Dear friends,
I'm currently in Danang, Vietnam.
I'm writing to let you know that I won't be able to talk or write to you for the next 6 months, and that I'll be back in France in March 2024.
After a year and a half on the road, the "itinerant" part of the ZANMAI project is coming to an end. On August 28, I'll be joining the Kasuisai temple in Japan's Shizuoka prefecture.
In the tradition of Sōtō Zen Buddhism, in order to validate their "curriculum", nuns and monks must do the ango period. This is a highly intensive period of training during which we are cut off from social and family life.
Our time there is entirely devoted to the practice of zazen (meditation), the study of texts and ceremonies, and samu (work for the community).
It's a real training of the mind, where the search for well-being and personal desires are let go. Every activity becomes practice and learning, and we're plunged right into the heart of Zen practice.
Nuns and monks who have had the opportunity to do an ango in Japan can testify to the intensity and depth of this experience. So I'm both delighted and intimidated by this new adventure that awaits me.
I'd like to thank you all for your support throughout this great journey which, after this period of ango in Japan, will have lasted two years.
I'm thinking of all my fellow travelers, of course, but also of all the people who have been generous enough to put me up, offer me a meal or simply a moment of sharing.
My gratitude is immense, and I can only express it with a big THANK YOU.
See you soon!
Stanislas Komyo Wang-Genh