[Date and Time] Wednesday, June 29, at 12:30~17:00
[Place] Kenchoji Temple
[Visitors] 6 American Women
[Attendants] 3 KSGG members
This is our first project for foreigners to join the public zazen program, which Kenchoji Temple holds four times in a year.
In a large room in Kenchoji Temple’s main hall, the Hojo, a monk told about zen, Kenchoji Temple itself, and zasen in English. Then he taught how to cross our legs, how to breathe, and what we should look at while meditating. Although the visitors seemed to have difficulty in crossing their legs, zazen started when they could manage to sit in the half lotus position. Fifteen minutes had passed in silence while we were concentrating on breathing, the priest checking our posture. After the first zasen was over, our visitors stretched their legs out. Shortly after the second zasen started, the sound of tapping mediator’s shoulder with keisaku was heard. (Keisaku is a stick with which a monk taps a meditator’s shoulder in order to check if a meditator is concentrating on zazen.) When a monk tapped my shoulder, I felt comfortable because I felt a muscle in my shoulder tensed. After the third zazen, we all, including our visitors who had received the Heart Sutra written in the Roman alphabet, chanted the Heart Sutra together. Then we were served powdered green tea and sweets in the reception room.
At the end of this project, we could have our visitors’ impressions about zazen such as “I have never imagined that zazen can calm myself” or “I am glad I could listen to the detailed explanations about Kamakura.”