Prince and Geisha

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Jofuki-ji was a disappointment...the temple was nice, but the hostel was closed....the priest spoke broken English and told me to leave...he was an asshole and it was a pity....

But zen allows assholes to be assholes..


Flash-forward:


A beautiful vista awaited me this morning...after breakfast, I walked up the mountain. Cool turquois streams bubbled and flowed gently towards the flat-lands...explosions of orange, yellow, and brown erupted amid the tall green
forests that clinged to the mountains....I knew I was in the right place.

I walked up to the temple and was impressed by its grandeur. Terrifying red monsters greeted me at the entrance....how appropriate!

....little buddahs sat sprinkled in a corner of the temple courtyard....a huge bell stood nearby....I was day-dreaming....thinking about the little uniformed school-girl sneaking a smoke on the train last night.


In Japan there is an endless number of centers....

Tokyo has no downtown. Your bento has no main dish. Conversation
Has no main topic. Every neighborhood is a village. Tokyo is a city of
Villages.


Mura mura mura mura mura mura mura

Hot time in the mura tonight....


Everything is inter-connected and you FOCUS the self with things
BECAUSE interconnections are a form of POWER.
INTEGRATION of connections is power.

POWER
POWER
POWER
POWER
POWER

Things are transmitters for focusing and gathering ENERGY from source mind
which holds still for things.

Everything is currents.
There are all types of energies
In different spaces.
Every room is a tuning box.


There is greater structure in Japan and a greater number of people
Conscious of that structure.

Greater sensitivity and greater awareness.
Trust and feeling are important.

There's a lot of initiation madness in Japan.
Who you know and how you became known is important.

There is no sense of public in Japan.
Your business can often become everybody's business.

Social acupuncture, anyone?


The Naruto German house was interesting. German prisoners of war were held here during the first world war. All of them had been captured in China. Abe-san's professor at UCLA was a Jew and his father was among the prisoners. The German prisoners were treated like royalty and Abe-san seemed to have a deep admiration for German culture in general. Not too surprising.... Japan and Germany have a lot in common.

Both cultures were victims of an uneven socio-economic development. Literacy before industrial urbanization created a " working class " which was small-town and rurally oriented psychologically. The need for love in the big city caused a lot of father seeking. This future-shock of the peasant mind caused a weird tilt to some unsavory politics.

I asked Abe-san why the Japanese went crazy in Nanjing. " Oh, the soldiers had to let-off some steam....every Japanese is forced into a staright-jacket at home...."

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