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.
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