antaiji

Calmly imagine the ceaseless practice that was happening on Mount Isan long ago. What I mean by ‘imagine’ means thinking about how it would be for us today if we were residing on Mount Isan. The sound of the rain deep in the night was probably not just of water washing over the moss, for the rain would certainly have had the strength to bore through boulders. On the snowy nights in the dead of winter, the birds and beasts must have been scarce indeed, and how much less would there have been smoke from man-made fires to acknowledge human existence! It was a way of living that could not have been tolerated, were it not for the Master’s ceaseless practice in which he made light of his life whilst stressing the Dharma. He was in no hurry to cut down the undergrowth, nor did he engage in cutting down trees to clear the land for building. He just continued his ceaseless practice and simply did his utmost to practice the Way. What a pity that an
authentic Ancestor who had Transmitted, and kept to, the True Dharma came to undergo such hardships in such precipitous mountains! It is said that Mount Isan had many ponds and running water, so there must have been thick ice and dense banks of fog. Most people could not have tolerated such a secluded life,
nevertheless Isan transformed it into the Buddha’s Way and explored Its innermost purpose. Today, we are able to learn of his expressions of the Way and Its purpose because of the ceaseless practice that he did. Even though we may not be listening with a casual attitude, we still need […]

II – A Delicate Flower and the Trump of Zen (3)

Edward: How many people were there when Watanabe moved Antaiji?
Muho: In the beginning there were 30. But I never saw a picture with 30 people. Probably at the time when Uchiyama retired there were 30 people or more. During sesshin there could have been 50 or 60.

I heard from Watanabe that it was a pain in the ass to have to deal with Uchiyama’s students. Age-wise, a good number of them were older than him. Watanabe was around 32 when he became the abbot in 1975. He was six years older than Miyaura.

So when Watanabe became the abbot, Uchiyama’s students didn’t think of him as their teacher. They thought of him as a dharma brother. They all had their own opinions about how Antaiji should be run and how it should look like once it moves up there.

But Watanabe was this strong character and this Trump-like personality that doesn’t tolerate other opinions. He wants people that follow his orders and do what he expects them to do. I can imagine that Watanabe treasured those people that didn’t have a strong connection with Uchiyama. Miyaura was one of the few of those. But then there were also the monks who had already spent a number of years with Uchiyama in Kyoto but then went to continue to practice at the new Antaiji here.

In the beginning, there were quite a lot of people who didn’t look up to Watanabe as abbot but still had Uchiyama as the teacher in their minds. Whenever Watanabe […]

Antaiji’s history
About Kodo Sawaki and Kosho Uchiyama (with links to English texts)
One text of special relevance: “To you who has decided to become a Zen monk”
Muho: “Adult Practice”
Muho: “Adult Practice: You create Antaiji!”
Muho: “Adult Practice: You don’t count at all!”
Muho: “Adult Practice: Tomatoes and cucumbers”
Muho: “What does it take to become a full-fledged Soto-shu priest and is it really worth the whole deal?”

II – A Delicate Flower and the Trump of Zen (1)

The original Antaiji was located in an area named Gentaku, in the northern part of Kyoto. While founded for the research of Eihei Dogen’s Shobogenzo in 1921, it was made famous by Kodo Sawaki and Kosho Uchiyama, who began using it as a place of practice after the second world war. In the late 1960s, hippies from the west flocked to Asia to learn more about Buddhism, and some ended up at Antaiji – under the abbacy of Uchiyama at the time. Unlike other Zen temples, Uchiyama’s Antaiji welcomed westerners from all walks of life, male and female. He was a frail and gentle figure, the complete opposite of his strong and powerful master Kodo Sawaki. Uchiyama would always use the phrase, a violet blooms as a violet; a rose blooms as a rose, when comparing himself to his teacher. While there were impressive characters like Sawaki that resembled roses, there were also precious violets like Uchiyama. When he […]