A Heart Untied

Long ago, a newspaper here in Okinawa ran a series of essays called “Rambles through Zen Sayings”.

Their author, the priest Sakiyama Sogen, was then in his mid-fifties. He is ninety-three now, so it was a very long time ago.

The essays moved me so deeply that, as soon as the series ended, I went to call on him at his temple, Kozenji. Today Kozenji is a fine temple standing in a quiet corner of Kinjo-cho in Shuri, but in those days it was a small old house down a narrow lane in Kumoji.

I stood frozen in the doorway, meeting him for the first time, but he welcomed me warmly. For all his rather fierce looks, he turned out to be a man full of humour and great kindness.

Between sessions of zazen, whenever the talk turned to my work, he would joke, “Make plenty of money, and send a little of it this way.”

Once I asked him, “What is a buddha?” Without a pause he answered, “A hotoke, a buddha, is what happens when things hotokeru, when they come untied.” And he went on to explain what that meant and why it mattered.

I was twenty-six. I had lost confidence in everything and grown timid, and I longed for that calm state of mind in which the cords of desire that bind the heart come loose.

As well as going to the temple to sit in zazen, I practised lying-down Zen and walking Zen in my daily life.

And I found that every one of them led to a release of body and mind that brought deep joy.

Decades have passed since then. Somewhere along the way I began to dream of building a hotel where the hearts of all who came would come untied of their own accord, and be wrapped in bliss.

I travelled to Mount Koya and to shrines and temples all over Japan, searching for the essence of such a place.

Above all, I found myself drawn to the simple spaces of Zen temples, so rich in the beauty of shadow.

I found my ideal site in Hyakuna, Tamagusuku. The hotel took ten years to complete, and I named it Hyakuna Garan.