Nagoya, Japan
November 18, 2004

Living in a country like Japan that pays a great deal of attention to its holidays has kind of distracted and separated me from my own traditions.

One peculiar thing about Japan is that it took many holidays from America and adapted them to Japanese standards. For instance, America's Thanksgiving just so happens to be on the same day as Japan's "Thanks for Work” Day, a good excuse not to work. Japan also celebrates Christmas, with all the gifts, lights and trees, but the meaning behind it all is lost and makes it merely a gaudy display of glitter and commercialism.

The more time passes the more I long for the kindliness and relaxation of my friends in the countryside in America. I am reluctant to say that Americans are nicer than other people in other countries of the world, because blanket statements never really cover cold feet, but I will say that there is a great deal of social pressure here in Japan. This probably stems from a constant fear of insulting someone with an incorrect verb inflection, or my inadequacy with the language, but I feel constantly on edge.

I took a class trip to a Buddhist nunnery. The first thing I noticed is all of the bald female heads. Then I saw how immaculately kept the grounds are, and realized that besides my own breathing and the shuffling of 20 other students’ feet there is hardly a sound to be heard. 

I was escorted along with my classmates to a room that outsiders are never allowed into except for this special occasion — the Zen Hall. Apparently, these women sometimes sit in the extremely unnatural Zen position for 15 hours a day, stopping only to walk around in turn and make sure the other members aren’t falling asleep by hitting them with a big stick. 

I was, thankfully, not hit with the stick. However, being hit might have helped distract me from the searing pain in my ankle resulting from the sitting position I was in. When we were all finished (by the way, time goes by really fast when you space out Zen-style), I had trouble standing and walking, but felt good about the emptiness of my mind. 

I am so full of anxiety these days that the emptiness was a welcome relief. I think that I just needed an excuse. After the Zen training, the head priestess lectured us with a few thought-provoking stories. Here’s one:  If two ceramic bowls smash together they will both inevitably break. However, if only one of those bowls is soft enough, neither of them will break. Have a soft heart and an accepting mind.