Vulnerability
Kyoto Oishi Shrine No, no not the vulnerability of cherry blossoms! Those are quite the opposite. First they defeat every forecast: they don't show up at all —blaming it on the cold, on growing on partial sun, on the couple of meters altitude— then they start coming out laughing, disdaining the snow that falls on them, the wind that blows through them. And there they are: marvelous, full, uncountable. At some point they start falling down and even on the ground they are laughing. Too beautiful to be true. They don't talk to other flowers. They are the first and the best. (Well, they don't really regard the forsythias as flowers, even if they bloom at the same time —they think they are some kind of bush gone mad). Sendai Eisho Ji Vulnerability is where meaning comes from. Like a dialogue at lunch between people who have no real expectation of who they are, not really sure if they can speak any common language well enough, not sure if there will be anything to ta...