She lights incense, we prostrate three times, and kneel in front of a small shrine in our living room, and chant Shingon Mikkyo sutras. After that, she prays and I meditate. The whole ritual only takes ten minutes, but we do it every day. Lately, I've started doing empty mind meditation, because I feel a stirring to get back on the direct path. Doing rituals really isn't my path, but I'm happy to do them because it's Akemi's path, and she's very spiritual. The ritual often makes me recall the Daikokuji temple in Kagoshima, Japan last January, I was invited to sit by Master Kawakami, known as Sensei, at a ceremony. He is the Chief Priest there, and he built the temple by hand after WW II. I knew immediately that he was enlightened because it felt as though I was sitting next to a mountain, and I received the wordless transmission. If you're deeply along the path you know this transmission because you've received it. If you haven't received it yet, you will, because you're reading this. No one reads this kind of material unless they are exploring a spiritual path.
"Sensei, I had an experience of awakening years ago, and I lost it. Now I don't desire the desirelessness." I didn't waste words because even with the language barrier I knew he would get it. A full time temple monk who had left his native country of Italy, sat by me and translated.
"It will return," Sensei said, "it will return." He taught 2 or 3 times every day about his system of understanding the illusion. I found I needed a complete system for understanding the illusion before I could even think about letting go of it, and I had completed mine in 1998, months after that trip to India. It all came together one day when I had an "aha!" and I gave away over 200 books about psychology and spirituality. But this aha was nothing more than a sign along the way. I have a long list of signs now.
I asked Sensei many questions, comparing his way of understanding the illusion to mine, and I resisted. He was all about animal spirits, dead people, and getting students to do "gyo" which is "throwing oneself to God." Akemi and I bathed in a rocky pool at 3 am where the water temperature was below 40 degrees, and we went on 30 km walks. There was even a couple inches of snow for a few days. I had hypothermia and blisters on my feet. I told Sensei I didn't want to repeat the cold bath or the walk, so my buddy the Italian monk took me up a steep trail to a clearing with a big rock in the middle. We sat on the rock and chanted a sutra 2,000 times, using a string of beads to keep count. We started at 11 pm, and it was cold. That was gyo. I didn't like it, so I would hole up somewhere and read. or do a project on my laptop. Akemi was better, and she threw herself to God every day, climbing down a hill through the snow to reach the cold water bath. Sensei would sit inside by a heater, drinking Saki and rubbing his big Buddha belly. I didn't learn a single useful thing, but now that I think about it maybe Sensei's transmission planted a seed.
Akemi and I finished morning service. Our shrine is very meticulously arranged, and it's a joy to look at. Sometimes it makes me think of the 20 or so monks living in the temple, many of them for decades. None of them were awakened to the truth, Sensei told me. I find this to be very curious.
