Traveling to Japan was an experience.

I don’t mean this in the sensationalized manner travel bloggers use to describe their excursions in a foreign country. I mean this in the literal sense. Traveling to Japan was an experience.

My life thus far has followed two paths of study. One Zen practice. The other violin practice, using the Suzuki Method.

I came to Zen as I was entering adulthood. The first steps were using an iPhone app to dabble in quiet mindfulness–a state my striving, academic mind was unfamiliar with– and then checking out a few biographies of Zen teachers from the library. I read these biographies of Japanese Zen teachers before ever setting foot in a zendo, so by the time I did attend a formal sitting I viewed it through the lens of its Japanese history I had read.

I began violin much earlier. I picked up the instrument at the age of four, and with my mother I progressed through years of study under a method which was developed in the 1950s by Japanese violinist Dr. Shin’ichi Suzuki. Though I didn’t understand this intellectually at the time, the method centered around principles of repetition, such-ness, non-competition, communal activity, mindfulness, and integrity of character. My first teacher was Japanese-American; she shared stories of Suzuki’s life in Japan while teaching us Japanese folk songs. Her holiday gift to us each year was an origami crane.

Because these two paths, violin and Zen, were incredibly influential practices early in my childhood and young-adult life, I had the feeling that in some ways I had been raised by Japanese culture. Albeit in an Americanized context, Japanese life and thought had undoubtedly shaped my life and thought.

As I continued to reside at the Ithaca Zen Center, studying under Yoshin David Radin and completing my masters degree in Suzuki Violin Pedagogy, the thought that I should travel to Japan passed through my mind often. I found myself wondering what Japan was like, how it sounded, felt, looked. I wondered if Zen practice there now was the same as it had always been. I wondered if, as an American, I could ever truly experience a Japan beyond my limited Western notions of it. I wondered, wondered, wondered.

What a delight it has been to exchange that thinking for experience.

Traveling with companions from Rinzai-ji through Japan, from Tokyo up to Matsushima and back, was an incredible experiential education in the way Japan is, not the way I though Japan was.

The honor of sitting Zazenkai at Joshu Sasaki Roshi’s training temple, Zuigan Sodo, were as revealing as strolling down the Ginza strip, equal also to waiting at train stations in between. The opportunity to taste city life, monastery life, the beautiful natural countryside and the ritual relaxation at an Onsen satisfied my curious mind. Myoren’s wisdom to structure the travel as an uninterrupted sesshin, with shared rooms, shared schedule, shared meals, and neutralized reactions to any unexpected changes of plan both in the monasteries and outside of them, gave me a new experience of beautiful, communal travel. Furthermore, gratitude swelled for Myoren’s translations and arrangement of rare opportunities which gave us a window into Zen life in Japan which none of us alone could have experienced.

Putting thoughts to rest, my lived experience of Japan now shapes the way I practice both violin and Zen now. I will forever appreciate our hosts in Japan, my fellow traveling companions, and Myoren’s organization for transforming my wonderings into lived knowings.