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Ekyo's Blog Sharing form the heart
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Polish closet |
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August, 2007 When I started my practice at Dai Bosatsu many years ago there were two residents from Poland, but they left soon. For a while I was the only Polish coming to sesshin. By now several old friends, whom I knew while living still in Poland come, and some others I met here. There is a tradition that after sesshin is over, after informal lunch we meet Eido Roshi in meeting room to say good bye. This is an informal meeting, and the only opportunity to see and chat with Roshi, if he has time, besides formal dokusan during seshin. In one of the spring sesshins, which was very small, there were three of us, Polish. Janusz and Elzbieta were assigned a work to clean zendo and Dharma Hall. This is a huge space and usually six people are doing cleaning. Since I did not have much sewing I was helping, and thought out the strategy how during 40 minutes work period this task could be done… Needless to say the zendo and Dharma Hall were perfectly polished. After the end of sesshin, while three of us went to see Roshi, he greeted is loudly with the smile: Ooo! Polish polish… Next time there were six of us in sesshin. So again we go to say good bye to Roshi and he greets us: Ooo! Polish closet! These are the words which I have stolen for the title of my page. I was puzzled why Roshi used “closet” to greet us. An Inji closet sometimes becomes Polish, when Jimin has a duty of Roshi’s attendant. But she was not present in this particular sesshin...
Polish
closet is mostly very happy closet. Janusz is very independent Polish man who does things his own way… While sitting in front of him at the table during meals, I did notice that he uses the smallest bowl for rice gruel. We use jihatsu bowls to eat meals during sesshin, and there is a traditional way to use them. We were instructed that the biggest bowl is for rice. However, Janusz for quite a while has been using the smallest bowl for rice. During one meal he was even corrected by Venerable Fujin, but no change… Finally, during one of our rides together I asked why he is not respecting the instructions which were given to him. His answer is fascinating! It is much easier, quicker and more economical to wash the smallest bowl from glue rice gruel than the biggest one. He has a strategy how to do things effectively and well… Eating meals in proper way and washing bowls in proper way was our travel topic for several months. Suddenly Janusz capitulated, gruel is in big bowl! Everything happens with readiness of time… I am feeling almost as being in Poland! HA!
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