The mildly unexpected

At 6:54 this morning I was still in bed, in and out of sleep. Then the room started moving violently back and forth pretty quickly. After about 15 or 20 seconds it stopped and I felt the gentle swaying of my 10th floor room.

Afterward, I went to my window and looked out ... a man walking his dog, a lady riding her bicycle, a car driving down the street.

I say "mildly unexpected" because when I first arrived in Nagaoka I opened the morning paper and it said there was a 10 percent chance of an aftershock of magnitude 5 or greater in the next 3 days. We're beyond that window now, and what I felt surely wasn't magnitude 5, I don't think.

In case you missed prior blogs, Niigata Prefecture and its vicinity were hit Monday a week ago by a magnitude-6.8 temblor, which killed 10 people and injured more than 1,000. While aftershocks are occuring they have been decreasing in the area. Still, there were warnings over possible collapses of houses and landslides. In any event, time has passed and I'm leaving for Tokyo tomorrow.

The unfolding of my day in Bunsui was also mildly unexpected. My plan was to take a taxi to Kugami and have a day of solitude, walking on Ryokan's mountain, alone with my thoughts. But I dropped by to say hello to Yuuko and company before doing so, and they would have nothing of it. First, they phoned Reiko, and she insisted on driving me. And once I got off the phone, Yamata san did as well. So the three of us drove halfway up Kugami to Kokujo-ji, saw the temple, and then hiked to the top, which is apparently an elevation of just 313 m, according to the sign.

While hiking up we were accompanied by an uguisu (pronounced oo-goo-eese), a Japanese nightingale ... Reiko had pointed out its song when we were at the top of Mt. Yahiko the other day. What a beautiful and forlorn song it sings. I'll never forget it.

Illusion and enlightenment? Two sides of a coin.
Universals and particulars? No difference.
All day I read the wordless sutra;
All night not a thought of Zen practice.
An uguisu sings in the willows along the river bank,
Dogs in the village bay at the moon
-Ryokan

We hiked back down and then stopped by Otogo-jinja, which is somewhat lower in elevation than Kokujo-ji and Gogo-an, Ryokan's hut for about 10 years. Otogo-jinja is where the taxi dropped me off last year, in the rain ... I'll never forget the "lost" feeling I had, and the skinny little yellow frogs leaping out of my way as I descended the steps to the shrine.

From the mountain paddies
near this gate
the sounds of frogs,
their voices precious to me
in the evening
-Ryokan

This time was just as special with Reiko and Yamata san, just different. If you look at the photos you'll get the feeling these structures are "all roof" ... they're massive. This area gets really heavy snows, and I remember reading last winter, I believe, that the equivalent of the national guard was sent in to dig people out.

After Kugami, Reiko wanted to take me to a Zen temple of the Soto school in Iwamura, just north of Yahiko, where we were the other day. Ryokan was Soto ... "farmer's Zen" you might say, and less aggressive than the Rinzai school associated with the samurai.

I believe its name is Shugeto-ji, but I don't recall ... it was under repair, and its thatched roof was being replaced. Still, we were welcomed guests by a woman there and offered tea ... it's always on-hand anywhere you go. Everyone seems to be ready to "entertain guests" at a moment's notice.
While there, Reiko mentioned some things about me and some of my interests to the woman. And I mentioned to Reiko that Ryokan writes of a lone pine tree in the paddies of Iwamuro:

Coming and going
I have never tired of
the view
of that single pine tree
standing in the paddies of Iwamuro

She relayed that to her ... and she knew the location of the tree, which had a marker. So off we went. Some gentlemen were nearby playing crocquet, and when asked about the tree one said what's there now is "number three" since Ryokan's time. I snapped some photos anyway.

Afterward, it was ice cream in Iwamuro, and then back to Bunsui ... and tea, and more friends. When I'm in Bunsui, I feel I'm at my best. Saying goodbye was hard. I'm leaving for Tokyo tomorrow.

It was special meeting Yamata san. I found out from Reiko why I didn't meet him last year ... he recently retired and so wasn't home before.

He and I shook hands, once as I was leaving, and then again as he was leading me toward the bus station ... a firm handshake, and long ... it wasn't easy to let go.