Word: zen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...they begged alms last week in the Japanese city of Kobe, Zen Buddhist monks from the great temple of Shofukuji (Good Omen) met an unusual reception. Instead of showing reverence, people cracked seemingly typical Zen koans (problem riddles). "You look like the one who was admiring nude pictures," giggled one housewife, slamming the door in a novice priest's face. Snapped another tart-tongued woman: "Wash out your mind before I fill your bowl...
...sneers and jeers were caused by the worst scandal in the temple's 300-year history. Last June Photographer Mikio Tsuchiya got permission to record life in the temple, planned impressive exhibits in the U.S., where enthusiasm for Zen's ego-smashing techniques has become a semi-religious phenomenon (TIME, Feb. 4, 1957 et seg.). Tsuchiya expected to find the temple's 30 pate-shaven novices undergoing the most Spartan life imaginable, for Zen is the harshest branch of Buddhism, and Shofukuji itself has a reputation as one of Zen's most austere temples...
...matters worse by loud self-justification (in itself an unZen act). Wailed one: "When we sit long hours in meditation, the blood tends to collect around our loins. It's natural for us to seek outlets." That was no surprise to some cynical Japanese, who say that novice Zen priests often slip anchor at night after the temple supervisor goes home. Many steer straight for the local brothel, where the madam courteously bundles them inside without obtrusive haggling at the door. Others hold frequent cookouts near the temple, wolfing down undercover banquets to fatten a temple diet of soybean...
...once sickly child ("At the time, my navel was down-beamed"), Murata became fascinated as a young man with health fads, began delving into the Spartan training of the Zen Buddhist priests. By 1951, at the age of 55, he had built up a whole philosophy around the navel's influence on health. He started the Hesoten (literally, Navel Heaven) Society, swooped down upon factory and-office to proclaim that "the heaven-pointed navel receives blessings therefrom." The navel, he told his growing audiences, is "a medal of culture with which every person is born. Polish it. Value...
...swung open, and a bearded, haunted, serene face appeared, and it was a poet and he had been out there everywhere and he had dug it all and he was back. He knew, man, he knew it and we knew it, that he knew. He was crammed full of Zen-wisdom and his eyes were wise and wild and his whole body was bandaged. He was beat...