There is a saying in Japanese: “Ichigatsu ha iku, Nigatsu ha nigeru, Sangatsu ha saru”, literally January walks, February flees, March leaves. Each of the months passes away, but February seems to be in a special hurry. All of a sudden already two months of the new year have passed.
Today we did the monthly big temple cleaning. Tomorrow will be the free day before the 5-day-sesshin. And after the sesshin the residents will have another ten days or so to write their final report of the winter study period. On March 26th we will accept newcomers, and work outside will start again. At this time of the year will still have masses of snow, but most of it should have melted until then.
Those of you who have followed the homepage for some while might have noticed that rules concerning newcomers changed about two years ago. Until then we would accept anyone coming at any time for any period of time. Now we are looking for people who are willing to stay for three years, are able to communicate in Japanese and are between 18 and 40 years of age. Some of the reasons are explained on the Staying at Antaiji page. It should be obvious that a place like Antaiji needs a crew of long term residents who can communicate with each other to survive (and not only do they have to communicate with each other, but alsoanswer phone calls, talk to visitors or Japanese nurses when they need to go to the hospital, and bureaucrats when extending their visa etc).
A view days ago I got specific question about the age requirement. Here is my answer:
“About the age minimum:
With people under the […]