Seiza seats now on sale at Sweetpersimmon.com

For the holidays, I have just put the portable mediation seats on sale at SweetPersimmon.com The price was $49.99, now on sale for $40.00.

Made from sustainable wood and eco-friendly milk paint, our Portable Meditation Seat weighs just 12 oz. and comes in its own carry bag that doubles as padding.  It's small enough to fit in a purse, briefcase or gym bag.  Great for travel, meditation retreats or even used as a backpacking camp stool where every ounce counts.  The unique design and finish of our Portable Meditation Seat reflect the Japanese wabi aesthetic of rustic, simple beauty.

Size: 8 by 5.5 by 4 inches in carrying case
Dimensions: 7.5" wide by 4" deep by 7.75" tall when assembled
Weight: 1 lb. 4 ounces

Just for you, my readers, here is the coupon code for free shipping:   FREE SHIP

And while you are there, look around at the new handbags I just listed.

"I like my new zazen bench. It's Great!  ...everyone thought it was extremely cool. I could hardly believe it could be small enough to put in your kimono sleeve, but it sure enough is! The design is just so clean and functional, it's so nicely finished and so strong, and I love how the bag converts to upholstery. It really fits a guy my size perfectly." ~ Tim Sowa Olson, Tea Ceremony Sensei, Seattle Urasenke Branch

Michael Kenna in Hokkaido

I took the photo above rather in tribute to Michael Kenna. He is one of my favorite photographers.  He first came to my attention about 15 years ago, and I have been following his career ever since.  He works exclusively in Black and White film.  His photos are a meditation just to look at and remind me strongly of black and white sumie paintings.

I actually got to meet him in Seattle and he signed my first edition of his book, Japan. It came in a beautiful black silk slipcase with an embossed kanji for Nihon on the outside.  Inside the book cover is rising sun red with a simple white JAPAN on the outside.  As part of the exhibition, you were given a clipboard and paper and encouraged to write haiku as you went around the gallery to view the photos.


He has done much more work since then, in France, San Francisco, England and all of them very much in the same style.  I have several of his calendars that I turn over and over again.  You can see more if his work here.  And if you are so moved to purchase and support this artist, his publisher is Naraeli Press where you can purchase a calendar for this year.

He has returned over and over again to Japan, especially in winter and has published other books based on the Japanese landscape, most recently Hokkaiko.   Also here is an interview with Michael Kenna talking about filming in Hokkaido in the winter.  Enjoy

Sitting seiza for tea

One of the most difficult things about studying tea is sitting seiza.   As I am getting older, it is getting more difficult for me to sit for long periods of time.  I do tell my students that like any other physical activity (and sitting seiza is a physical activity) you must get in shape.

Sensei once told my husband when he first began to study tea, to sit in the bathtub at home.   He did, but it was so painful for him that he thought that sensei recommended it because it was almost a relief to sit on tatami after sitting on the cold porcelain!  What she forgot to tell him was to fill the bath with hot water so that it would relax the muscles and tendons and help buoy up his weight.

Seriously, sitting seiza does not come naturally to us.  I tell my students that they need to get into shape.  Sitting once a week will only get you so far.  It helps to sit a little bit every day and work up to longer and longer periods of sitting.  I have my laptop computer on the coffee table and sit seiza while working on computer for as long as I can before I rest, or I sit seiza while watching TV to keep in shape.  Breathing, and keeping your mind focused on your temae will also help.

Sometimes, sitting on the meditation seat helps, especially with the ankles. New students usually need a sitting aid such as this stool. One thing to be very sure of is if your feet and ankles are numb, please be very careful and not get up until you get the feeling back into your feet.  We have time, and a good first guest will be able to tell a story, or discuss some aspect of the tea room, or utensils to help distract the other guests while the host recovers feeling in his legs. You can purchase one of these seats from SweetPersimmon.com.  It comes in its own little carry bag that gives you a little extra padding, too.

Another thing that I have discovered that helps is acupuncture.  In fact, if you are in Portland, I recommend Working Class Acupuncture, because they charge a sliding scale $15-35 per visit.  Very affordable.  It is community acupuncture. They treat you in lounge chairs in one big room. You can stay for as long as you like.  You can find other community acupuncture clinics all over the U.S.

Besides the pain of sitting seiza, acupuncture will help with a lot of other things, too.

The heart of tea

Rikyu says:
The very heart which wants to enter the Way is the best teacher.

Sensei says:
Beginning teachers want to teach the heart of tea and lecture about it.  This is virtually impossible to do.  Don't get trapped into a romantic notion of tea .  You cannot define it for others.  Temae teaches the heart of tea itself. It is in the movement we discover ourselves.  You can't think your way there, you must use your body.

I sometimes have beginning students who are adverse to doing temae over and over again.   They think that if they have seen it a couple of times and done one or two, that they have learned it and want to go on to the next thing.  The thing is that they cannot remember the order of it unless I prompt them.  If they had to do it on their own, they would be lost. 

Recently a few of my students assisted me in a presentation of Chanoyu.  I was doing the explanation and one student was guest and the other host.   It was one of the first times that they both had to do everything on their own, and they learned so much by doing it without me to help them.   One student said it was like doing tea without a net -- scary and exhilarating at the same time. But they both said that they learned so much from just doing it.  

Some people say that tea is moving meditation.  If you can make tea according to the procedures without getting bored or sloppy and still remain aware of your surroundings and your guests, then you will have found the heart of tea.

After a tea gathering

"After host and guest have expressed their feelings of regret and after the final farewells have been said, the guests depart through the roji (garden).  They do not call out in loud voices, but turn silently for one last look.   The host, moved, watches them until they are gone from sight.  It would not do for him to rush about closing the naka-kuguri, the sarudo, and the other doors, for this would make the day's entertainment meaningless.  Even though it is not possible to see the guests returning to their homes, the host should not put things in order quickly.  Rather, he should return quietly to the setting of the tea gathering and, crawling through the nijiguchi, seat himself before the hearth.  Wishing to speak longer with his guests, he must wonder how far they have gotten on their ways home.  This "one time, one meeting" has come to an end, and the host reflects upon the fact that it can never be repeated.  The highest point of a tea meeting is, in fact, to have a cup of tea alone at this time.  All is quiet, and the host can talk to no one but the kettle.  This is a state in which nothing else exists, a state that cannot be known unless one has attained it oneself."
~ from Chanoyu Ichie Shu by Ii Naosuke

Take a left before you get to the Buddha

Certainly I am not a Zen student, I know very little about Zen. But I was on my way to the yoga class at the Dai Bosatsu Zen monastery, and I didn't know how to get to the library where the class was held. I had already wandered around and run into a room where the monks were chanting and nearly smacked into the Roshi during the services, so I didn't want to disturb them any further.

I asked around and these were the instructions on how to get there: "Go up to the second floor and take a left before you get to the Buddha." It rather struck me as funny that I would have to take a left before I got to the Buddha in a Zen monastery, but I suppose we all take detours in our life. I can also see this as a metaphor in following teachings that tell you to take a left before you get to the Buddha. If you took that left you would end up in the library with lots of words, and words could become confusing (at least to me) about Zen.

On the other hand, the yoga class was just what I needed. I never had yoga before. I am so stiff I cannot sit half lotus when sitting zazen. I have never taken a yoga class, and Jimin our instructor, said that she would not get so hung up on correct positions but make it more of a meditative experience. Through gentle stretches, breathing and the sound of her voice, I opened up my body. In opening my body, I am sure that I opened my mind and my spirit as well, to take in what was going on around me. Not just the things that were planned and happenstance to do with the tea group, but I became aware of the monks as they went about their work and worship in the monastery. Ah, "Zen cha ichi mi" or Zen and tea, one taste.

*Photo courtesy of Morgan Beard

Sitting and listening to the wind in the pines

Most of Issoan tea classes are in the evening and students often come right from work or right from fighting traffic to get to the school. We usually begin our class with about 10-15 minutes of zazen. Just sitting with the stillness and breathing deeply helps to put some of the dust of the world behind us, center us and get ready for study.

My students often ask me about what is the correct way to meditate. I don’t know very much about Zen meditation but to get students started, I have them sit seiza (if in kimono) or half lotus (thank you, Jordan) or cross legged. Sitting up straight with ears aligned with shoulders, arms comfortably in your lap, left hand on top of right, palm up and thumbs together. We light the incense, ring the bell and empty our minds. Try counting breaths 1 to 10 and back to 1 again, or just letting thoughts come and go and settle down inside.

Some days I am more successful than others, but when I reach a place of aware alertness, I can hear the sound of the kettle singing without getting carried away listening to it. Sometimes my feet fall asleep and I lose all feeling. Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking about things. Sometimes I really feel my breathing deep in my lungs. And sometimes, not very often, I just sit and hear the wind in the pines and nothing else matters.

Keiko is good training

In the course of my lessons for chado I had to drive across town after work to get to class. That meant fighting traffic for 45 minutes to an hour, struggling into kimono and sitting on my knees for an hour and a half at class every week. I did this for many years and there were days that I faced the freeway stopped up with cars and not looking forward to the pain in my legs. But as I drove home after keiko (tea practice), I was so glad that I did make it to keiko as I felt ready to face another week with more peace in my heart.

I learned that many of the unpleasant things we do often turn out better than we anticipate. By adjusting our mental outlook or the context of what we are doing, we have a shift in perspective that brings unlooked for rewards. The tedium of driving in traffic can be converted to meditation time. The pain in my legs from sitting in the tea room is my way of strengthening my endurance and concentration. As one of my sempai told me whenever I would complain about something “…hmmm, this sounds like very good training for you.”

Sitting seiza is not comfortable

One of the most difficult things about chado is sitting seiza for long periods of time. I have written about my struggles with sitting on my knees and suffering with the cramps, the pain and the numbness that comes from sitting seiza. Often, it is the moving after sitting that is more painful as the circulation brings back the familiar sensation of needles to the feet and ankles. One must be very careful getting up after sitting if the feet are completely numb. It is dangerous and I have seen people break ankles and not know it because there was absolutely no feeling in the legs below the knee from sitting seiza. As I am getting older, too, the stiffness is getting worse in my joints and I cannot move as easily as I could when I was younger.

I tell my students that want to sit for longer periods of time, that one must sit every day. Even if it is just for a few minutes watching TV, working up to longer and longer periods of time. There are also subtle ways of wiggling toes and ankles to keep the circulation going so that they don't fall asleep. Correct posture helps, and also it has become a little easier as I have lost 10-15 pounds recently. There are also sitting stools, seats, cushions and benches that take the pressure off the ankles and allow sitting for longer periods.

I remember how one of my sensei told a student to practice sitting seiza in the bath tub. He tried it and found it extremely painful to sit on the porcelain of the tub. He just figured that by comparison, sitting on tatami was softer than porcelain. When he told her that now he was grateful for the suggestion to sit in the tub, because now sitting on tatami, though still uncomfortable for him, it was better than on the cold porcelain of the bathtub. She had forgot to tell him to fill the tub with hot water. That it would loosen his muscles and joints, and the water would buoy up some of his weight.

I sit seiza when I do zazen, or sitting meditation, rather than in the cross legged or half lotus position. First of all you cannot sit in cross legged position in kimono, and I can now sit for longer periods of time in seiza than I can in most other positions.

The point of all this? I think that training my body to sit seiza is training to endure being uncomfortable. I am so addicted to comfort that most of the time I will go out of my way or do most anything to avoid being uncomfortable. Sitting seiza is a reminder to me that being uncomfortable is not fatal to my existence, and may even bring about some kind of realization. By avoiding discomfort, what kind of decisions am I making that I also avoid experiencing life to the fullest? I find that I can be uncomfortable and still be aware and present to what is going on around me. I find that I can still be uncomfortable and still carry on with what I am doing. That I can no longer use discomfort as an excuse not to do something that needs to be done.

You can get my specially designed portable meditation seat to help you sit seiza for longer periods of time at www.SweetPersimmon.com.

Sitting in silence

There are days when I just go into the tea room to sit. Sometimes just for 15 mintues. It is not necessarily zazen meditation, but just as a refuge from modern life. The walls of the tea room are bare of decoration except for the Zen scroll in the alcove. The floor is covered with tatami mats and I can close the door to shut out the sounds from the rest of the house. No email, or telephone. No distractions. In a way, it is like sensory deprivation.

In this silence, though, is where I can hear my heart beat and feel the breath filling my lungs. Getting in touch again with my body, I can listen to what it is telling me. Am I getting enough sleep? My body will tell me. Am I getting enough exercise? My body will tell me.

I also listen for the small voice inside me. During the day, with all of my other activities, the small voice is drowned out. There has to be a quiet time with no other distractions for me to hear this small voice. It is the voice telling me about what it is I need to do. This is the voice that told me that I needed to quit my corporate job. It is voice that told me I had to do something close to my heart to experience more joy in my life. This is the voice that reminds me to pay attention to my family. This is the voice that puts the tragedies in my life into perspective. The voice tells me that there is more to life than making more money, or marking time until retirement. It reminds me that life is to be lived.

Nichi nichi kore ko jitsu – every day is a good day

In chanoyu, the scroll sets the theme for the tea gathering. It is displayed in the tokonoma, or alcove and is probably the most important utensil in the tea room. By convention, the scroll for a tea gathering is a single line of kanji characters and is usually a fragment of a poem, Zen phrase or part of a Zen phrase written by a Zen priest. A common scroll for a tea gathering is “Nichi, nichi, kore kojitsu,” or “Hibi kore ko nichi” Literally translated it means – everyday is a good day.

When this scroll is hung in the tea room alcove, (tokonoma) it reminds us that the day is not good or bad. It is just a day. Our attitude is what changes the day into either good or bad.

It is like the story of the farmer who had a horse and his neighbors said he was very lucky, but one day the horse ran away. And the neighbors remarked how unlucky he was. But the horse came back with two others and they said he was lucky again. Then his son fell off the horse and broke his arm while riding it and they said he was unlucky. But when the daimyo came to draft men for his army, the son wasn’t chosen and they said he was lucky again.

It all depends on your attitude to the day. Every day can be a good day or everyday can be a bad day. What kind of day is today?

Clean up your own mess

Your mom probably told you to do this as a kid. As an adult and a tea student, we know that we cannot depend on anyone else to clean up our messes. My sensei used to say that 80% of tea is cleaning. We clean before and after using the tea room. We clean when changing seasons, we clean as moving meditation.

The preparation room (the mizuya) is supposed to be as clean as or cleaner than the tea room. During class time, all students at my tea school are required to prepare and clean up the utensils that they use for class. I teach preparation and cleaning up and what to do in the mizuya as part of learning the art of tea.

There is a person in charge of the mizuya called the cho. The cho is there to make sure everything is handled properly and to be responsible for everything that goes on in the mizuya. The cho is not there to clean up after anyone else, but if a student doesn’t clean up their utensils then the cho has to do it. Since every student has a chance to be the cho, there is incentive not to make work for anyone else.

But cleaning up your own mess pertains to life as well. It is personal responsibility. And it is not just the physical mess you make that you need to clean up, but your financial, or social or relationship mess as well.

ooops, no computer now

I am sorry about the delay is posting to the blog. I have had computer troubles, and spent this entire frustrating week working with Dell to no avail. I will have to replace the computer, so until then, I may be sporadic in my posting.

This is to let you know that I have met with a few people here in town and now you can get SweetPersimmon.com products at:

Dai Ichi International Travel
925 NW Lovejoy St
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 228-1118

They have a little gift shop area and have let me put a few things there for sale. If you are in the Portland area, stop by and save on shipping charges for the Portable Meditation Seat, Insulated Tea Infuser Travel Mug, Premium Incense from Shoyeido, and photo cards taken from around Portland.

Being without a computer has made me aware how much I am dependent on technology. It has become an essential way for me to keep in touch with my friends, conduct business, and work out my family schedules. I have felt rather at a loss being unplugged for 6 days.

I have used the telephone more, scheduled more face to face meetings and generally been more available to my husband because I am not on the computer. I realize how much out of human touch I have been and it is a great lesson to me. Even though email and posting is a fast convenient way for me to communicate, it is also less personal. I also noticed how much more time I have to get things done. Being on the computer is a big time waster for me.

I am rather glad that I have had this time to be unplugged and more in touch with the people around me.

I go to keiko every week

I really don’t go to tea lessons or tea class at least I don’t call it that. It just seems inadequate to what I am doing. When people ask where I go every week after work, I tell them I am going keiko. Keiko in Japanese means training or practice or to learn or involve oneself. The next thing that they ask is after 25 years what are you training or practicing for?

Going to keiko is not necessarily practice for doing a chaji (tea gathering) nor is it necessarily for advancing to the next certificate level nor for keeping in shape, though there is nothing like training your legs for sitting seiza through a 4 hour chaji. Going every week to keiko isn’t really to get to some end result, complete a study, or train for a big event.

Even if I go to keiko and just clean the tatami or wash and put utensils away, it is still as meaningful as if I went through the whole ritual of preparing and serving tea. There is just something so satisfying about going to keiko. No matter how hard it is to get myself to class, to prepare for tea, to go through the hassle of putting on layer after layer of kimono, every week I come away exhausted but nourished. It feeds and fills some place in me that makes it worth while. I feel inspired and energized and ready to face the week ahead.

How can I cherish this moment?

In many ways I can say that I live to get through this moment. That is, I cannot imagine what will happen next week, nor remember what I had for breakfast without stopping to think. But usually that is because I am busy, busy, busy with right now that I don’t have time to remember or think. All I want to do is scratch this off my do to list and move on to the next. I’ve got to keep moving, keep moving or I’ll get behind.

Not just living through the moment but fully embracing it is difficult. We have so little time in our lives with our overloaded schedules that it is difficult to carve out time for meditation or spiritual pursuits. There is always dinner, then soccer practice, getting milk for breakfast, taking clothes to the cleaners and...

So by sheer coincidence, when I do have few minutes before the next meeting, or waiting in line at the checkout, or stopped in traffic, how can I cherish this moment? I have a friend, Al Lee, who tells me that I could do it by taking a few deep breaths. By consciously noticing my breathing habits, I find myself taking very shallow breaths or holding it in, especially when I am under stress, in a hurry, angry or nervous.

Taking deep breaths fills my blood with oxygen, which in turn helps my body function more efficiently. Just filling my lungs fully with air brings me out of preoccupation into awareness. So even when I do not have those stolen moments to slow down or meditate, I can take a deep breath and cherish even the moments when I am busy.

The nature of chanoyu

If asked the nature of chanoyu say it’s the sound of wind-blown pines
in a black and white painting.

Sen Sotan
Third-Generation Grand Master
(1578-1658)

Tea Ceremony for One

In preparation for one meeting in a lifetime,
I swept and dusted the tea room,
unrolled the scroll to hang.
I set the kettle to boil,
scooped tea powder into the container,
rinsed the tea bowl clean.
I filled the cold water jar,
carefully wiped the tea scoop
and arranged a single flower.

When the kettle
began to sing its lament,
I made you a bowl of tea
though you were not there to drink it.
I heard your step
whispering across the tatami,
glimpsed a shadow of your kimono
in the swirls of steam.

I inhaled the fragrance of plum
on a cold winter day
and sat listening to the wind in the pines.

The tea tasted so bitter that day.

haiku

stone Buddha
so serene so good
unlike me

Breaking tea at the office

I keep a tea set at the office, because when things get stressful, I try to take a fifteen minute break and make myself a bowl of tea. When there are more than 300 email messages to answer, my voice mail is overflowing and most of the time is spent in meetings and it seems like I am drowning in paperwork, I need tea more than ever.

Besides having a caffeine boost from the matcha powdered tea, the ritual of making a bowl of tea calms me and brings back my focus. I feel less overwhelmed, and more able to get back to work and be productive. When I am working those late nights, a bowl of tea keeps me going until I finish what I need to do.

At some of my jobs over the years, I have started a weekly “tea break” where a few people gather in my office to share a bowl of tea. At the end of a hectic week, it is a great way to start the weekend.

Sitting seiza, the bane of tea students

Studying traditional chanoyu takes place in a tatami mat room. The proper way to sit is seiza. To sit in seiza, first kneel on the floor, and then rest the buttocks on your heels, with the tops of the feet flat on the floor. The hands are sometimes folded modestly in the lap and sometimes placed palm down on the upper thighs with the fingers close together. The back is kept straight, though not unnaturally stiff. Traditionally, women sit with the knees one fist width apart, while men sit with two fist widths of distance between the knees. The big toes may rest side by side or are sometimes overlapped. Some martial arts, notably kendo and iaido also use seiza position and also can be used for sitting meditation or zazen.

While practice, exercises and experience make it more comfortable to move around in the Tea room sitting seiza, for long periods of time, can be quite painful or your feet fall completely asleep and become dead weights making it difficult and dangerous to get up and walk.

At first for me, it was hard to pay attention to anything else while my feet and legs were screaming at me in pain. I tried sitting in the bathtub with warm water. I tried stretching exercises, holding my breath and many other techniques to get the pain to stop. One day I asked my sempai (a senior student), who could sit for days without apparent pain, “When will the pain in my legs go away?” He told me that the pain never goes away, but after a while you won’t mind it so much. After a very long time of thinking hard about this, I became aware that in resisting the pain in my legs, I was filling my mind up with the struggle to resist the pain. That left little room in my mind to pay attention to what was going on in the Tea room. More and more, I am able to “not mind the pain so much” and to notice a lot more of what is going on around me.

For those who want to sit in seiza, but find the pressure too much on feet and ankles, I developed a little, portable meditation seat. It comes in a compact carrying case that doubles as a seat cushion. You can find it here at SweetPersimmon.com.