First Trips To Asia
On a 1930 family sojourn to East Asia, Ruth met D. T. Suzuki, who gave her basic instruction for meditation, and told her that the best way to learn about Zen would be to return to Japan for an extended stay. Back in the US, she kept up a meditation practice and a correspondence with Suzuki. In 1932, she returned to Japan, arriving April 1. Suzuki introduced her to Nanshinken Roshi (Kono Mukai) of the Rinzai Zen monastery in Kyoto at Nanzen-ji, and she became his student. At first, she sat in the roshi's small private temple, because she was not allowed in the zendo. Six days a week, she rose at 5am, did zazen until 7am, had breakfast, went to Nanzen-ji, did zazen there all day, returned home for supper and a bath, and did more zazen at home until midnight. Nanshinken gave her a koan, and Suzuki acted as interpreter between roshi and student. After a month, she began to sit in the zendo, where the monks, originally resistant, soon welcomed her presence. She was back in the US in the summer. Decades later, she referred to those months at Nanzen-ji as "the most completely satisfactory time I have ever had in my life."
Read more about this topic: Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Famous quotes containing the words trips and/or asia:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So-called Western Civilization, as practised in half of Europe, some of Asia and a few parts of North America, is better than anything else available. Western civilization not only provides a bit of life, a pinch of liberty and the occasional pursuance of happiness, it’s also the only thing that’s ever tried to. Our civilization is the first in history to show even the slightest concern for average, undistinguished, none-too-commendable people like us.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)