Dear zen friend

1)         October Sesshin:          10/10,  10/11, 10/12. 

            November Sesshin:       11/07, 11/08,  11/09. 

2)         Chanting and Dharma Discussion:     1 pm on October 25th (Saturday)  

3)    I have been watching Zatoichi movies these days. Many of them were made after I came to US. Extreme stories are similar throughout the series. A  blind massagist who is a gambler, and a sword fighting expert outsmarts bad guys. Hero, Zatoichi, (Katsu Shintaro) is a unique character seen in each movie. As I watched more movies in series, I became familiar with backgrounds of the movies. 

The violent fightings are pure entertainment. In real society samurais could not pull his sword without certain reason.  Children and people walked around because they knew sword fighting rarely happened. Criminals were almost none, prisons were empty for decades. 

 Zatoichi was  living around 200 years ago near Edo (Tokyo). There were no sewing machines, no gasoline engine cars. There was no asphalt. no plastics. 

All the clothing samurais and gamblers wearing were sewed by hands. There were many sewing experts everywhere those days. Kimono must be sewed, washed, and put away when in hot summer and in cold winter by hand. Old clothing would have been taken into pieces and re-assembled as new kimono. Some kimonos were dyed with beautiful colors.  Sewing was a survival skill even for a blind person. 

Even though there were no gasoline engines, roads and bridges were made and well maintained. Houses were built by woods and papers. Hotel and inn businesses were run all over Japan. People enjoyed tourism. Five million men traveled to Great Ise shrine every year. Mail men ran like marathoners for delivering corespondents. 

Samurais were wearing traditional kimonos and 2 swords. Swords looked outstanding since sword was only hard material samurai had.  There were metal hoes and rakes in fields. Communities looked gentle.

Shogun had policy to protect handicapped people. Notion of social welfare was in practice. Massage as a job was allocated to blind people for work. Some blind massagists historically became rich due to Shogunate policy. 

We have cars, trucks, and lawn mowers in our daily life. Metal products are everywhere. We go shopping clothing while we do not know how to sew clothing. We look down ancient feudal society. Yet we don’t know how to put  away all oil, plastics, and used batteries. 

Regards.

Eishin Ikeda

Valley Zendo