はなれ - Hanare

When the alignment of Kai are completed, the tension grows until the string slips away from the gloved hand and the arrow looses itself towards the target...” One arrow One Life”…K. Kushner

It was finally the last day. Part of me was glad, I was ready to go home, yet I was also sad for things to end now that I found the flow and temp were normalizing.

I was one of the first today at the Zendo. The doors to the inner room were not even open yet. I did some warm ups and chi gong whist waiting. I was re-centered… finally. I had no care of the length of sitting. I looked forward to seeing and feeling the change of Yin air to Yang, the relm of the moon to the kingdom of the sun. Today I felt the chants not just said them. I heard and felt the tones, the vibrations, the chi of the voices. The prostrating was another form of moving Zen, it was the flow of kung fu movement, it was connecting to the earth chi, the source of this body from earth to earth.

We had our usual morning sessions then breakfast. This was our most simple meal since being here, Cherrios and Banana bread. I made the mistake of not tasting things first, and put brown sugar on the cereal…made it too sweet! yuck!  I did not want to waste food, so I sucked it up

That morning after breakfast our group’s work period was to pack and “leave no trace” That was one of the code words for our presence there the whole time. Meaning, leave no mess, cleanup after ourselves. That we did with mindfulness. Always reminded me of Carlos Castinata (sp), when I read that. That was his statement on the way of a warrior.

Now it is finally time for us to to do our final practice. We were suppose to give a demo to the residents there at the Zen center. It was done with full Kyudo formality. The only sad part was my small camera data disk was full, so I could not take a video of the shooting. There were some folks there taking video, a copy should turn up I can access. We practiced, and reviewed what we learned. It went well. Everyone was pleased to be shooting under more comfortable conditions.

Lunch was good! Veggie chili, Home made apple sauce and cornbread. It was good and hit the spot. It was our final meal there at the center. I raised a question from remark made at breakfast about how good food was after doing Zazen for 2 hours. I asked at which time does it taste best. After 2 hours Zazen or working in the Garden, room, etc? I suppose in true Zen sense, both would/should be equal as each moment , each sight, each breath, each taste, is new, fresh, magical, from Zen eyes, or tonge in this case.

The demo was nice, we looked like we really knew what we were doing. Myself and another guy did one type of two arrow, kneeling shooting, and the rest of the men’s group who were more experienced did another type. I was in charge of sitting the pace for my little section as the other guy was not comfortable with it. Great I’m new at it also. Ok, ganbattemasu! I set our pace to match the other group so we all looked in harmony through doing somewhat different things. It was not really hard, being use to following Kung Fu/Tai Chi movements. Many parts where the same as what we were doing, so when we hit those I set us to match them. I could not see it, but it felt good and correct.

I would really at some point just like to shoot a bunch, just stand and shoot some 20 or 30 arrows. That would give me a real sense of balance, timing, aim, etc.

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Hard to believe week now as gone by, well over a week really. Tomorrow , the Lady Z will be heading out for a completely different Zen experience. Interesting, this one is next to the ocean and on the cool side. I am getting Yin and Yang in anther sense of Chi in this training period. I wanted to get this mostly done before I left. I have done so. I feel a sense of completion, of release ( Hanare). I will be adding the final entry Zanshin (Remaining Heart/Mind) for this after the holidays and our Heart Zen retreat in Monterey.

Whoa I just notice how that came out…. trippy, the remaining heart thing to heart zen

Mata Ne! またね