The other day, I joined a ZAZEN (Zen sitting meditation) experience in Tofukuji temple.

In a very spacious hall, we did ZAZEN for five minutes and then received a lecture by a monk for ten minutes.

At first I thought five minutes can be quite long, but it finished in a blink of an eye. Not long at all. In fact I was hit with a KEISAKU (a wooden plate for monks to whip participants who was found distracted), but the pain was rather bearable!

Maybe the KEISAKU was a soft one, and the monk had a mercy enough to hit me in a gentle way( ;∀;) My mind got clear anyway after the hit, and became able to focus on ZAZEN again(^^♪

Though Tofukuji is very famous for its crimson foliage in autumn, I really enjoyed it in this fresh vivid greenery.( *´艸｀)