Shared by Michael
The origin of this share was on a 3-week trip to Japan my wife and I took back in June. The trip itself was amazing, taking us across multiple regions and cities over the course of our stay.
It was on our walking tour of Kyoto, as we approached Kenninji Temple when I first saw it, a flash of crimson against the wood-colored backdrop of the ancient city.
It was a string of fist sized embroidered objects hanging outside a small gated, enclosed courtyard and small building. It caught my eye, and for some reason I was drawn to it. It had the form of a Kusari-doi (a rain chain) but it was covered with a metal topper obviously designed to keep the rain away, and the condition was very well taken care of.
As I examined it more thoroughly, I noticed that it was in the base form of a red 4-pointed star, with a single pure white sphere in the center. The “arms” of the star were pulled up and gathered together at the top. There were about 5-6 of them forming the full chain.
I thought it looked quite cool, and frankly assumed it was someone’s home decoration. It looked like a lot of care went into it. As I was taking a picture our tour guide had noticed I had stopped, and pulled the group back around to the object.
He pointed out what I had noticed and started talking about the area’s tie to Zen (because of the proximity to Kenninji) and there are many places were people come to sit it meditation, and this was a marker to such a place, and it was not just decorative, it was also very symbolic. It marked the location as a place for learning and practicing meditation.
The white sphere inside represents your “True Mind” or self. The red star represented what was called the “Monkey Mind” or that part of us that is constantly distracted, in motion, thinking about the next thing, etc. Like a monkey with a ball, your True Mind is being so battered about by the Monkey Mind, making peace a fleeting proposition at best.
The act of meditation was the acting of taming the monkey so the True Mind could be centered. This was represented by the “tying” of the monkey’s arms and legs together (the arms of the star) on the decorative chain.
The act of taming the Monkey Mind was not just for internal distractions (attention deficit “ooohhh shiny”) but all though things that welcome the mind batter us about… work, life, play, the list goes on. Sometimes we just need to still all that, so we can be the “real” us, and not just the “us reacting”. This thought was very appealing to me as someone who spent many days reacting and distracted to exhaustion.
This stuck with me, and when we arrived back in the US, I was still thinking about it. I started looking into sitting Zen which has happily led me to the zendo here.
Small moments have long shadows.
Hakone Zendo 