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Exam and bacon
Exam and bacon
Yesterday I took the Level 2 Japanese Proficiency exam from 9:45-14:30, then I went to the bookshop and bought a magazine with a feature on Zen, then from 18:00-20:00, I went to Zazen. That may seem like the most boring day in the world, but I was quietly satisfied by the end of it! The exam went reasonably well. I did a fair amount of guessing, but informed guesses. You see, with Kanji, you can often guess the meaning without really knowing how to read/pronounce the character. For example, the Kanji for "clap", contains the kanji for hand and also room. So you can pretty much assume, if the question is, "What is the Kanji for clap?", that's the one, rather than the Kanji which contains sea and onion.
I didn't guess at every question, I can assure you, and for this reason I felt satisfied-I might even pass!
Zazen was good too. Recently I've been concentrating on counting, but everytime I go to the temple I get really nervous about the stick. And when I count, I seem to be drifting off somewhere else and the whacking stick seems to jolt me out of that state. Then I jump and feel really self conscious:"Did someone see me just jump like a stupid frog?",I think to myself.
Anyway, I concluded that rather than concentrate on counting, it might be better to return to just, "arousing the mind without resting it on anything", in the words of some Buddha. So I did that and it was enjoyable again- I didn't jump when the stick was whacked!Yey yey. I suppose that if I were deeply concentrating on counting I wouldn't have had that response but as I can't seem to get to that stage without the jumping I'll leave the counting.
The magazine was good too. Lots of nice pictures!
Right time for curry....
posted by PA on Monday, December 08, 2003
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