen.

[alittlestorage]

Antaiji.

[anametheus]

Walking up to Antaiji Zen Monastery

[buddhismnow]

Final Lesson, by Arthur Braverman

I’m sitting on my cushion in the morning before going to work and that feeling of openness comes, — not a thought-free feeling but one of awareness of being there, on the cushion, and of being content with just that. Then there is a feeling of gratitude for being taught a zazen with no strings attached—no elaborate initiation, no progress reports, and no conclusions. But there is a personal mystery that shrouds my feeling of gratitude. Why have I felt such ambivalence for the man who introduced me to and guided me through this practice? I feel that I must contact him again and work through these feelings and put some kind of closure to our relationship. The man is Uchiyama Kôshô Roshi and he was abbot of Antaiji from the time of his teacher’s death in 1965 until his own retirement in 1975. During his ten years as abbot of Antaiji, Uchiyama set up a temple where clergy and lay people, Japanese and westerners, men and women, could practise zazen together in as accom­modating an atmosphere for practice as one can imagine in a temple in Japan.

So why the ambivalence?

Read more