Zen Temple Retreat near Tokyo - October 10-12

 We'll be holding a three-day Zen Retreat at Shokakuji temple in Hanno City in Saitama Prefecture, Japan from October 10 to 12 (Saturday to Monday), 2026. Instructions and talks at the retreat will be in English. Anyone interested is invited to attend and participate in the full, but not exhausting, schedule of meditation, talks, and meals taken in the traditional style. Beginners are welcome. The quiet, mountainous area around the temple provides a pleasant setting for a taste of Buddhist life. 

Date: October 10 to 12, 2026 (from 1 pm on October 10 until 1 pm on October 12)

Place:  Shokakuji Temple, Hanno City, Saitama Prefecture, 357-0111. 

Cost:  26,400 yen. The cost includes all accommodation and meals during the retreat, but excludes the cost of transportation (approximately 1,300 yen one-way from Tokyo) to the temple.  Anyone who'd like to come to the retreat on Saturday and leave on Sunday afternoon is also welcome. The cost to attend for two days and one night is 13,200 yen.

Schedule:  Click here to download the schedule for the retreat.

 
Deadline:  Registration will be accepted at our Saturday classes at Tokyo University Buddhists Association or by email by Wednesday October 7. A deposit of 5,000 yen is required to reserve a place.

For further information and/or to sign up to attend, please email me at tokyozazen@gmail.com

Transportation and directions to the temple: 

Hanno station is approximately 45 minutes by train from Seibu-Ikebukuro train station on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line. A bus service runs from Hanno train station to Nagou bus stop beside Shokakuji Temple. The bus ride takes about 60 minutes. The total cost for a one-way trip by train and bus from Seibu-Ikebukuro train station to Shokakuji Temple is 1,280 yen (train ticket is 470 yen and bus ticket is 810 yen).
 
Most of the participants will be traveling together from Tokyo to the temple. We'll meet at 9.30 am on Saturday morning (October 10). We'll meet up at Seibu-Ikebukuro station, and take a Seibu-Ikebukuro line train bound for Hanno station. After arriving at Hanno station, we'll take a bus to the temple. You're welcome to travel with this group. Click here for directions to the meeting place at Seibu-Ikebukuro station. 

If you're going to Hanno station directly, we can meet you at Hanno Station at around 10.45 am.

The (Magnificent) Seven Ancient Buddhas

Buddhism began in India about 2,500 years ago. It was started by a person who Buddhists call “Gautama Buddha” or “Sakyamuni Buddha”. It's said that Gautama Buddha was enlightened when he was doing meditation early one morning while sitting under a tree. He then began to teach other people about what he understood to be the truth about the world, and his teachings gradually spread to other regions.

One interesting thing about Buddhism is that Gautama Buddha is regarded as a human being, and not as a form of God. Buddhists regard Gautama Buddha as a wonderful human being, and revere him for realizing the truth about the world and teaching people about what he realized. Another interesting thing is that Buddhism believes that the truth that Gautama Buddha realized 2,500 years ago has existed since the very beginning of time. In other words, the truth about the world which Gautama Buddha realized has always been here. To acknowledge this, Buddhism includes an idea about "Seven Ancient Buddhas" or "Seven Past Buddhas".

The idea about the seven ancient Buddhas is that, prior to Gautama Buddha, there were six mythical Buddhas who also realized the truth hundreds of thousands of years before Gautama Buddha did. In Zen Buddhism at least, it's not generally believed that those six mythical Buddhas actually existed, but it's Buddhism's way of saying that the truth that Gautama Buddha realized has been here since the beginning of time, and so it's possible that other people also realized the truth long before Gautama Buddha did. The phrase “Seven Ancient Buddhas” refers to those six mythical Buddhas and Gautama Buddha. In chapter 15, Busso  (The Buddhist Patriarchs) of Dogen's book Shobogenzo, the names of the seven ancient Buddhas are given as Vipasyin Buddha, Sikhin Buddha, Visvabhu Buddha, Krakucchanda Buddha, Kanakamuni Buddha, Kasyapa Buddha, and Gautama Buddha (the historical Buddha).

The Youtube clip below is a short audio recording (3 mins) of a talk by Gudo Nishijima in which he discusses this idea about the Seven Ancient Buddhas. I recorded this on a cassette recorder in 1999, so apologies if the sound quality isn't too good. 

I Can't Go On

    Every once in a while I get asked whether I think Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy. It’s a question a lot of people interested in Zen Buddhism seem to have at some point or other. I don't know if it matters too much whether you consider Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy, if you feel that it helps you in your life in some way. I studied Buddhism with a teacher named Gudo Nishijima, and he often used to describe Buddhism as a practical philosophy. One thing that distinguishes Buddhism from most philosophies or religions is that doing some kind of meditation is an important part of daily life for a lot of Buddhists. 

    In Zen Buddhism, the meditation practice is called zazen. The general idea is that doing zazen regularly helps us experience life in a way that's a bit different from what we're used to, and helps us to live a bit more in harmony with the world around us. It can create a bit of space where we can take a step back from our busy lives and reflect on or notice what’s going on in our life at that particular time. Gudo Nishijima used to encourage his students to do zazen every day, even for 5 or 10 minutes, and ideally to do zazen once in the morning and once in the evening if we can.

    I first met Gudo Nishijima about 30 years ago. I used to go along to his Buddhist classes and retreats, and I also tried to follow his advice about doing some zazen at home. If you start to do zazen regularly, you probably will notice that it makes a difference in your day-to-day life in some way or other. But it also requires a bit of time and effort to keep up the habit of doing it every day. In my own case, once in a while I’d go through a stage where I’d lose my motivation or interest in doing zazen. After I’d been doing zazen like that for a few years, I had a chat with Gudo Nishijima and told him I was finding it a bit hard to keep doing zazen regularly and that I was thinking of giving it up. He said it was no problem and it was up to myself to decide what to do and to stop altogether if I wanted to. But he also said jokingly that if I stopped doing zazen for a while and then decided to start doing it again, then I’d know that I’m a Buddhist.

    So I took a break from zazen for a couple of weeks. My life went on more or less as before. But after I had stopped doing zazen for about two weeks, I felt something was missing in some way even though I couldn't exactly say what it was. Life just seemed a bit more interesting when I'd been doing zazen regularly. So I started to do zazen again, and continued doing it since then. Later on it occurred to me that when I had been doing zazen on a daily basis I didn’t really notice what effect it had, and it was only when I stopped that I could notice that whatever effect there was from doing zazen wasn’t there anymore. That’s the way it seemed to me anyway, but it may be that it was just something I was going through at the time.

Remembering Gudo Nishijima Roshi today

 

My Buddhist teacher, Gudo Nishijima Roshi, passed away on this day (January 28) in 2014. 

He dedicated most of his life to learning about Buddhism and teaching other people.

Here's a video of Master Nishijima explaining how to do Zazen.

And this is a video of Master Nishijima doing Zazen on a very hot summer's day in Tokyo when he was 89.

I feel very fortunate to have met him and that he was kind enough to teach me about Buddhism. I'll be keeping him in my thoughts today.

Happy New Year 2021

 

Quiet new year in Japan. 

Just a small temple visit to mark the New Year. 

Here's hoping for 2021.

道はその日その日の生活の中に : The path is in day-to-day life

Someone sent me a Buddhist card with the Japanese words “道はその日その日の生活の中に”.
In Japanese this reads “michi wa sono hi sono hi no seikatsu no naka ni”.

The meaning of the words is:
道 (michi): path, way, road
その日その日 (sono hi sono hi): each day, from day to day, day-to-day
生活 (seikatsu): life, living
の中に (no naka ni): in, within, inside, in the midst of

So altogether it means something like “the path is in day-to-day life”, or “the (Buddhist) way is within daily life”.

Think they’re right.

Grace before meals – a Buddhist version

 

We used to say “grace” before our meals sometimes when I was growing up in Ireland. My parents didn’t make a rule of saying it at mealtimes, but every once in a while we would. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was nice to say it together like that sometimes. 

In Japan, people usually  say “itadakimasu” (i-ta-da-ki-ma-su) before starting a meal. There are plenty of different uses and translations for “itadakimasu”, but in the context of mealtimes it’s an expression of gratitude before eating, and literally means something like “I humbly receive”. This usage is said to have its roots in Buddhism and the idea of respect for all living things, which extends to gratitude to everything and everyone that went into making the meal including the plants, animals, farmers and cook. 

The kind of “grace” they say before meals at Buddhist temples in Japan is different to the usual “itadakimasu”.  Depending on the temple, the monks and nuns may say two or three different verses or chants before each meal. Among them, one verse that is recited at most temples is what we call in English the “Five Reflections”  or “Five Contemplations” (called “go kan no ge” in Japanese). Here is an English version of the Five Reflections that we sometimes say at our retreats.

We reflect firstly upon the insufficiency of our effort in this life. We contemplate the effort which has gone into the preparation of this meal.
We reflect secondly upon our merit. We consider whether we are deserving of this meal.
We reflect thirdly upon the sources of our mental illusions and mistakes. We must avoid greed, anger and ignorance.
We reflect fourthly upon the reasons for eating meals. It is to avoid becoming weak and thin.
Finally we reflect upon the ultimate reason for taking meals. It is only to attain the truth.

Click here for a PDF file of the Five Reflections in English, with the Japanese version on their too.

Japanese Prime Minister Doing Zen Meditation (and a little Zen story)

 

The Japanese Government have just started a campaign called “Premium Friday” to encourage businesses to let workers finish up at 3 pm on the last Friday of every month. The idea behind the campaign is to stimulate the economy by giving people more time to get out and spend money at the end of each month – which is right around payday - and to also cut down on excessive working hours (and stress levels) among workers. 


Last Friday was the very first “Premium Friday” and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe took to his Facebook page to describe how he was spending the afternoon. Here’s what he wrote in Japanese:

心を無にする。
プレミアムフライデーに、座禅を組みました。
慌ただしい毎日ですが、久しぶりに静かなひと時を過ごし、すっきりと落ち着いた気持ちになりました。

この後、上野の博物館に行ってみようと思います。

The translation is something like this:

“Meditating (emptying my mind). I’ve been doing some zazen on Premium Friday. I’m busy everyday, but for the first time in a while I had some quiet time and feel refreshed and calm.
I think I’ll visit a museum in Ueno after this.”

I don’t know if the museum in Ueno that Abe went to after the meditation was the National Museum, but if it was he might have come across the big picture they have in there of a priest in the Obaku School of Zen Buddhism, which was painted about 100 years ago by a Japanese artist named Takamura Shinpu. I was down there recently and (with permission) snapped a photo of it on my phone. Here it is:

 

 

 

When I saw the picture, it reminded me of a Zen koan (short story) from a long time ago about Master Obaku, the founder of the Obaku school, in which the Prime Minister of China visits a temple where Master Obaku is and sees a picture of a reverend monk on the wall. The Prime Minister says that he can see the picture, but would like to meet such a reverend monk in real life. Eventually the monks in the temple introduce him to Master Obaku. When the Prime Minister sees Master Obaku, he asks Master Obaku to give him one or two words to change his life. Master Obaku calls out loudly, “Prime Minister! Where are you?” 

 

Zen Buddhist Meditation in Tokyo

Just a note to say our Saturday zazen classes in Tokyo will be starting up again this Saturday, February 25. Click here for more information. Beginners are welcome. 🔰
 
Pete

Gudo Nishijima Sensei Interview - Sept 2008

This is a short interview with the late Gudo Nishijima Roshi (1919 - 2014), my Buddhist teacher, in which he talks about his idea about practicing zazen (meditation) everyday in daily life, and some other topics. The video runs for about 6 minutes. Thanks to Ingrid for the video.