“Guzen!” you might hear from some friends run into each other at the
store or the park. It means, basically, “What a coincidence” or “Fancy that!”
I had a fantastic guzen moment on
my last day in Japan, but to make it more comprehensible, you need to
understand the insurmountable odds that led to it.
My last day in Japan opened with
clear skies and beautiful weather. Bright an early, I jotted down all my chores
and goals for the day:
1. Send
a few books and a wad o’cash to America
2. Fax
the necessary documents to obtain Haruko’s family’s information to Sasebo City
Hall
3. Mail
some postcards to friends. Wink!
4. Check
out the morning farmer’s market outside of Canal City
5. Visit
a few local temples
6. Make
an appointment at the Owl Café. Yes, there’s an impending owl café in this
post.
7. Go
to the giant reclining Buddha at Nanzo-in Temple outside of town
8. Eat
a beautiful parfait: the big ones with the mocha, cookies, syrups, etc.
I just wanted to accomplish the
mailing and faxing in the morning so I’d have time the rest of the day to enjoy
myself. There was no real rhyme or reason, I just had a general idea of things
to do.
I was a little discouraged after
it took 45 minutes to fax everything to Sasebo. Halfway through, I figured I
should have just mailed everything, but it was too late by then. Finally, I
booked it out of the convenience store and made my way north past the station.
On my way to the morning market,
I happened to walk by one of the temples on my list! There was construction
going on around the temple grounds, but inside the walls, it was oddly
peaceful. When Hakata was recovering from the war, clay and broken tiles were
used all over the city to rebuild walls, making for some pretty and historic
additions to the town.
Inside the garden, there was a
tranquil pond with an arched stone bridge, a waterfall and a dozen or so giant
koi gulping at the sakura petals on the pond’s surface. When I went inside the
building, I presented the hostess with a green ticket and she led me into a
tatami room with one door open onto another little mossy garden.
I sat there alone for a little while,
listening to a gardener sweep fallen leaves and scattered pebbles with a
handmade branch broom. When the hostess came back, she had a small napkin of
sweets, one shaped like a cherry blossom and one long sweet that looked like a
wafer.
We bowed and she set the bowl
down. To my surprise, she then gave me a few additional instructions that
turned into a mini chado lesson. First, she told me to sit on the tatami mat
behind me, so there was a mat between her and me. Then, she counted the
centimeter wide striations in the woven tatami: 16 bands should be between the
border of the mat and your knees.
Then you eat your sweet and then
and only then do you drink the tea to cleanse the palate so the sweet and
bitter notes complement each other. She left me to enjoy my tea and the view. I
was free to leave at any time. So after watching the gardener for a moment
longer and taking a few bracing breaths of the still chilly morning air, I left
and slipped on my walking shoes once more.
Next stop was the morning market,
and it did not disappoint. Fresh fugu, those ugly little rock gremlin fish,
giant yellow tail and salmon, snails, razor clams, all manner of vegetables and
more! It’s fun to just gape at the quantity and quality of everything and smell
the salt and seaweed in the air.
I detoured through the back
streets and came upon a cool little café where I stopped in for a latte with
matcha. It was just my style: refurbished wood floors and tables; free trade
coffee for sale; relaxed SoHo vibe. Refreshed and caffeinated, I continued up
to a riverside park for pictures of the sakura.
While I strolled, I was surprised
that at 10am, there were people eating and drinking under the trees already!
One very drunken young man came leaping and bouncing up to me. He invited me to
drink with him and his friends. I explained I’d just had tea and coffee. He didn’t want to take “No”
for an answer, but I just persistently excused myself and begged to be
forgiven. After sufficiently saying “No” enough, he finally let me go.
People were beginning to come out
in droves to enjoy the break in the weather and the last of the sakura. With
every puff of wind, another light shower of pale pink petals twirled to the
ground. Children chased the petals, older couples simply watched their descent.
By then, I was on my way back to
the shopping district to see Tocho-ji, a temple famous for having the largest
seated wooden Buddha in Japan as well as graphic relief depictions of the
Japanese Buddhists hells. In the courtyard of the temple is an old sakura tree.
The courtyard was already full of people, sitting in a large ring in groups,
eating ice cream or lunch boxes and gazing at the tree. Upstairs in the temple,
you can light some incense and a candle before proceeding into the hall with
the Buddha.
When you enter the hall of the
hells, you see seriously graphic images of souls damned to all sorts of
horrible punishments like being eaten forever, gorging themselves on human
waste and flesh, climbing poles over fire pits with rocks strapped to their backs
and worse!
You then walk through a pitch
black and silent tunnel before you emerge at the Buddha’s feet once again. You
know it’s safe, you know nothing is going to jump out at you. But the sound and
visual deprivation are truly nerve-wracking!
After Tocho-ji, I walked back to
Canal City and the shopping arcade where the Owl Café is situated. There was a
small group of people already waiting outside, and I was getting a little
nervous that they’d fill up and I’d miss my chance.
Here’s the system: you arrive
when you can, ideally, when they open at 10am, and make an appointment for any
hour until 8pm. Then you pay the fee (1,000 yen for a soft drink, a gift, and
20 minutes to hold and pet the birds: 1500 if you want a beer) and the fun
begins.
When a store-clerk came out, she
ushered in the group around me for the 11am shift. Then she asked when I wanted
to come back. I thought about it. I wanted to see the reclining Buddha while
the light was good for the pictures I wanted. It was a 20 minute train ride,
and I needed time to get to the station and back. Plus, I figured a beer and
the birds would be good money and time spent. Considering all that, I reserved
the last shift at 7pm.
When I walked around the corner,
I found a sign that offered an open-top bus tour of the city. It would go by
another temple and a park I was thinking of seeing, plus the weather was good.
To ride or not to ride? I agonized for a while before deciding to instead visit
one last temple before hitting the station.
By the time I got to the station,
I was starving! I’d mailed my cards and books, reserved my owl café time and
was feeling deserving of a proper meal. So after getting lost for a long time
in the station, I found an udon restaurant with chilled udon. The wooden bowl
is like a shallow bucket, filled with ice cubes, water and noodles. You dip the
noodles into a soy broth with ginger, scallions and sesame then slurp to your
heart’s content! Naturally, you get pickles and brown rice on the side.
As I sat down, I considered my
two train options: there was one at 3:08 and another at 3:27. To play it safe,
I thought I’d take the later one. Turns out, I was hungrier than I’d thought
and I was able to catch the first train!
Herein lies the guzen.
I sat down on the train next to
an older Japanese woman. After a few minutes, she asked in perfect English, “Where
are you from?”
This was Miyako. She is 78 years
young. Her English is very good, but she’s only been to California once, and
she doesn’t get to practice her English often. However, she practices when she
can with the Americans she meets on the street in Sasebo. Yes, Sasebo.
She was on a trip in Hakata to
visit her husband’s tomb at Nanzo-in! She makes this journey at least once a
year and always brings treats for him and her acquaintances at the temple for
taking care of her husband’s remains. She makes the treats herself: tea
ceremony sweets! Miyako is actually a practitioner, and before she retired, she
would give demonstrations in tea houses and sell her own sweets on the side.
We got off the train together and
I thought she might excuse herself. But instead, we ended up spending the
afternoon together in one of the most beautiful and moving experiences I’ve had
in two years of Japan living.
She showed me the musical keys
you can play on the bridge like a xylophone to play the town’s song. She sang
as she struck each key in perfect tempo. We climbed the stairs to the shrine
together and she pointed out the special three-needled pine trees that are
famous to Kyushu. At the top of a ridge, you have to walk through a tunnel. The
walls are lined with little brass placards of Buddhas, each with a number. We
stopped at her husband’s so she could touch the shiny brass.
We emerged onto a cleared
courtyard with a few shrines, a charm shop and a tea house. We went into the
tea house together so she could give the owner, her acquaintance, some of the
tea sweets. We ended up eating a few (she kept handing me more and more and
just bundled them all together and put them in my bag for me!) while they
talked. She explained how we met at the station by chance and she was showing
me the temple. I couldn’t understand much beyond that.
She explained that she doesn’t
know the woman’s name, but that they have this thing in common, so she always
brings sweets for her.
Up a few more stairs, there’s the
Buddhist hall of worship. In an alcove, we made offerings and lit candles for “destitute
women” of the region. Inside the hall, we removed our shoes and once again,
Miyako explained to another familiar face that she was showing me the temple.
We entered the hall and walked between rows and rows of forest green cabinets.
Down another turn and another column, we came to one and stopped.
She opened the cabinet doors to
reveal a small shrine to her husband. There were little tablets with kanji,
little gold tables and lanterns and a framed picture of her husband. She left a
tray of sweets on a pull out shelf and silently prayed for a moment. Then, she
began talking to her husband. She introduced me and explained the situation.
Afterwards, she bowed and picked up her bags again and we pressed on.
The reclining Buddha is gorgeous
and huge. On his feet are gold painted symbols. People leave small money
offerings on these 3-D symbols for good luck or fortune or health as the case
may be.
Now, you may think that’s all
there is to it, but no! If you pay for a stick of wood, you write a prayer and
your name, then proceed barefooted into the hall behind the Buddha. There are
88 flagstones in the floor for the 88 different deities on the walls. Halfway
down the hall, we ascended a spiral staircase. Upstairs was a small room
looking into a smaller room with another shrine. Miyako told me to put my
prayer in a tray facing the shrine. Then, I touched a ribbon attached to a
scepter and further up, leading to the ribbons wrapped around the giant figure’s
hand. I then knelt on the floor before a brass recreation of the designs on
Buddha’s feet. Miyako told me to place my hands on the symbols and pray. I
wished for good health, safe travels, and a cool head, in case anyone is
interested.
Then Miyako prayed and we
continued down and along the remaining 44 flagstones.
We walked around the extensive
temple grounds throughout the hills for a little while longer. There were kappa
shrines, jizo shrines, a dragon cave with a tunnel so low I had to stoop over
at the waist while tiny Miyako could stroll through. There was also a demon
shrine and waterfall. Miyako had me stand in front of several things so she
could take a picture. She’s promised to send me a DVD soon.
I was so moved that she let me in
on this most intimate of Buddhist practices with a complete stranger. She
barely knew me, but something inside her inspired her to give me an insight to
a world that for most foreigners is completely shadowed. And for my last day in
Japan, I couldn’t have been more humbled or awestruck at the sheer luck of it!
It was getting windy and cooler
by the time I got back to Hakata. I figured if I hurried, I could change from
shorts into pants and grab a sweater before heading back to the café!
The café was amazing! There are
tiny owls up to a big great horned name Yu, for “evening.” We received a little
crash course on how to hold the owls’ leashes before going down to the owl area
for the fun part! For 20 minutes, we all held, petted, photographed and
exchanged owls. It brought me back to the time my family went to Scotland and I
held my first owl, a barn owl named “Basil.”
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