Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

We were an hour and a half into the train ride when I finally began to notice a change in scenery. Small patches of vegetable fields appeared in the distance, and the horizon widened as we cleared the Yokohama high rises. It was Friday afternoon, and I was on a train headed to Miura Kaigan, a coastal area in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Beside me was my friend, Chishu, a fellow student at the university in Tokyo where I was spending two semesters abroad. Chishu’s family lived on Buddhist temple grounds in Miura, two hours south of Tokyo, and he had invited me to visit his hometown. “It’s good to get away from the smog, noise, and crowds of Tokyo every once in a while,” he said. I agreed. I’d been in Japan for over two months and hadn’t yet left the greater Tokyo area.

At around 4 p.m., we arrived in Miura. I was usually greeted with a Starbucks upon exiting from train stations in Tokyo, but here there was only a tuna and squid stand, alongside a hot/cold vending machine selling canned tea and coffee. The stand was closed already, but large dried strips of red tuna meat still hung outside the storefront, as well as dried flattened squid, their wizened black eyes staring out at the passing pedestrians.

“It’s another 15-minute walk to where I live,” Chishu informed me. “Let’s walk along the shore. It’s nice.”

Although the small rough waves chopping against the shore seemed cold and unfriendly, it was a comforting relief to hear nothing but the steady sound of ocean instead of Tokyo’s constant urban din. The surfers and sun-tanners must have left for the season—the beach was deserted, save for hundreds of daikon, Japanese radishes, which hung on long stretches of wire across the beach like fat white socks on a clothesline. They were drying in preparation for making takuan, a pungent pickle dish served with rice.

A short walk inland took us finally to Enpukuji, the Pure Land Buddhist temple where Chishu’s family lived, tucked between daikon and cabbage fields. There were no clear boundaries between the temple grounds, the gravel road, and the backyards of neighboring houses. Most of the surrounding land, Chishu explained, had belonged to the temple before the war. During the postwar land reform, however, much of the land was reclaimed by the government. All that is left in the name of Enpukuji are the graveyard and the land on which the actual temple buildings are located.

We sat on a cold, straw-matted floor in the tatami room. A table in the center of the room displayed a neatly stacked pyramid of apples. The strong, sweet smell of these apples invigorated the room, emitting the presence of something very much alive. We were waiting to meet Chishu’s uncle, the head monk at Enpukuji, and I was terrified—I realized that Chishu had not prepped me on how to behave when meeting a monk. Swift, surefooted steps thumped toward us in the hall, and a shadow appeared on the other side of the sliding screen door. Then there he was, Monk Shouken, his face alight with a radiant smile. As he removed his slippers and entered the room, my immediate impression was that he looked amazingly healthy.

As if reading my thoughts, he pointed to the apples on the table.

“These are gifts from members of this Buddhist community,” he said. “Placing apples in the room where you spend the most hours protects your health.”

Tucking his thin blue cotton kimono neatly around his legs, he settled onto the floor in seiza (legs tucked under knees). Frozen with nerves, and already feeling the pain of my own seiza position, I lost all ability to speak. But Monk Shouken was kind enough to initiate conversation, slowly and simply, the huge smile never leaving his face. He asked about my life in the United States and my impressions of Japan. Unsure if he was truly interested or just trying to make me feel at ease, I was hesitant to blab about myself. After all, what could stories about my girlhood in New Jersey ever offer him, a head monk of a Japanese Buddhist temple?

The conversation turned to current events in Japan, including the recent rise in youth crime, which led to talk of his volunteer work at the local juvenile delinquency center. “These young kids committing crimes are all so lonely. Their frustration grows out of having no one they can really trust and talk to,” he said, nodding slowly. “There is little more important than cultivating meaningful friendship. The world is not made up of just you, you know. Please don’t forget that.” 

The sun was already setting. “You have enough thoughts to fill your head for one day?” Monk Shouken smilingly half-asked, half-stated. Chishu was staying the night, but Monk Shouken kindly offered me a ride to the train station. I wondered what sort of car he drove, and whether a monk who lived in an unheated temple used heat in his car.

Minutes later, he pulled up in a small black four-wheel-drive with smoked-out backseat windows and black curtains hanging across the front windows. Climbing into the car, I noticed he had changed into regular street clothes—jeans and a black turtleneck. Plush faux-fur cushioned the seats, and there was a multi-vitamin jelly drink pouch wedged between the seat and the door. The driver and passenger seats were draped with Stone Cold WWF T-shirts. Staring at the trademark “whoopin’ ass” skull and crossbones of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and sliding around on the faux-fur seat cushions as we bumped down the road to the train station, I suddenly felt like I was back in New Jersey.

The ride was short, but by the time we arrived at Miura Kaigan station, I was completely overwhelmed. Sitting in the austere tatami room earlier, I had mistakenly assumed that pop tunes, street clothes, and faux-fur seat covers would be intrinsically incompatible with a Buddhist way of life. But I began to realize that geographical space is not really as big as we imagine, and neither are the cultural gaps we use to isolate ourselves from one another. From now on, I thought, whenever I drive through New Jersey strip malls and experience that fear of getting sucked into a world I feel at odds with, I will know there is a Buddhist monk in Miura Kaigan, who sits on Stone Cold seat covers as he rattles along country roads.

Monk Shouken turned around, his face aglow with the same bright smile. “I am extremely happy to hear you have an interest in Buddhism,” he said. “Please visit us again.”