This is a true story

Each Day In Life is Training

Training For Myself

Though Failure is Possible

Living Each Moment

Equal to Anything

Ready for Everything

I am Alive - I am This Moment

My Future Is Here and Now

For if I cannot Endure Today

When and Where Will I? - Sôen Ôzeki

The day is Monday, November 18. I am the only person at Daisen’in, one of Japan’s most famous Zen rock gardens. It was made close to 500 years ago and the garden, quite small in fact, creates a three-dimensional painting using rocks and plants. Some say the whole of existence is symbolized in this small space.  Others say it's a gardening wonder. We all bring our own imaginations (or lack thereof). For me it is both things, and a good visualization of a clear and calm mind (meticulously groomed and cared for). It took me more than three months since living in Kyoto to visit this place that holds such a special place in my heart. I suppose I wasn’t ready to come back? Besides the garden, my main reason for visiting is the head priest, Sôen Ôzeki. I’ve written about him before here, and his words are woven into my heartstrings and I think them or say them out loud in times of anxiety. They come to me quite often, in fact, anxiety or not).

On this perfect autumn day I make it back . It is not unusual for tour buses to crowd this temple complex. And for good reason, its beauty can easily render one speechless. With no expectations I wound my way through the temple grounds to this tucked away corner. There were hardly any shoes in the shoe rack. I walked in hoping that Ozeki-sama would be there, as he had been every time before. And he was, smiling and as cheerful and youthful looking as ever. I wondered if he’d remember me, me who he said was a hidden beautiful Buddha, me who he made feel like a whole person years before. He was talking to a woman so I couldn’t be sure, but he did smile kindly at me as I walked past to…an empty garden. How rare and treasured a moment is this.

Closed eyes blanketed in warm autumn sun, I can see the universe and the universe sees me. For a moment there is no separation. I am this moment and the moment is me. Ozeki-sama’s jovial voice occasional bounces into this space of nothingness and everythingness. Always a hello, a thank you, a spoken smile. I open my eyes to the place I brought myself to, white rocks cascade across a flat expanse of ocean. I open my eyes to see that everything is in its right place, everything is absolutely perfect - the rocks, the sun, the breeze, the trees, the universe, and me. Perfect in wonder and connection.* A lonely ant crawls past the granite shore of the ocean. I imagine the ant looking up at me with two thumbs up mouthing ‘sublime!’

I move to the west end of the garden now. The landscape (seascape, as it were) has changed but the sunlight is as warm and nourishing as ever. A priest walks to the edge and collects a few green leaves that have been released from their labor for the winter. I say hello. He smiles, saying ‘the place feels really nice, doesn’t it?’ ‘Yes, it does, it is truly quiet here.’ More sunlight meditation. Ozeki-sama’s voice around the back, in French, greeting new visitors.

I thank the moment, the garden, the sun, and walk toward the entrance where he sets up shop. As I walk up I know he remembers me. Immediately, ‘Wait, where are you from? Who are you? I know you…ah, yes. The most beautiful in the world!’ A staff woman comes up eager to join in. She says there is a group of people talking about a strange but beautiful foreigner meditating alone in the garden. We all chuckle. I turn bright red. I try to explain to Ozeki-sama how important his words are to me. He tells me that I think of them often because he is thinking them to me in dreams. He dreams the words to me. I am family. The wind walking out felt like home. I was home. Still am.

This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting my whole life for. The moment I had within me all along. Gold.

*This is a far cry from saying ‘I am perfect.’ Imagine, if you will (perhaps you live it too), a deep breakthrough from fear, patterns, loss, loneliness, etc. that you’ve been dragging along deep down inside for so long it no longer has a beginning only a ghostly mass.  You make a home for this ever-burgeoning thing, feeding it anxiety and negative emotions, any dark feelings, real or imagined. It’s all food. You create a story – nay, an epic – to explain its character and behavior. You hide this shadowy creature in many dark layers hoping that no one sees it. You lock it away in a castle on a mindcliff and pretend it doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, it only grows. Imagine that you come to, wake up one fine day (rather, one horrible day) and realize the awful truth...you’ve created a monster. The monster who no longer lives off of you but can at times have power over you! ‘What have I done (to myself)?’ you ask. More fear sets in but your new awareness forces you into a tête-à-tête with this scary shadow monster. You can hide no longer. After all, what are you hiding from but hiding itself? Imagine a mind-showdown that you’ve put off in every way and with excruciatingly effort since you can remember. This is it. This is the end. Imagine taking a long, deep breath and inhaling all the light of your past and your present and your future (which is just one moment - now) and breathe it into the space of darkness, letting it penetrate every uncomfortable and anguishing nook and cranny of that amorphous blob. Then you just LET IT GO. The shadow monster reveals itself to be a blank space…nothing but thought dust. This is what I call soul purging. And soul purging is something I've experienced of late. J