12/12 Words feel meaningless.
One of the most important lessons this year was that I can, in fact, just sit down and shut up. More nicely put, I learned that I am capable of cultivating silence. And that it is probably the best state to be in for me.
For this reason, the yearbook entry I wrote a couple of days ago might not hold any value but I am going to give myself some grace and leave it as is.
12/10 A year of mistakes, learning, and more mistakes. A year of aiming at sitting Zazen, aiming at being here.
A year of rice; preparing the fields, seeding, watering, transplanting, fertilizing, weeding, harvesting, drying and threshing. Experiencing this whole process for the first time was very impressive.
Now it’s shortly after Rohatsu Sesshin and using many words still doesn’t feel quite right. I probably couldn’t find the right ones to describe this year in detail anyway. There is just gratitude for the experiences it provided, all of them.
And soon we will leave Antaiji to do Takuhatsu which in all honesty intimidates me quite a bit, it will be important practice, not only because of that. So I am very much looking forward to it. I hope the city-people will bear with me and my broken Japanese.
When I went on summer holiday in July I wrote the following:
„Seven months ago my biggest practice and the biggest surprise was just getting up in the morning
Now every waking moment encompasses so much”
This still holds true now.
I think this year I went from knowing nothing and being so insecure to still knowing nothing yet feeling settled in a way. I watched myself getting used to sitting, to the schedule, to the work. To getting up in the morning, brushing my teeth, washing my body every day. In a way just getting used to being here, maybe even to being alive. Not in a habitual way, every day is still different. Getting used to as in being o.k. with the state of things. (Which there is also no such thing as a permanent state of things but whatever who am I to pretend to actually know about these things).
That being said, there were many misjudgements, countless moments of not realizing or seeing clearly. Also many times of not understanding, not only because of the language differences. I guess it is straining on the others to deal with my oblivion and I often wish I could apologize (sometimes I do). I can only attempt to return the patience and grace I have been given.
Next year will probably be the same, a year of mistakes, but I am alright with that, as long as they are new ones and alongside them there will be learning as well.
