Remember, guys, the -in means ‘Temple.’ Basically.
So for my study abroad program (Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies), a piece of our curriculum is a “Community Involvement Program.” New this year, it was a cause mostly of misery for all of us last semester in its original guise of “Community Internship” and was reborn with a new title and more detailed information for the new crop of spring semester kids in January. Last semester we were hurried and harried and basically just picked something for the sake of our Japanese grades; I volunteered with elementary children on Saturdays, and while it was more or less fun, it still felt like a block between me and what I wanted to be doing— not that I knew particularly clearly what that was, of course. This semester, I was determined to do something I wanted to do. And what I wanted to do was volunteer “behind the scenes,” as it were, at a Buddhist temple.
Now this is easier said than done. You can’t just waltz into a temple and be like “O hai, can I make tea for guests?” So I talked to the administrators of my program, and one of the all-powerful office women spoke to her husband, an American & a Zen studies professor at Hanazono University, who introduced me to the young vice-abbot (Japanese 若住職, waka-juushoku; Buddhist temples use a lot of Christian, primarily Catholic, terminology in English) of Shunkou-in (春光院), a sub-temple within the Myoushinji (妙心寺) complex in west-northwest Kyoto. This, mind you, was way back in January. I had only the vaguest idea of what I wanted to do: I wanted to have a reason to be in a temple. Obvi. The young vice-abbot (bio: lived in America for eight years, has an American fiance studying 9th-century esoteric Buddhist statuary) was perplexed but said he would get in touch with me.
Several weeks later, I am informed by the all-powerful office lady that there is a March ceremony I’m welcome to watch. Slowly, I get into contact with the young vice-abbot, we go back and forth, and he says to call about arranging a meeting. Wednesday: I call, we speak briefly, and he says to call back and talk to his mother tomorrow. His mother, delightful over the phone, says how about seven-thirty AM Saturday? I say Gladly!
This brings us to today. Taking a tiny, old, slow-moving train which apparently caters to nowhere in the middle of the city, I arrived at the temple a little before seven thirty (I left my house a bit before six thirty) to find the gate shut. Thinking perhaps they’ll come out about seven thirty to let me in, I sat for awhile watching things go from pretty light to really light. Then suddenly from the heavy wooden side-door which I’d assumed locked comes a confident-looking, frizzy-haired European woman.
“Hello!”
“…Good morning?”
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“I’m supposed to come at seven thirty…”
“Are you here for meditation?”
“No…”
“Okay.” And she strides off.
At that point I knew the side door was unlocked, so after a few minutes, just before seven thirty, I pushed it open and walked up to the sliding doors of the main entrance and rang the bell. Out came the vice-abbot’s mother, the jitei-san (寺底さん, written with temple + garden, is the one in charge of the temple grounds, rooms, etc., a really intense job). She smiles and laughs and is absolutely wonderful.
I followed her around as she took care of the setup in front of each of the statues: changing the water in the small dishes, checking the fruit for damage, placing lit incense in the bowls of ash, making sure the flowers had adequate water, etc. She then insisted that I eat breakfast, saying I was supposed to have come without eating and her son must have forgotten to get the message to me. So I ate with the vice-abbot (Taka) and his fiance (Hillary), a very interesting couple. Then there was a Hyakkanichi (百か日, the 100th day after a person’s death; very traditionally, this is the day you finally put their bones in the grave— the bones have been hanging out in your house for awhile, since people are cremated at about day three or four, and they pass on to the next world at day forty-nine) ceremony, during which the abbot himself (an adorable man) was of course occupied, so the jitei-san, Taka, Hillary, and I washed dishes and chatted. That was basically the pattern for the majority of the day— chatting, dish washing, chatting.
I talked to Taka while his mother was out of the room, explaining that what I wanted— ie, to continue trying to be helpful a few times a week until the end of April or so. He and Hillary agreed that some help might be useful, with reservations. The jitei-san, it seems, was really nervous even about having me in today, and it was a big deal for me to be let into the kitchen. (Aside re: Japanese hospitality: there are places in the house etc. where guests go, where close guests go, and where family goes, ie where guests don’t go. The kitchen falls into the lattermost category, ie, where guests do not go. I was certainly a guest, having only been to the temple once a couple of months before and never having met anyone but the young vice-abbot, so for me to be in the kitchen eating breakfast and lunch with the family was a fairly significant breach of the Normal Way of Being Hospitable.
“You were communicating with her really well, but make sure to keep asking her questions,” Hillary said.
“Ask her lots of questions,” Taka said.
So that’s the plan. Tomorrow I’m going to call after church and talk with her about when exactly it’s helpful (in relative terms) for me to go out there. Saturday the 20th is Ohigan (the O is honorific but necessary), which is a hugely busy day for the temple, so I’ll be going out there then, plus a day or two in between to help with preparation for that. I can do little besides wash dishes and follow instructions, but apparently even a pair of willing hands is worth something. And I’ve got willing hands. :>
