The moment in which I continue savouring my Japanese winter... even if I would tend to freak out every time I think that it's drawing to a close

This morning we found ourselves back in Sendai —eating cereals at the breakfast table on a bright sunny winter morning, with a dusting of snow on the roofs in front of our windows.

While we were comparing our cereals to yesterday's Okinawan breakfast with 6 different kinds of sea weeds, fruit jellies, onigiri and french toast with brown sugar, I realized that I have to write an ode to Japanese winter before it's over and we wake up in a cherry blossoms dream.

Japanese winter days might be cold but they know how to pave them with delights. Sorry to start with the most obvious, but the warm toilet seat can really be a welcome goal on a chilly day, be it at the university, at a museum, or in a restaurant. And I will not go into the details of the warm bidet sprinkle —just watch the picture, or remember the experience if you had it.
And what about the slippers? Have you ever entered a mountain hut for a lunch break while skiing to find innumerable warm and dry slippers to wait for you at the entrance?!

Not to forget the gloves and hats warmers, and playing pool to warm up...
By the way, have you ever had to take off your boots at security before taking a plane? Well next time you have to, think that if you were in Japan you could wear slippers while walking through the metal detector.

Another obvious delight is the onsen - a hot bath or pool, in which you enter after having showered. If you are lucky it's outside and you can enjoy the view of the mountains while enraptured with the warmth of the water.

And, talking about water, the water of all swimming pools I know of in Sendai is 30 degrees... the last time I swam in a pool with that temperature was at a congress in Montreal, when I shared a room at a Park Hyatt Hotel with 3 other colleagues!

This is especially for my Dutch friends who eat cold sandwiches for lunch, as I always do in the NL. Well here I have been eating warm lunches throughout the winter for around 5 euro at the cafeteria 2 minutes from my office. Anything can be found here, from vegetarian dishes, to fish, to any kind of meat dish, soups, noodles...







Again for the Dutch and other North European friends:
the winter is sunny and dry! The light in Sendai is magic at all times.








And talking about Sendai - one can ski and see snow monsters after 1 and an half hour by car.

Or take a cheap domestic flight to Okinawa and surf, snorkel and walk barefoot on a tropical beach. (And also give a lecture to high school kids and participate in a high school fair, should one want to do some recruitment for one's university)

And what about the delicious food that nourishes mouth and eyes at the same time, not to mention warm sake!

And then jogging around to discover always new temples?

I am a bit afraid that this time will pass, this winter disappear soon followed by the whole Japanese interval.

I am becoming better at cherishing the beauty of winter (a season I have never ever liked) and its many comforts and at being mindful to them. I am also pretty sure that I will carry my Japanese winter with me into the spring and into any other winter.

But it is not always easy to continue savouring every moment of my Japanese winter, if I realize that it is drawing to a close.

Luckily I am studying the conception of time of the Japanese Zen Buddhist Medieval monk, poet and philosopher Dōgen:

"each existential moment is the entirety of time; existing blades of grass, existing forms, are all moments together. In this time of all moments, there is the entirety of existence, the entirety of the world". (Dōgen, Uji, trans. Raud 2012: 161)

Dōgen thinks that the future and the past reside in the present moment. The only reality of the moment of leaving Japan is in my fear right now.

One might wrongly think that this is an appeal to a laid back attitude: "Don't worry about the future, just be in the now!" Is Dōgen describing the now as some kind of easy chair, or confy couch where we could put on our slippers and snuggle up for all eternity watching Sendai's warm winter light?

Not really! "Shifting" or "flowing"  is also involved, which makes everything momentary: "the pines are momentary and the bamboos are momentary as well".

What is shifting and towards what is shifting if there is only the now? What makes up every moment is constantly shifting. If I interpret shifting (kyōryaku) correctly, it is another word for pratītyasamutpāda, the Buddhist word for change without any substrate: the constant origination of a new situation as a result of a certain combination of factors. The factors that make up the present shift to the next combination... which, you will tell me, does not make the issue any clearer!

Luckily my friend Gereon comes to our rescue and stresses the phenomenological quality of Dōgen's approach: what is also shifting is our experience. Think for instance of our attention that focuses now here now there, think of the mood that colours our experience. What constitutes the present moment —its context in Gereon's words— are a combination of factors including any past memories, ingrained habits, learned skills, anticipations of the future and music in the background that characterize and shape this present moment. 

Quite momentously this makes the present moment open and “not yet” [mito 未到 — sorry but I cannot help sharing my sheer happiness in recognizing the first kanji which is the same as the first one of 'future'  and the second part of the first one of 'younger sister']:

by changing my attitudes, the quality of my attention, the memories and the values that give meaning to my present, I change the present moment completely.

How to shape the present 'end-of-the-winter-moment' when I am stricken by anticipatory nostalgia? How do I re-shape the fear of my-time-here-going-down-the-drain, into a peaceful steady attention to the thick present moment? 

Dōgen recommends 'practice' and effort: "We should learn in practice that without the momentary continuance of our effort in the present, not a single dharma nor a single thing could ever be realized or could ever continue from one moment to the next” (Gyouji, trans. Nishijima 95). I think this means that all there is –that is the present— carries within itself all past efforts; nothing is just given or unchangeable, we change everything continuously by our effort, by our practice. Which is quite tangible— the quality of my day definitely changes for the better when I do not skip my daily 20 min of meditation! I am quite convinced that even if we don’t know anything about this we continuously shape reality. We make the present right now: we shape it with our values, our fears, our hopes, our enthusiasm. So I will try to keep shaping it with attention — chuui 注意— for this unique situation I am in; and gratitude for being in Japan —where winter is comforted by light, warmth, food, snow and tropical waves... and warm toilet seats.