If You Read No Other Posts, READ THIS ONE!

(But please read them all, especially the ones I'm in the process of writing!)

The opportunity to visit a Buddhist temple was very unexpected, but something I have wanted for a long time. So I gladly joined other ALTs and the friendly monk at his beautiful home.

The temple entrance was absolutely breathtaking. If you can't tell from my photos, I'm obsessed with Japanese gardens. Sunlight glowing through lacey leaves is one of the most beautiful sights on earth, and gardens are full of them. Usually I'm not one for fantasy (I didn't like "Lord of the Rings" and "The Never-Ending Story" gave me the creeps), but something about Japanese gardens feels so fantastic, magical, and other-worldly that entering them is like stepping into heaven. Adding to the fantasy effect, the garden was chock-full of dragonflies gracefully zooming back and forth. They were so large, and there were so many of them, it felt like you were under water surrounded by fish. There must have been 40 dragonflies in the air at any given time, and they looked like fairies. So before I even entered the temple, I felt far removed from my everyday reality. How you can be in that environment and not feel something...incredible and worthy of enormous respect, I will never know.

So we slowly entered the temple and were ushered to a tatami room. We were given small, sweet "cakes" made out of a chalky substance, and green tea. "To help with zazen," the monk told us in Japanese, which was quickly translated by a nice host father. Now I'm no expert in Buddhism, Zen, or zazen, so please keep that in mind for the remainder of the post. My understanding is that Zen Buddhists practice zazen: sitting on cushions in a lotus-style position and meditating. Your head faces forward, eyes stare at a spot on the floor about one meter in front of you. So your eyes are half-closed, but you remain alert. Your hands are folded in a certain way and placed down in your lap. Focus on breathing. Other than breathing deeply, you don't move. At all. Monks do this for hours at a time, and this monk told us that during his training, he would sit in zazen for at least 3 hours a day. One week of every month, he would do nothing all day but sit in zazen. He paused only to eat and use the bathroom. But he was not allowed to sleep.

The Westerners, however, in our too-tight jeans and t-shirts, sat in awkward zazen poses for 20 minutes. The monk burned a stick of incense to mark the time. Also to begin zazen, he smacked two wooden blocks together, and rang a bell four times. To end zazen, he smacked the blocks once and rang the bell once more. It was like transporting you to another world and then calling you back into this one. I thought my biggest concerns were maintaining the position, clearing my head, and staying alert enough not to slouch or sleep. I was eager to begin.

But then the terrifying part came. If you look down in the "Temple" photos, you will see a picture of a small altar, the the monk's feet, and a long, flat stick. Once we were seated in zazen and our ankles were beginning to ache, the monk explained the purpose of the stick. In short, it was used to keep us alert. If we slouched, or fell asleep, or moved AT ALL, he would hit us on the back. However, if we were sitting especially well, he would also hit us, for encouragement. The monk placed two cushions in the middle of our circle to demonstrate the amount of force he would use to hit us. It was the same either way -- if we did poorly or if we did well, we got hit with the same amount of force. Now, I cannot begin to describe to you how hard he hit the pillows. It was not a smack, bump, hit, or even a whack -- none of these words accurately convey how hard and fast the stick came down. He used his whole body and the whip came from his shoulders and back muscles. And the stick moved so quickly that it made a high-pitched whistle as it cut through the air. I am not exaggerating. Many girls gasped when they saw his demonstration. Cheerfully, he told us not to worry, that he would go easier on the girls. As soon as we sighed with relief, he said, "I'm only kidding. Distinctions are wrong, so if I distinguish between male and female, I will go to hell. So, I will also hit girls like this." The cushions jumped as he gave them two more whips. Then he encouraged us to request the stick, because it would "clear our heads," and he showed us how to bow to make our request clear. (You were to place your hands together in front of your heart, and bow low while sitting so that he could hit your back. Four times. The right and left sides of your spine, then again -- right and left. He would walk around the circle as we meditated, and hit someone when he deemed appropriate, or when we asked for it.

I was so confused and began to panic in my silence. Was there a mis-translation? Was he joking about hitting girls so hard? Hitting any of us that hard? How would we know if we had done a good or poor job? What if I sneezed? What if a dime-sized mosquito landed on my cheek? What if I didn't want to be hit? The American girl beside me, my friend Courtney, whined to herself, "What is going on? We don't hit people like this in my culture." I didn't agree with her attitude, but I was terrified all the same. I have never felt so far away from home in my life. What had I gotten myself in to? I was in another country, practicing something from another religion, under the complete control of a bald man who could go for a week without sleeping and didn't speak my language. Now I understood how girls went to other countries and got tangled in situations that looked so stupid and easily preventable from the outside. I understood how curiosity killed the cat.

When the monk clacked the blocks, my body went rigid. Nobody moved. I forced myself to breathe slowly and there was no way I was going to fall asleep. My entire body was focused on where the monk was in the cirlce, and how long he paused each time he stood in front of me. I had to swallow every time he passed because I was so nervous that he might hit me. And then I worried that such a big swallow would be considered "moving." The adrenaline gave me a headache and the incense burned my eyes. Was I allowed to blink? I tried blinking only when the monk was facing the other direction.

When the monk turned and bowed to someone down the line, I heard a girl gasp. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him gently place his hands on someone's back, to guide him/her closer to the ground. First he gave two light taps, I assume to inform the ALT of where exactly he would be hit. And then the monk whipped the person's back four times, with all the force he exerted earlier on the pillows. He had not been joking. After, the gently guided the person back to sitting position, and the "teacher" and "student" bowed to each other slowly. I didn't dare move, so I had no idea if the person had asked to be hit, or who the person was.

The monk continued to circle. After about 10 minutes I could feel myself slumping, but I was afraid to straighten my back and catch the monk's eye. So I prayed the slump was only perceptible to me. How could this be good meditation? I wasn't focused on clearing my head. I was only focused on the monk's movement, my own breathing, and my pointless will to not endure pain. I had a very brief taste of what torture might be like -- having no control over anything, seeing others around you being hurt and not being able to do anything about it for fear that the same thing would happen to you. A person would most definitely go insane feeling like that for too long. I decided that if the monk stopped to hit me, I would look up at him and back away. Quickly. I wouldn't allow it to happen --and too bad if it wrecked everyone else's zazen.

Over the course of 20 minutes, the monk hit about 5 or 6 people. He did not hit me. It turns out only one person who got hit did not ask for it. Right before time was up, the girl beside me (who complained earlier) asked to be hit. I couldn't believe it. I was in awe and total disbelief. Why did she feel she needed that experience? It was nothing I had a desire to try -- I just wanted to meditate, in peace, for goodness sake. When the stick came down on my friend's back, I heard her skin and the organs under it flaten out under the pressure.

Shortly after that, the monk ended the zazen, and I felt like I was alive again. I was rejoicing. I looked around me, but nobody else looked how I felt. I turned to John with huge eyes but he looked totally calm. He had a lazy smile on his face. "Why weren't you terrified?" I asked him. I was almost, but not quite, angry he seemed to take it so lightly. He just shrugged. "I don't know. If you get hit, you get hit. I couldn't really do anything about it. Of course it would hurt like hell, but nothing lasts forever."

The experience made me realize a lot of things. I was shocked into silence for the rest of the day, and had a hard time being genki with my host family because I couldn't stop thinking about the temple. I'd never been so out of control in my life, and I was frustrated to finally realize how much control I need to feel comfortable. I was also frustrated because no one else seemed as afraid as I did. They were just like, "Yeah, it was hard, and now I have four red welts down my back, but I had to try it, you know?" What were these people talking about?! It made me feel crazy, like I was the only one who wanted to avoid it. Why was I a control freak because I didn't want a stranger to beat me with a big wooden stick? A few hours later, I spoke to John again about how strange and nervous I felt. He smiled and said, almost sarcastically, "Was it everything you hoped and dreamed it would be?" (He knew I had wanted to visit a temple for a while.) I glared at him, speechless. Why did I feel like no one on the planet understood me when it came to religion or spirituality? I felt like I was always on a different religious plane. Most of the time I couldn't even articulate my thoughts to myself, so how could someone else understand me well enough to have a real conversation about it? I felt miles away from John and everyone else, and like I had more in common with the dragonflies outside. At least they wouldn't whip me or piss me off, and joke about it afterwards.

The thing that surprised me even more was how good I felt after zazen. My head DID feel clear. To make a really bad analogy, if my brain were a toilet, it was like someone dumped in tons of adrenaline and then flushed. My head, my whole body really, felt totally empty and clear. If it were a toilet bowl it would have been white and gleaming. I was seeing things for what they were. And I was so glad to be alive and healthy.

At this point, I'm not sure where to go with this story. It's not over for me, as I'm still thinking about the possible consequences of the situation...what it says about me, what it says about the rest of the world, etc. I just know that this was an unexpected landmark for me, and usually my landmarks are premeditated. I have this idea that I draw my own maps, and mark my own spots. But really they are drawn by some other hand, and I'm just along for the ride.