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women are connected with Aichi Senmon Nisodo in Nagoya, the major
Japanese training center for Soto Zen nuns. A few are monastics, while
most are laywomen who come to the convent to receive teachings, take
part in ceremonies, and practice various arts. For these laywomen,
however, most of their religious life occurs at home, and is what Arai
calls domestic Zen, or “healing in the midst of a mess.” The head of the
convent, Aoyama Shundo Roshi, emphasizes the importance of supporting
laywomen because each one supports so many other people. Most of the
women lived through World War II, and most have experienced significant
trauma and illness. Before Arai spoke with them, few other people had
ever listened to them recount their painful experiences. Perhaps
it’s not surprising, then, that the focus of their religious lives is
healing—but healing in a very particular sense, grounded in their
understanding of Buddhist teachings. As Arai explains it, suffering
comes from the mistaken sense that a person is unrelated—separate,
alone, and unsupported. This leads to loneliness, accompanied by fear
and craving for things that cannot be. Healing is experienced as a peace
that doesn’t shatter in the presence of difficult events or delusional
thoughts, and which is the result of a heartfelt experience of
interrelatedness: each of us is integral to an all-encompassing network
in which compassionate support is constantly being given and received. Prayer,
for example, is less a matter of a petition to a specific figure than a
request sent out through the net of interconnectedness. At the same
time, there’s a strong awareness of listening for and receiving the
prayers of others. In this way each woman becomes Kanzeon,
whose name means “Perceive the Sounds of the World,” or as it is
frequently translated “She Who Hears the Cries of the World.” The aim is
to have Kanzeon’s heart, the heart of compassion that accepts
everything. You help your heart grow bigger so that everything will
fit—even the things you don’t like or agree with. According to Gyokko
Sensei, one of the women featured in Bringing Zen Home,
“With Kanzeon you see the world not through the eyes, but through your
heart-mind. Then, everything will appear differently. Look deep from the
heart-mind… All things in the universe communicate through the
heart-mind.” In
contrast, rejection of outer circumstances or inner states creates
negativity, which enslaves a tremendous amount of energy and calcifies
into bitterness in the heart. If painful emotions and illnesses are seen
as buddhas, too, it becomes possible to “forgive” them and even develop
an intimacy with them. “Healing from grief does not mean that grief
will stop,” Arai says. “On the contrary, healing involves expecting and
preparing for the changing seasons of grief.” Healing
is a way of “holding your heart,” an orientation toward life rather
than a rigid program of belief and behavior. It’s a constant
improvisation aimed at retraining the self toward harmony with the way
things are, which is interrelated and impermanent. It’s a point of view
that “expects change and encourages you to see yourself as part of
something big.” These women are perfectly comfortable both adopting
traditions and adapting them to their needs. For example, it’s customary
for married women to tend a family altar for their husband’s ancestors,
but they’ve enlarged tradition by setting up second altars for their
own ancestors. Meditation isn’t an important part of their practice, but
rituals are. Arai says that “the types of practices found in domestic
Zen are done amidst the sound of water running for the laundry, dishes,
and baths. Adding [sacred] water to the rice the family will eat for
dinner is seen as much of a key ingredient in nurturing the family as
are soy sauce and seasoning.” In
addition to tending their family altars, the women chant, copy sutras
and images of figures like Kannon, ingest sacred symbols and sacred
water for healing, join in communal ceremonies at the temple, meet
together in small groups for rituals, go on pilgrimage, and participate
in arts like calligraphy, flower arranging, and the way of tea. In times
of crisis they chant Nenpi Kannon Riki (“I
call on the power of Kannon”). On many different levels, they find the
refuge of the guest in these practices. For example, everything in the
universe is seen as a buddha, but the ancestors on their family altars
are “personal buddhas” to whom they can bring their whole selves. Gyokko
Sensei explains, “I don’t feel that they will just take care of my
problems. I feel that they will look with warm affection. I do pray they
help things go in a good direction.” In Japan it’s customary when
someone returns home to call out “I’m home!” and whoever is in the house
replies, “Your return home is welcomed!” Honda-san always calls out in
this way when she returns home, even though she lives alone. She’s
speaking to the personal buddhas on her altar, and she hears their
welcoming reply in her heart. It’s glorious to hear all the voices in Bringing Zen Home and Searching for Guan Yin—to
feel the common yearnings, the different responses to them, and the
ways that host and guest can blend into each other. These women’s
prayers, their outer and inner pilgrimages, and their understandings
have entered the vast net of interconnectedness, and we have the
pleasure of receiving their communications, heart-mind to heart-mind.
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