A Day to Catch Up - June 6

This morning we went and meditated with the monk who runs this temple, Rev. Taka. The room had sliding rice paper panels which were open to a stunning garden, allowing the cool morning breeze in on an already warm day. Following the meditation we took a tour of the grounds with Rev. Taka, learned about him, his life, and his family. The following is his inspirational story (and if pastor Jim reads this, you would really like this guy, he's your kind of person).

Vice Abbot Taka is descendant from the feudal-lord system which used to rule Japan. When the laws changed in Japan his family lost all their land and titles and they started this temple, and are still running it five generations later. After high school Taka went to the United States for college, graduated, and landed a job as a corporate event planner which took him all over the United States. On vacation back home to this beautiful temple one summer, and with a national push to increase tourism, Taka decided to leave the United States and become vice-abbot.

While in the United States Taka had the opportunity to be a TA for an undergraduate class at his university. There were 10 Japanese students in his class, 2 of which new about their Buddhist background. The other 8 while all raised in Japan, didn't know very much about their own history and their own culture. Rev. Taka shared that "when you know yourself, you are open to be able to know others" and that the 2 students who knew their background were able to mesh with the US culture, try new things and meet new people, while the other 8 students only hung out with each other.

Upon returning to Japan he blended his knowledge of event planning with his new status as Abbot and opened up a series of both Japanese style and Western style rooms for people to come and stay at his temple. His goal is to be able to lead Japanese young people back to their roots, and has a detailed plan on how to accomplish this, including opening a larger guest house so that entire school groups can stay here, as well as establishing ties with universtities all over the world and have international student groups come to stay here. At a more local level, teach classes on yoga, and other forms of meditation to bring both travelers and locals into the temple. This beautiful, peaceful place is clearly his passion, and we have no doubt that with his energy and enthusiasm he will be successful in his ventures.

The rest of the day we tried okonomiyaki (we knew it was going to be good when we had to stand in line outside, before getting to the line inside, before we could have a table), went shopping, and did our laundry.