As we pulled into port, we were
welcomed by a quite impressive welcoming committee. There were many local people waving their
arms and jumping up and down, and a small marching band with flag twirlers
playing songs and dancing around with waving sessions in the breaks between
each song. It was amazing to see these
people who were so excited to see us and went through all the trouble to give
us this greeting.
Today I had my first field lab,
which is basically like a field trip. There is one field lab required for each class during the semester. Each field
lab counts for 20% of our grade, so it’s pretty important in
order to get a decent grade in the lab. My field lab today was for my Myth of the Self class. In a few words, we went to a Buddhist temple
in Kamakura and did Zazen meditation (Zen meditation) with Buddhist
Monks/Priests, but the experience was far and beyond what I was expecting.
We arrived at the temple grounds
and first got a little tour of the area around the temple. There were many different things like a giant
bell, many Buddha statues, a shrine-looking thing, and many natural
surroundings. The monk who was showing
us around and talking to us was very quiet and didn’t speak much English,
so trying to listen to what he was saying about each aspect of the temple
grounds was difficult. Luckily the main
monk came to take over; his name was Fugio, and we called him Fugio
Sensei. He and the other two monks who
were accompanying him were all wearing these dress/robe things, these
bib-looking things, the little socks that are like toe socks in between your
big toe and “index toe” but the rest is like a normal sock so you can wear them
with flip-flop shoes (which they were also wearing), had bald heads, were
cleanly shaven, and had glasses. It was
very interesting to see what they dress like.
When we got into the temple, we had to take off our shoes and put them into plastic bags similar to
the kind you get at King Soopers or Target.
We then entered the area where we were going to meditate. There were four rows of these futon-like
pillow/mattresses that were about the length of a mattress but they were folded
in half. We claimed our cushion and
waited for everyone to settle into their spots.
We were then shown the proper way to sit while doing meditation. First we had to fold the top half of our
cushion in half and plant our butts on the higher portion. Our legs were crossed in front of us similar
to crisscross-applesauce style, our hands were placed near our bellies making
an “O” shape with one hand on top of the other, and our eyes were focused on a
point about a meter in front of us. The
meditation was supposed to be about an hour long… yeah you read that right... an
HOUR long, but luckily the monks knew that we couldn’t meditate for that long
of a period, so they split it up into three sections.
During the first section, we sat
while the monks came around correcting people’s posture and form. Not to brag or anything but I had excellent
form and they didn’t do anything to change my form. Then again, we did a couple of practice
sessions in class prior to the field lab, but no one really has to know
that. Also, my professor talked about
how monks would not move from their position during meditation no matter what,
so if they had an itch they would just let it itch. While I was sitting there I don’t know if I
just stopped blinking or what, but my eyes started to water and tears ended up
running down my face, but I was trying so hard to attempt to do meditation like
the monks would do it that I just let the tears stream in a river down my
cheeks. It was the weirdest feeling not
being able to do anything but sit, but at the same time it was kind of
cool. We were supposed to put all of our
focus into our breathing and just being aware that we are breathing. I think that's something that few
people do: think about the fact that we are alive and we are breathing
human beings. It is a crazy thing to
think about and a crazy concept to get your thoughts and your mind lost
in. It was fairly easy for me to get
lost in these thoughts because of how silent it was in the hall. The only noises were the occasional times
where a monk would tell someone to fix something; other than that it was eerily
quiet.
The next two sessions, however,
were not nearly as quiet. During these
two sessions we were to do the same thing as the first, but this time we could
ask the monks as they walked up and down the rows to assist us because we are
either losing focus, falling asleep, or starting to feel pain in our bodies. We would ask them by putting our hands
together like in prayer as they were walking by, then we would bow to each
other, and then the meditator would lean over their crossed legs and arch their
back with their head down. The monk
would then take a bamboo stick/paddle thing and hit the meditator twice on the
left and right sides of the back. Now
this hitting wasn’t like they were beating us because I don’t think Semester at
Sea would allow that, but I think the motion was more like a whip. I know that whipping doesn’t sound much
better than beating, but it was like the paddle would barely touch us and they
would bring it back up. The monks
claimed that the sound is worse than the actual feeling, but I beg to differ on
that statement. I had a monk, who just
happened to be the monk that hit the hardest, hit me on the back because it
was an experience I was told I should have.
I went through the whole process of putting my hands together, bowing,
etc. Then he hit me. It felt like the sensation of someone
whipping me with a towel but all the way down my back. It stung much more than I was anticipating
which caused my eyes to water slightly, but ironically not as much as the first
session of random crying. After I sat up
and bowed to the monk (because that was the protocol), I tried to gather my
thoughts to focus on my breathing again.
Oddly enough, after a few moments, the stinging turned into tingling, and
the pain turned into a good feeling. It
somehow allowed me to bring all of my attention to my breathing rather than the
other people getting hit, and it helped my posture immensely. It felt as though there was a board attached
to my back that made me sit straight. It
was the weirdest sensation. It is really
hard to describe, so I guess if you want to know what I’m talking about, you
should try it for yourself.
We finished up our meditation
and then had a Q&A with the monks.
It was difficult to understand the two assisting monks to Fugio Sensei,
so much of the discussion was lost in translation for me. However, the life of a monk, from what Fugio
Sensei described is quite crazy from my perspective; I don’t remember if this
is exact, but basically they get up around 3 in the morning, meditate for a couple
of hours, eat breakfast, meditate some more, do some chores, eat lunch,
meditate, go around the town gathering food, eat dinner, meditate, go to bed
around midnight, and then do it all over again the next day. Not exactly my style, but to each his own I
guess. We then got some dinner in town,
and I learned how to use chopsticks or somehow I’m better at using chopsticks
in Asia… it must be the atmosphere or something, but I am definitely better with
chopsticks here than I was in the States.
We then went back to the ship
where I met up with Jillian who also had a field lab. We attempted to try to get wifi in the port
terminal but failed. We ran into some
people that we met a few nights ago named Sawyer, Kyle, and Alexa. Sawyer and Kyle are an engaged couple who are
students from Texas, and Alexa is Sawyer’s roommate who was supposed to travel
with Shelley to Tokyo today but somehow got left behind. We planned to go to Tokyo with these three
people in the morning because we figured it would be better to travel in a
group. They went to bed as Jillian and I
were still trying to get internet to contact some people since the Japanese
government wouldn’t allow the ship to have internet while in port. In the end, we got kicked out of the terminal
because it was closing, and we had no luck being able to talk to anyone. There’s always tomorrow I guess.
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