Entries this day: Day_course_for_kids Kids_course_meeting Zzzz

Day course for kids

11:37pm JST Sunday 07 May 2006 (day 13192)

Today, which seems like ages since the ten day course which ended just yesterday, I was blessed with the opportunity to be a server for a single day Kids' course in Vipassana meditation!

I was quite hesitant to join, given my Japanese is not all that great, and offered to just help in the kitchen, but I was assured by both Toa and Yoshiko that it would be just fine for me to work with the kids. So I did.

And it was great fun!

We did basically all the same things we had done yesterday (about which I have not yet written, but plan to, so I'll just summarize here): made pencils, watched the fox-and-crow play, chowed absolutely delicious (sweet) curry, ran around in the garden (I took a picture of one of the stools I repaired), painted and finger painted, meditated for an hour total (four 15 minute sessions), and did progressively more difficult memorization games after each meditation.

Memorizing the numbers was pretty easy for me because I chose and drew/painted more than half of them. The numbers were 2, 7, 8, 11, 25, 36, 42, 50, 88, and 91, all drawn on heavy stock art paper, and shown to the group in order. Then the kids were asked to write them all down. I don't know about the three girls (basically students here (and even residents, to a great extent) are separated by gender), but two of the boys (てんぺい & けいた) got all ten, and ゆうき missed one. (80 instead of 88).

The symbols were a bit harder for me (triangle, two concentric circles, yen symbol, left arrow, U-turn arrow, @, music clef, upside-down T-shaped block, U-shaped block, do not enter sign (white horizontal bar on red background)), but the pictures were basically a breeze: fox, black bird, yellow bird, bread, strawberries, lemon, flower, tree, pencils, gong. The first four were from the play, Buddha is said to have become enlightened under a tree, we made pencils, and the gong is gonged before every meal and every group meditation period.

Kids course meeting

7:25pm JST Sunday 07 May 2006 (day 13192)

(transcribed 12:13pm JST Wednesday 17 May 2006)

We just finished a 2.5 or 3 hour meeting reviewing every detail of the Kids' Course vipassana day camp thing from today. 13 to 17 people (some of them had to leave to take care of things around the center (cook, answer phone, escape the meeting?)), all (but one) of whom listened intently to every bit, including a recording of the play (15 minutes), and to each persons' overall thoughts about the day.

I did not listen to every bit intently, but I tried to. The meeting was held completely in Japanese, and I basically couldn't follow any of it, but I knew it was about the camp from today. Essentially none of the 2.5 to 3 hours was taken up in translating to English, except when it came around to my turn to give overall thoughts. Each person was speaking in turn for like 3 to 5 minutes and then it was my turn. I was like, "what's the question?"

My comments were translated to Japanese, so that took an extra 2 minutes tacked onto the 2.5 or 3 hours.

Soon as the meeting was finished, our leader Yoshiko said in Japanese and then in English to me, "now we are going to sit [meditate] .. from 7:30" (five minutes from then)

I was like, whoah [blink] "okay!" with all the positive energy I could muster.

Didn't we just sit for 2.5 to 3 hours??

Zzzz

12:05am JST Monday 08 May 2006 (day 13193)

I'm pretty much super tired, and am not even sure if I am allowed to be writing on my computer (but I'm leaving tomorrow and I have my own room tonight (and last night)), but

I have overall really enjoyed my time here. The 4th - 8th days of the course my have super sucked, but the 10th day was magic, and playing like kids after the 10th day was delightful, and the kids' program today was great.

I'm feeling closer to the people who have been the backbone here in these past 2 weeks: Toa, the man who was sat at the mens' registration table and was basically the mens' side leader is pretty cool and likes to laugh a lot. Takaki has a shaved head and pretty good English and is generally friendly and funny. The guy with spikey hair makes people laugh almost every time he speaks. He's the one who made a cell-phone shaped pencil. "あっ、もしもし？" with a little clay rectangle and long pencil lead antenna. Hilarious!! The chef, quiet with bald head, has been preparing the most fantastic meals every day since I arrived! I believe he's going to shave my head tomorrow. Akira, who I didn't really like at first because he talks too much, I now find generally friendly though he just tries too hard to be friendly, but always with good intentions.

On the womens' side, Karina from Argentina seems cool, sitting through today's meeting with her eyes closed, but still smiling each time something funny was said; the older woman from Germany who has been in Japan 30 years talked with me at length the few times we were able to speak; Yoshiko, our teacher for the 10 day course and the kids' course is becoming more approachable; a woman whose name I don't know but lives in Tokyo asked about language lessons for her husband (I believe); とっこ (actually としこ) is friendly, plus tall and has a cute big smile, like Tomoko the member of staff at 川崎 NOVA.

I'm probably going to head out tomorrow after breakfast, group meditation, and head shaving. I'll try to write/send a ROB Update before I go. Plan to go north to the Sea of Japan, then west to 琵琶湖 (びわこ; I think the kanji is correct), the biggest lake in Japan), then to Nagano or Nagoya; I guess I'll miss Osaka and that fabulous ice-cream-filled internet cafe....