The day started with sowing wheat. I got the seeds from a friend in Austria, the sort is called “Amadeus”. Hopefully it will survive the heavy snow during the Antaiji winter. At ten o’ clock, three people working in the forest business came to teach us about using chain saws safely. They began with … Read more
One of the many technical terms in a Zen monastery that even present day Japanese hardly understand is “tosu”. The oldest and biggest tosu in Japan can be found in Tofukuji in Kyoto. Today it is used as a zazen hall, but originally it used to be a huge toilet. The literal meaning of “tosu” … Read more
Because of another approaching typhoon, it has been raining a lot the last couple of days. Fortunately, most of the rain this year fell on sesshin or free days. In the past, we had years when the sun shone in the blue sky during sesshin, and when we went to work in the fields it … Read more
As the stock of kitchen wood has come to an end, we have been cutting and chopping wood today. The wood is stored in the garage, behind the bulldozer. Together with Tsukan I cut the big pieces with a circular saw to a length of about 25 centimeters, so that they can be chopped … Read more
Twice each year, in May after the rice planting and in October after the rice harvest, their is a holiday at Antaiji called “Obosan”, literally a “big free day”. On these days there is no zazen, no cleaning, and of course no work either. Even the cook is off duty, which means that everyone is … Read more
Florian Wiltschko, an Austrian Shinto priest living in Shibuya, Tokyo, performs a thanksgiving ceremony in Antaiji’s main hall. After the ceremony, we ate the first new rice this year with ground yams. It was delicious!
Presenting two new Japanese books by Uchiyama Roshi and Seigaku. Segaku is a young Japanese monk who has a dojo in Berlin. Here is his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/undoinberlin And this is his “Unsui Cafe” in Japanese: http://unsui.net/ Below are links to the respective books by Seigaku and Uchiyama on Japanese Amazon: 坐ればわかる 身体と心が美しくなる禅の作法 内山興正老師いのちの問答
Today was another one day sesshin. Apart from the 5 day sesshin at the start of each month, we hold these “mini sesshins” four times a month, on the 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th. On these days we sit from 4am to 3pm, with breakfast at 9am and curry rice at 3:15pm. The evening is … Read more
Already 5 years have passed since wet set the first stone for this wall. but if we can keep the present pace, we might be able to finish the work this autumn. Or maybe next year after all…