Son, Zen and Hakuin

Son and Fate

As I was about to leave the office for the weekend, I thought it would have been a bit sad to just go home and did nothing. A live Son night at Nippori jumped right out at me, and one of my favourite, Makoto and his band, was going to perform! And it was only two days ago when I was asked if I was still interested in taking Son lesson. That had to be a sign.

Late but it seemed nothing had started yet. A glance round the room, I saw a blonde. For some reason, my head was asking me to look again. When I did, I suddenly realised that it might have been a little rude, so I looked but I didn’t really see because my control centre was telling me not to. Before my confused brain had made sense of what had happened, a familiar voice was calling my name! There they were – two long lost friends from the time when I first got to Japan. It turned out that it was her student who was performing that night.

縁 (‘Yuen’) or fate is indeed mysterious. Tokyo isn’t small and those two live in another prefecture. I wouldn’t have even known about the event had I not checked the internet the night before. It was 縁 that brought us together.

Why are you putting me to sleep?

It was a great night except when this ‘soul’ singer came on. She started by giving a speech and it went on and on, I decided to go to the loo while she babbled on. Believe it or not, she was still at it when I came back! That was at least ten minutes of solid talking and she hadn’t even sung a note yet! Finally, she remembered that she was supposed to sing. She performed a couple of ‘souls’. Pardon me but I heard no such thing. I wonder if I was disturbed by her less-than-perfect accent. But then again, I was pretty sure that I was only picking on her accent because I wasn’t ‘distracted’ enough by her performance (or indeed, the lack of it). Frankly, she just wasn’t very good…

Why would a singer not want to prove herself/himself with their singing before embarking on a marathon speech or making dump jokes? How different is this from an English lesson taught by a ‘traditional Japanese English’ teacher? Isn’t there a convention for how certain things are supposed to be done, that is, to generate interest and create question marks? Shouldn’t we earn the right to be heard rather than simply assuming that we deserve it?

As venting is an awfully effective way of regaining balance, I’m now happy. Incidentally, I told my friend how I felt about the singer and she agreed. She also told me that the veteran, from the band I was there for, was trying to save the show by gently ‘suggesting’ that she should get started. So it seemed, I might not have been that lost in translation after all.

Hakuin

This Zen monk’s exhibition caught my eye a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it until yesterday when a friend of mine said her tea master thought she had seen my friend’s portrait in the exhibition. I felt obliged to go.

I was pretty ignorant about the monk so I didn’t know what to expect. There I was immediately drawn to the expressive simplicity of his lines. They were mesmerising, determined, free, playful, and how incredibly powerful.

I seriously doubt if it is actually possible to experience the strength of his paintings by looking at reprints.