I put up some more photos from our 1983 Japan trip. VACT, SMR, VROT, Lady Rich, Karen Lavin and 88 others. The three main principles were Amaterasu Omi Kami, the Goddess of the Great Eastern Sun; Prince Shotoku, the in-effect Emperor (Prince Regent) who brought Buddhism to Japan; and Kobo Daishi, sometimes called the Leonardo DaVinci of Japan, who brought Vajrayana Buddhism to Japan.
It was a very unusual trip. I would say that every person on that trip went a little or a lot crazy. It was very vajrayana, that way. I didn’t sleep at all the first 3 days. Partially, it was jet lag but more than that, the atmosphere was dripping with power and energy. The place had been overrun with wisdom for hundreds of years and it was dripping with it everywhere, at least in the more Sacred parts where we frequented. After that my strategy for staying sane was to move as little as possible. Either my body or my mind. I don’t think I really understood it that well at the time, but I just tried to rest my mind in the nature of my mind. It was really the only sane way. Then one fit in quite nicely.
We stayed in a nice rustic Inn in Kyoto, the Kusinokiso. We thought the maids all hated us, but when we left they just cried and cried uncontrollably. They loved us, it turned out. We had no idea of how to behave over there (the white people). Japanese are never late for anything, not one minute. We would show up an hour late for breakfast, stroll out an hour late for tours; it drove our hosts, especially our tour guide, batty.
They would cram us 9 into a tiny room and they were totally perplexed when we complained. “We treated you really specially. If this had been Japanese people. we would have doubled up the occupancy.” There was one lady who was admittedly a bit unstable. We got a call from a department store next door to our hotel. We rushed over and she was literally bouncing around the store like a kangaroo. We had to catch her, 2 or 3 of us subdued her, and we returned her to her room. The store people were very understanding and kind about the whole thing. You would find that the people in the stores treated you better than your own mother would. Another man, who was actually in charge of the trip, spent most of his time at one period, talking to himself quite loudly while listening to music on his headphones.
Perhaps the only way to explain it is that there is a lot of wisdom in the land and mostly the people there don’t want to connect with it and we looked like a good place for the wisdom to land. Some people were not quite ready for that. The Vidydhara said that one of our tasks was to bring the Goddess of the Great Eastern Sun back to America, but who knew it was going to be so powerful.
Ise was a magical place. It is the home of Amaterasu Omi Kami. The energy is so powerful there that when you put your hand on a cypress tree, it buzzes with a kind of electrical current. It’s outrageous. It’s gaudy.
Nara is an amazing place. Deer are considered sacred and they are quite tame and everywhere.
Koyasan is quite stunning. It’s a mountain and they have scores of vajrayana temples or monasteries. We were able to watch a fire puja. The Vidydhara Chogyam Trungpa was quite ill there. He retched almost continuously for several hours and it is quite easy to hear things in those wood and paper buildings. The sound of that and the misty, surreal atmosphere of the place left quite an impression. The futility of samsara.
Kyoto was amazing. It seemed as there was a temple and a shrine on every corner. The most magical of places. The sake people loved us. They provided free sake at our banquet. We drank alot of Kikkoman sake in Boulder. The company was beside themselves to find out why their sales were so through the roof there.
I mentioned this lady on the Tea Ceremony page. Life changing just to watch her walk across a room.
View from above Mrs. Shibata's Tea School
Teahouse where we had tea.
Above is Koyasan and a stunning maple tree in early autumn.
This is the Shibata family's shrine.
This is the Shibata family's shrine.
HidenagaAbove the entrance to Sen No Rikyu's teahouse in Kyoto.
Grave of Rikyu's close associate. Military leader, brother of hideyoshi, Tea Master. I felt as I had been him in a past life.
Grave of Rikyu's close associate. Military leader, brother of hideyoshi, Tea Master. I felt as I had been him in a past life.