The highly respected abbot of a private Kyoto sub-temple that never opens to public was offering a seminar in the city and I was lucky enough to get the free VIP tickets to attend.
The abbot was accompanying two of Japan’s national treasure ancient paintings that were never gone public exhibitions together before in the temple’s hundreds of years procession history.
The paintings were painted back 13h century, in China, by a monk that was actually from my hometown in Sichuan.
To show my high respect of this event, I made sure I put on a strikingly looking quilted cotten green overcoat to make a statement when I walked into the room.
I was welcomed by two dozens of volunteers who were very elegantly looking dressed in kimonos. They sent me to the front row chair with “reserved” marked on. Since I did not even show them the ticket, I had to conclude that my luck was a result influenced by my very oriental looking green cotton overcoat.
The abbot started with a brief introduction of the zen life in the temple by citing a poems written by Kenji Miyazawa (宫沢贤治）. Then he showed the basic techniques of zazen meditation. I found it was not that hard at all as I almost immediately fell half asleep because I woke up so early that morning and already finished a 10,000 steps hiking in the Presidio of San Francisco park with my friends.
While I was half consciously making an effort not to fell off the chair during the meditating, abbot started to walk among us to offer the spanking on each person’s upper back as a way to released the tension of the muscles, a modern life chronicle illness the abbot deemed worth alleviating using one of his old and faithful weapons — the kesaku 戒尺.
The kesaku he used was almost a yard long and two inches wide. If the attendee was willing to be treated, she or he would make a palm up gesture, lower the upper body, the abbot would then spank her or his upper back with well measured power, three times each side.
The abbot moved slowly among us. Everyone was quiet in meditation. The only loud and clear sounds in the auditorium was abbot’s spanking. The sound made me wonder what kind of magic the kekasu could play to the bodies.
I was anxiously waiting for my turns as almost every attendees showed gesture to be treated.
But, when abbot finished the person on my right, he immediately skipped me and started working on my friend on my left!
I was sitting there dumbfounded. What had I done wrong to send him signals of me not wanting to be spanked?!
I was so eager so curious to be spanked by one the most respected abbots on earth!
I felt I was left out, as if a pupil left out of the circle of the teacher’s pet students.
Later, as the ever optimistic and positive thinking person as I am, I explained to myself that perhaps it was my green quilted cotton overcoat’s fault.
The abbot knew from his experience that my delicate cotton layered and cotton filled overcoat could not stand the hit of his kekasu. It would break it and the cotton filling would burst into the air under his powerful strike.
Or, I was perhaps the few that did not need his alleviation curing effort?
The spanking took a super long time to get done as almost all the attendees asked for it. In the end, the abbot apologized for the unexpected lengthy session.
Yet, he spared me.
The original purpose of the spanking was to allow the abbot to wake up the monks who fell asleep during the meditation. And I actually half slept for at least 30 minutes there. On the other hand, I also have a stiff neck that needs some magic kekasu treatment. Either way, I totally was qualified for the spanking.
I left the seminar with a bewildered feeling.
