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bert sijben
5th April 2006, 08:54
There is a story I would like to share with you.I now live in fukuoka Japan, about one years ago I met an old friend of mine wich name I will not tell, because the story is too funny.

He told me that some years ago, he went to a zen monestary to practice some zen meditation. The monestary was located near hiroshima, and he was coming from kyushu. The traveltime was quite long, so when he reached the monestary he was quite hungry. But to his very great shock, there were no beer and ships. Just a little bit of rice so he could not get to sleep very well. The morning after he was woken very very early, and everybody was very quickly moving to get their tooth brushed, face shaven and dressedbed. He was very shocked because they only had 15 min.
After they had to go for zazen 40 min. He said after 4 or 5 min he could not sit any more in that position.
After that came some zen mondo, ................... nothing. So the head master sent him for cleaning the hallway. The object was to clean the hallway for 1 hour, but my friend was finished after 5 min, he said I could not find any dust. Then the headmaster told him that he was not ready for zen, and zen will come to him in time.

So now i sometimes meet him because it is such a nice and innocent caracter he works as a tourguide for dutch and belgian people in japan. The new tour he is going to do is called ZenZen Japan, when I asked him for the depth of his mind. he answered do you know zenboeddhism, i said that I heard of it but the secret reason he called the new tour this way, because he said to me do you know the word zen zen damai.
I just got very quiet and smiled, hopefully he did not see the tear coming from my right eye.

Michael Hodge
5th April 2006, 22:22
I just got very quiet and smiled, hopefully he did not see the tear coming from my right eye.


Perhaps you'd qualify your story with some detail? I'm aware "zenzen" means "never" in Japanese, but the punchline escapes me.

Michael Hodge

bert sijben
5th April 2006, 23:04
Dear Micheal,

You might be aware that in zen there is enjoyment in nothingness, my friend
used the word zenzen damai, the meaning is as follows. Say you have a kata if your teacher would say zenzendamai, then your kata would be qualified as nothing, not a little bit no good no nothing.
So when my friend said he is going to use zenzendamai for the purpose of taking people to japan exploring zen. It is exactly nothing. He is too stupid and too lazy besides he haven`t respect for other people,selfreflection is unknown. He is like a fish swimming in nothing going to nothing.
Why I have friends like that, because he is there. nothing more nothing less.

Best regards Bert Sijben,fukuoka

Michael Hodge
5th April 2006, 23:41
You might be aware that in zen there is enjoyment in nothingness..


Curious story. Thanks for clearing it up.

Michael Hodge