ChiaraJeroenIsabellaJapan2019

This is the post of a proud Mom. Feel free to skip it, if you are not in the mood for sappy readings. Every day we wake up at 6.40, we have breakfast at dawn, with a spectacular view on Sendai, we walk 30 min to the yellow school bus, which leaves at 8.05. Last time I brought her she showed me a short-cut that she discovered with Jeroen. I then go to my office at the university. We meet her again at 16.00, when one of us goes to pick her up from the school bus stop. On the way back, the first few days she texted us "it has been wonderful" or such phrases -to our sheer delight. She loves her International School and her teacher. She has many friends in her class who help her out, for instance, order lunch and explain to her how things work. She buys Japanese food at the canteen for lunch, which she loves (noodles, curry...). She has one special friend - we already met her parents, went to an indoor playground on a Sunday, had them at our place for a playdate and for dinner...

The second and third day with Gereon and his students has been characterized by mummies, rain and snow. In Sakata the destination was worth the walk in the rain. The temple is called Kaikōji . What I called mummies are actually Sokushinbutsu, Buddhas in the body. (There are other mummies in Dainichibo and Churenji). Their skin was black and the teeth were in place. They were sitting in the lotus position. They died while chanting. A student, Colin, had researched the phenomenon thoroughly. He explained a crucial factor that allowed them to turn into mummies without any procedure, like embalming, after 5 or 8 years eating just nuts and berries: they were drinking from a source of highly poisonous water (arsenic, if I remember correctly), which slowly changed their metabolism. Once they felt ready, they entered a cave/well and started chanting and ringing a little bell. At some point the monks outside did not hear any bell or chant. After a while they checked. If they found them dead...

I am back to Sendai after 3 days with my friend and colleague Prof. Gereon Kopf (Luther College), his colleagues and his students. The theme of their 3 and a half week study trip is Disaster and Enlightenment (Hong Kong and Japan). 1st day : pilgrimage to Mount Takao ( Takaosan , 高尾山) close to Tokyo. The temple there is both Shingon Buddhist and Shinto. Japanese do not separate religions, they integrate various functions, rituals and symbols in the same sacred space. Gereon explained that there are 5 levels of divine beings in this kind of Buddhism and at a certain level you have the Tengu: they have wings, enormous noses and they are larger than humans. And of course you have kitsune foxes ... Pilgrims offer this kind of "shoes" to the temple. Some decided to offer tengu-sized slippers. Obviously the tengu is not only a Buddhist divine being also a Shinto kami —a source of energy— popular in the mountains. When humans recognize something as a kami or source of energy ...

Imagine taking this picture. You certainly don’t want your phone to go ‘Click! Click!’ Or ‘Shht’. Right?! Because people come to the Shinto shrine to pray or to do their job and it might be annoying to have silly tourists around taking pictures. And yet we all do it. As. Silently. And. Discretely. As. Possible. What if that is not an option anymore... What if you accidentally melted your old iPhone in a desperate attempt to prolong its old life and then had to be very consumistic and buy a new one in Japan. (seriously I could not find anything without google maps. And I could not make it to the end of the day without taking pictures, etc. etc. so I am totally smart-phone-dependent). I was so happy all my data were on the cloud - the accident only happened to have financial consequences and anyway I actually needed a new one. But what I did not know was an important consequence of buying an iPhone in Japan. SHWOOSH! Believe it or not, the shutter sound effect cannot be switche...

After a quite eventful weekend --revising a co-written article on Plato and Buddhism, attempting to change my iPhone battery, initiating self-combustion of battery and iPhone, waiting on the balcony with open so doors to change the air, cleaning the mess, visiting Zuihoden mausoleum complex, walking in a different neighborhood, buying German soprano recorder for Isabella’s music lesson, buying new iPhone, buying Uniqlo clothes for survival, traveling to a curious indoor playground area inside a shopping center with fake Dutch facade, meeting Isabella’s wonderful new friend and her lovely parents, rushing to Ikea to buy a chair that will not kill Jeroen’s back-- I am taking a little break. However the Shinkansen to Tokyo is too quick to properly relax. Now that I am done with the most urgent mails, I am almost there! 

What is this? Hint: it has something to do with earthquakes. A couple of days ago, I have experienced my first micro-earthquake. Scale 1. Almost nothing. On a plane you wouldn't even call it a turbulence. The emotions are mixed. "This is special, I want more" And: "Will I still find it cool if it does not stop immediately? Could it escalate and eat me up rather than getting me closer to phenomenologically understanding the Buddhist concept of impermanence?". Small invisible earthquakes have a way to seep into everyday life. For instance, why do you think it is absolutely necessary to be cold at night? The Japanese certainly master the technology to build double glazed windows and thicker walls... The explanation I heard is --guess what?-- earthquakes: such glasses and such walls would make the building stiffer and heavier -no go. [By the way, the best tip I received in order not to freeze at night is to put a (polar) blanket under the sheets covering the ...