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Teaching or should I say, serving as a guide for a 90 minutes journey – a class I want to take myself …that was tonight.

Tonight a student left with a kind comment, “your class is like going to heaven” – this must be the most memorable comment ever – I was truly touched and honored with such a compliment. It made my effort all worthwhile as, to be honest, I was looking for an emergency sub this morning when I discovered my LA to SF flight was delayed. The night before I had arrived at LAX from Haneda… So it is interesting how when you are feeling your absolute worst, so so miserable, apparently you deliver one of your better classes – perhaps because, then, you are truly coming from a place of compassion and empathy. You truly cultivated serenity amidst the turmoil and stress. Why miserable? Having logged near 6000 miles and crossing a time zone in the last 24 hours, night and day flipped, I was feeling like someone with a bad case of a hangover. Only 2 hours ago, my head was spinning, only an hour ago, my head was pounding and my head muddled… my entire back aching from sitting over 12 hours, unable to sleep. I was stiff, sore, gripped in tight knots all over … I needed yoga to the rescue. Is this some kind of cruel and unusual punishment? No, just coming back from Tokyo, via one night stay in LA where I was treated to a grande size cocktail which was supposed to knock me out cold (I could not say no to the host) into lovely uninterrupted slumber before I got on to the final leg of my trip from LA to SF. Well, that cocktail got me up at 3am at which point I simply felt… awful. Hearing the recipe for the drink before my departure of SF made me realize why – FYI – only alcohol I drink is wine and sometimes beer – but this cocktail was made from high doze of Vodka, Limoncello, and some other hard liquor I was unfamiliar with. While it is a very powerful drink, it tasted like innocent lemonade… reliving the foolishness of youthful days gone by – How one suffers later on when you give into sweet but harmful temptations.

Pressing the reset button – starting anew for tomorrow. While I miss my old home very much, I am happy to be back in California. Here are the list of what I miss about Japan or specifically Tokyo:

1. My Mommy:)
2. My relatives.
3. OFURO – japanese style bath.
4. High level of sensitive attention to details, especially to season, weather and service.
5. Japanese functionality in designs and aesthetics in designs.
6. food, food, food.
7. politeness. Gentle speech and refined manners of some not all.
8. Cuteness in things in general…
9. just walking in some parts of town is fun.
10. Gentle and kind souls, i.e., people.
11. Best restaurants and cafes. Best service. Most international – from Indian, Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese… on and on.

What I do not miss:

1. muggy weather this time of the year – mosquito bites and dengue fever scare.
2. smokers polluting the air. Too many smokers.
3. too much politeness – get on the elevator in Ginza and a very thin and refined lady says, Excuse me for taking up space – I am absolutely of no use to anyone – Pardon me for being a nuisance crowding this elevator. ummm, you are a beautifully dressed dainty senior, you do not have to say you are worthless and should not take up space in this elevator – Yes, I know, it’s just a figure of speech but really… exasperating. The figure of speech from years gone by are spoken… amusing but a bit sad when one is past being modest but self-deprecating at best. I guess I am Americanized. I am not going to apologize for taking up space.
4. Too much bowing.
5. Too much inappropriate cuteness. Do high percentage of men in Japan have Lolita complex? Girls are just too cute for cute-sake.
BTW, trivia – did you know Hello Kitty is not really a cat? Of course it’s really a super cute girl.
6. bad air in subways. Thank goodness I had Foliage aroma stone with me.
7. Too crowded. Had to jump into cafes to regain some sense of peace… I know temples in Kyoto and countryside is not like this but this is Tokyo…Yes, there are pockets of mini-shinto shrines and gardens in most unexpected places… that was nice. It was an Urban Zen in a true sense of the word in the country that mothered the word, “Zen” – as in Zazen. More on this later.

Or Comedian the Poet…

To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl

“Do you realize that if you had started building the Parthenon
on the day you were born,
you would be all done in only one more year?
Of course, you couldn’t have done that all alone.
So never mind; you’re fine just being yourself.
You’re loved for just being you.
But did you know that at your age
Judy Garland was pulling down 150,000 dollars a picture,
Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory
and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room
— no wait, I mean he had invented the calculator?
Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life,
after you come out of your room and begin to blossom,
or at least pick up all your socks.
For some reason I keep remembering that
Lady Jane Grey was queen of England when she was only 15.
But then she was beheaded,
so never mind her as a role model.
A few centuries later, when he was your age,
Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family,
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas and two complete masses as a youngster.
But of course, that was in Austria at the height of Romantic lyricism,
not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.
Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15
or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?
We think you’re special just being you —
playing with your food and staring into space.
By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,
but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.”
—Billy Collins

In this case, boy or girl must be interchangeable.

Who was your role model when you were a teen?
B.K.S. Iyengar was introduced to yoga at the age of 16…
What a difference it made on his life… May we all find something, anything that makes such a profound difference for the better – an ultimate transformation over a lifetime.

Did not realize he was on TED but I like the comedy central reading better:) You have to sit through the commercial ad in the beginning which is the only flaw. I missed his visit to San Francisco’s City Arts… wish I had known.

Life is short; Eternity is not.

I did not think up the above – a sign on the church building. Quite an impression.
Currently not in a contemplative mode as having just come back from Seattle, the suitcase still sits unpacked, souvenir gifts undelivered.
As soon as I unpack the spoils of the Northwest, I must pack for a trip to the East… photos from Seattle still yet to downloaded, much less organized
while I prepare to embark on yet another memory making journey. It’s all about making fond memories – life is about experiences and relationships, good and bad, the full range.
It’s the truth for me –

Life’s about the journey; not the destination.

Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It’s the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
– Billy Collins

He is referring to Buson’s haiku… that goes like this:

釣鐘（つりがね）にとまりてねむる胡蝶（こてふ）かな
蕪村

A moonbutterfly sleeps peacefully on a big temple bell.

Tough to translate this – due to the extreme brevity that contains so much… it’s the imagery of a beautiful stillness under the moonlight (otherwise, he would not have seen the moth – no flashlight in the 1700’s) where a moth lies quietly on a large temple bell. Unfamiliar with Haiku, one might think – so what? Well, that’s haiku – you have to use your mind, more specifically, your imagination has to go to work (which in turn is good for your mind:) If you have ever seen a large (weighs mega-tons) metallic bell at a Japanese shrine or a temple… the image becomes that of tenderness and sweetness due to the contrasting images – the dark heavy solid gigantic bell that vibrates when struck vs. the light small fuzzy unsuspecting … moth, noth…nothing – mothing-like moth. Seen in a moonlit temple ground. It is also somewhat amusing because when the bell is struck, the vibration would be so great – one wonders what would a moth do – go into shock? or flutter away knocked out by the vibe? A concern goes out for this tiny stealthy creature currently enjoying the quiet, the peace… the stillness. Sometimes we are suddenly shaken not knowing we too were blissfully without knowing, just hanging out on something we thought was solid and stable like a rock. Turns out – Things are not so solid and static – things are dynamic and quivering with energy yet to manifest.

With Haiku – less is more. Less said, more conveyed.

An image to follow…