Dear Zen Friend

1) April sesshin : from 04/08 to 04/12.

2) Uchiyama roshi used to say that Antaiji was a camping site. It had no phone, nor tv, nor electric cooking tools. He valued slow life. And I have followed his life style.

It was perfectly calm at 11:30pm of 16th (Wed). Without any signal a big sound like thunder was heard and the house shook. After the sound there was no lightning, no power outage, no change of weather. One Bang was it! Only apparent change was that Internet connection became dead. I wondered if a satellite company dropped a special bomb.

A technician from Hughesnet came and said that the radio was damaged and current gen3 satellite would cease to exist soon. So I had to upgrade internet devices against Uchiyama roshi’s will. The power of innovation and social trend is overwhelming.

The technician came back on the following Wednesday and installed the gen4 dish. Installation looked easy and was done quickly. He was an expert for the job.
But its location was near an apple tree. It was so close that I had to prune the tree.

With big scissors and a step ladder I pruned from lower parts. Last branch was at a high place, I climbed the ladder and cut the branch. At that certain time the ladder collapsed and I fell to the earth like a Newton’s Apple. My ankle was twisted. Luckily I wore boots, did not have outside injury.

For two days I could not walk. Tendon and muscles around the ankle hurt. I hopped around by my left leg and crawled steps. So I spent time by watching movies. One of them was ‘Inside Einstein’s Mind,’ no, not ‘Eishin’s mind.’
It discussed gravity. A prominent physicist explained the theory of ‘General Relativity of Gravity.’ She said correct understanding of gravity was ‘the earth pushes an apple up, not an apple falls.’

As true understanding, I should have mentioned not ‘I fell’ but ‘the earth pushed me up and hit me.’ How ignorant I was!

The injury was not serious. I did nothing for treatment but to rest.
Enjoy spring.
Regards.