Sundays in Kyoto
a year of mindful living in Japan
#sundaysinkyoto
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"Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by
familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end."
-- Pico Iyer, living in Kyoto
It was a rainy afternoon, during my first days in Kyoto, while I was still trying to find my way. I had crossed paths with Robert, an artist and painter from New York, who had now made his life in Kyoto after 6 years. Living the simple, hand to mouth existence of an artist, making ends meet by teaching English to Japanese children, yet focusing most of his time and energy on his painting. “It was after my first difficult year of being here, during the brutal winter, that one day I fell in love with Kyoto….and that was it. I never left.” I took in his words. After now living in Kyoto for year, it is easy to see why artists and writers and poets from the West have made their way here over the decades and found a deep spiritual connection with this place. It is the city of zen, art and ancient Japanese culture. Poetry and painting and calligraphy go back centuries to the early zen monks. These are all reasons I seem to so deeply connect with this place.
I remember thinking that after a year, I would likely just be beginning to get my feet under me, getting a sense of my way around. Then it would be time for me to go, in the blink of an eye. And so it has happened, just as it did to Robert. Only weeks before my time to leave, I fell deeply in love with Kyoto. Perhaps it is all that I have discovered and explored here. Writing, painting, calligraphy, Zen. I have become at home within myself here.
I came to Kyoto to completely step out of the American cultural mindset and way of doing things. I did just that. I will be likely be processing and writing my experiences for years to come. I came to experience solitude and listen to the voice of my own soul. I learned to hear that voice in tranquil gardens and temples and days and weeks and months of walking among the ancient trees in the Imperial Gardens, moving with the water along the Kamogawa River and discovering the narrow streets of Kyoto. During my days here I discovered and learned so many things, yet each felt more like I was remembering something that was familiar to me rather than learning something new…..the peace of solitude, the joy of discovering the heart of a place by walking (over 600 miles), the mindfulness of a cup of tea, the healing power of living in harmony with nature, the art and spiritual practice of writing, calligraphy and Sumi e painting, clearing my mind through working meditation in a zen garden, tai chi and martial arts, zazen practice and temple cooking and cleaning. I settled into my natural rhythm here. Most significantly, I discovered even more deeply than I had before, the beauty of Japanese people and their culture. In my last days I connected with teachers and friends who I will now remain connected to here in Kyoto.
For now, it is a time for me to return home. I travel my path a bit lighter with a sense of non-attachment to things, places or people, the world around me. Each leg of my journey the last 2 years has been a stripping away and letting go of things. People, places and possessions. I am literally down to what I can now carry in a bag.
In the words of Ikkyu, the famous Zen monk and poet, “I have no destination, therefore I am never lost.”
So as I now return to Austin, I take these experiences, spiritual practices, arts and people within my heart. They are now a part of me. It is within that I find my home, wherever I am. My plan is to return to Kyoto in the Fall, but as I have learned repeatedly on this journey, plans change almost as quickly as they are made. We can often not even plan so far as the day ahead. Best to travel lightly and take each day as it comes, savor it as the priceless gift that it is, and realize the miracle of it all.
Thank you for sharing my journey this past year. If you would like to continue receiving Sundays in Kyoto, please be sure to subscribe if you have not already done so. I will continue to share my writings and experiences here until there is nothing left.
Gassho,
Kirk
“Having no destination, I am never lost.”
-Ikkyu