top of page

The little story  : 

It was 13 years ago, I went every Sunday to the temple of Soji-ji (¾ hour from Tokyo) for the zazen kai (sitting meditation session) of the lay people and twice a year, I did the temple retreats.  We were in June, I had made my life a great obligation and I was exhausted. I was looking forward to these 5 days in the heart of summer to "  rejuvenate  ".

A week before the scheduled date I found it strange not to have any news from the temple and knowing the surgical organization of the Japanese I decided to call.   I learned to my dismay that my registration had not been taken into account. At the time I did not master   the language well and I must have made a mistake. 

I contacted the person in charge of the pensions that I knew to see if he could find me a small place, but nothing to do it was complete. 

After several hours of great frustration I came to the obvious, if I could not go to this retreat, it was going to come to me.  !

This is how I prepared myself  to live these 5 days to the rhythm of zazen, samu,   meals,   teyshou (conferences) and from home, do   Soji-ji's summer retreat. 

I had the book of songs, my zafu, the schedules and I made myself a program parallel to that of the temple with the samu (community work such as cooking, garden cleaning) where I decided to  enjoy   this commitment to make these   cleanings always postponed   or the deferred classification, and during the tesshyou I decided to read  texts on zen   before making me a   sober meal.

I did my shopping for 5 days  :   semi-complete rice, miso and vegetables and decided to make myself very simple menus.

The day before the retreat, I set my alarm clock  on the hour of the bell and that's how I   myself "  stalled  » on the 300 monks of soji-ji for 5 days.  

 

It was an incredible experience, which allowed me to realize that there was no other temple than the one of my life and that all I had to do was to walk one step in front of the other without more. Choose. This is how I could feel the joy   doing for the sake of doing, aimless sitting, and the surprise of seeing enthusiasm controlling my days.  

 

This is what I would like to offer you in a format that nourishes the temple of our lives. 

bottom of page