教員コラムBlog

  1. home
  2. 教員コラム / Blog
  3. 詳細 / Detail

Secret Joy

2022.07.18
  • Jackie Kim-Wachutka **Photo by the author**
  • Hobbies_LeisureActivities
  • Advanced
  • 2022

A sunny autumn day like today is a liminal time, an in-between state, when something is at its birthing stage. A fresh new beginning has just begun to open its tight bud into a slow blossom. Tsubaki camellia flowers strike a pose, wearing soft pink petals like a multi-layered evening gown. Fresh new leaves, a very dark matcha green, offer up the soft buds of flowers with a very distinct contrast. Deep autumn is just around the corner. Fresh new amber orange and red in their fantastic colors vie for attention. Two years ago, in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic halted the world to an almost complete stop, I discovered a secret joy. I was afraid to say it. Too many people all over the world were suffering. Many lost loved ones. Some stood at death’s door. Others battled awful symptoms. Some luckily won over the corona virus with a sniffle and a sneeze. But no doubt, countless people suffered in their own way. In the midst of all of this, I carried this secret joy. I could not share this with anyone. It didn’t feel right to voice it out loud when so many were suffering.


Like last year, I made my way to the spot where I discovered this joy. The afternoon sun was warm on my face. I couldn’t help but hum my favorite song. Can a day be as perfect as this? Everywhere I looked there were hints of autumn colors. I quickly made my way to my destination – Nanzenji temple. Last year, I had the temple to myself, a breathtaking but simple architecture – so still, ever gentle. Standing in this open space with hardly anyone around, I breathed in refreshing air, and I breathed out the stress of the frightening 24/7 news cycle of illness, death, doubt, and strife that had become a part of everyday life. What had this temple witnessed over the many centuries of its existence? Now, it became my oasis. It offered me a quiet, calming joy, almost like an extended helping hand. Since then, I have been savoring this soothing feeling of being surrounded by this breath-taking beauty and the joy of having it all to myself.


But lo and behold… What is this? Who are they? What is going on? Stop, stop, stop! Cameras clicked, loud laughter echoed in the chilly air, buzz of non-stop conversation whirling around my head, cars honking, the burned smell of rubber spewing out dark fumes from tour buses, the high-pitched voices of young tour guides mindlessly carrying high their little flag. No, this can’t be. A heavy feeling found a place in the pit of my stomach. The once high feeling slowly but surely dissipated to an increasing low. The serene Nanzenji, a place of quiet calm, the seat of Zen, was overrun once again. “Life as usual,” “Back to Normal,” “With Corona,” threatened my secret joy, this rare moment of quiet, the essence of Zen. Experiencing history, tradition, and ritual of calm in temples like Nanzenji is what I had been savoring within these two years of the pandemic. I knew that it would not last long. 


Now, on this beautiful day, I am once again one among thousands, making an autumn-foliage pilgrimage to Nanzenji. Disappointed, I weakly hold up my camera, trying to capture that perfect shot of what my eyes behold. I try my best to ignore the mass of people. Click! I frown at the shot of a passerby’s tip of his white sneaker that invades my picture. Delete! The sun shines through the dark orange leaves. Ah, beautiful. I point my camera at that perfect shot, the side view of the temple peeking through the colorful foliage. I wait to click. A person in front is taking forever to get his own perfect shot. He finally moves out of my way. I hurriedly point the camera back at the leaves and the edge of the strikingly regal wooden temple. The sunray now has shifted. I lower my camera. Irritably, I walk through the over-crowded temple ground. 


Lovers walk hand in hand. Families talk, run, pose for one another. Selfie sticks swim through the crowd. A young girl quickly readjusts her front bangs with one free hand and then smiles into her smart phone held six feet away. Taking in these images like a slow-moving picture, my secret joy slips through my fingers. I walk heavyhearted on to the side-street away from the crowd. Wait. What is this? The sun-ray beckons me ever so quietly. I follow it. I hear the whispered invitation through a rustled wind moving through the colored leaves. I look through a half open door. This moment – a re-encounter with this knowing joy, it is here. It never left. I just needed to look closer. The discovery, the joy of seeing the beauty in the very small things, ever so quiet, very subtle, but definitely present, quickened my heartbeat. This small temple, posing now so elegantly before my eyes, may not be the grand and beautiful main attraction, but it imbues a beauty of its own, waiting quietly for that moment of mutual discovery. The secret of finding joy in the small things, present everywhere, always ready to be seen and discovered, made this autumn day… well… perfect.


 

Q1 Why was the writer afraid to verbalize her secret joy? 

 

Q2 Where was the primary place where the writer found this secret joy?

 

Q3 Why did the writer feel that the secret joy was slipping away?


Scroll down for answers
















A1 Too many people all over the world were suffering. 

 

A2 Nanzenji temple.  

 

A3 Because many visitors and tourists are once again overcrowding historical sites of Kyoto.

戻る / go back

Related posts