Three Years On The Great Mountain

Some News & A Reflection on Zen Women

I am back from a hiatus from publishing CMOON with a big announcement:

My first book, Three Years On The Great Mountain: A Memoir Of Zen And Fearlessness, will be released by Shambhala Publications next June!

Now that the manuscript has been finalized, I'm back to writing regularly here on Substack. In addition to my usual posts, I'll be in touch over the next year with book updates re: cover art, promotions, and public events.

All in all, writing Three Years On The Great Mountain was a very consuming, two year process. I've learned a lot about both the craft of writing and publishing in that time, and am grateful to the folks at Shambhala for wanting to take a chance on a first time author with strange, Zen Nerd views writing from the back of a valley in Hawaiʻi. 

Having finally submitted the edited manuscript a few weeks ago, I was thrilled to take a break. And, thanks to the Hemera Foundation, I was able to take a trip to Japan, joining my Chado (Way of Tea) teacher, Sayama Sensei, in Kyoto, the cultural and historical capital of Japan, and the home of Tea.

Sensei used all of her connections to create an amazing itinerary and it was a privilege to explore Kyoto with someone who could get us into places that require a personal connection or introduction. It was a wonderful education in Chado and Zen, and I learned a great deal more about Japan, as well.

One of the highlights of the whole trip was going to Kodai-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple established by Kita no Mandokoro, affectionately known as Nene and as the widow of the de facto leader of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. According to custom, Nene became a Buddhist nun and priestess after Hideyoshi's death in 1598 and founded Kodai-ji in his memory.

As 2023 happens to be the 400-year anniversary of Nene's death, one of Sensei's other Tea students (coincidentally also named Nene) was able to reserve a casual Tea gathering in Shigure-tei, one of the Tea houses at Kodai-ji designed in the 1500s by Sen no Rikyu, the father of Chado. 

Inside Shigure-tei, an unique two-story Tea House designed by Sen no Rikyu.

We approached Shigure-tei dressed in kimono despite the sweltering summer heat and humidity. With careful steps, we wound our ways up stone stairs that climbed the hillside and overlooked the temple grounds, Kyoto sitting in the far distance.

On the way up to the tea house, we passed several temple structures that beckoned us inside. After pausing in one or two, my Tea classmates were ready to pass by a third building situated farther up the hill. It was smaller and more discreet than the others, and set back from the path. Only a simple sign bore its name, Otama-ya. No further explanation was given.

The girls were eager to get to tea and suggested we continue onwards, but I stopped with a soft but notable certainty. I just felt that we needed to stop first at Otama-ya.

After I'd climbed a dozen or so steps to the entrance, I was surprised to learn that I was now standing at the entrance to a crypt. Fifteen feet in front of me, flanked on each side by lustrous, inlaid lacquer doors were life-sized statues of Nene and Hideyoshi. Nene's remains, I learned, are interred below.

The statue of Nene-san in Otama-ya.

Before this, I'd never heard of Nene. But, reading the interpretive signs and coming to learn about who she was, I was grateful to encounter and learn of her. This is in no small part because of how, over the past five and a half years, I've often wrestled with what it means to be a woman Zen monk and priest. 

I'm not in want of contemporaries or female teachers—throughout my time at Chozen-ji, I've trained with other women in the roles of student, Sensei, and Roshi. But there are few well-known Zen and Buddhist women in the historical lineage, few female masters to locate on the farther end of that long arc toward realizing one's True Self.

Stories about male historical figures like Yamaoka Tesshu, Miyamoto Musashi, and Zen Masters Hakuin and Joshu are easy to come by. But, I've usually only learned about historical women Buddhist figures like Nene-san in books specifically addressing the role of women in Buddhism, rarely if ever in the more popular texts giving general introductions or overviews to Buddhism. 

Through Nene and other women like her, though, I often find stories and lessons that feel intimate and familiar. Though I generally feel at home in Zen and Buddhism, and am routinely inspired and struck dumb by its better known teachings (from men), coming across a nun or woman priest isn't just illuminating—it feels like striking gold. There is just something special about how their life stories and teachings land.

Descending from Shigure-tei through the famous bamboo forests at Kodai-ji.

The first time I felt this way was when I happened upon a poem by the Zen nun Chiyono in a book of early Zen warrior koans. Chiyono lived in Japan in the 13th century and she purportedly wrote this poem after she was gathering flowers at night by a stream and her bucket broke:

The bottom fell out of

Chiyono's bucket,

Now it holds no water,

nor does the moon lodge there.

I found this poem at a moment when it felt like the bottom had fallen out of my own metaphorical bucket. Chiyono reminded me that when the bottom falls out, however, it creates an opening. That opening, for me, was a passage into a deeper understanding of Mu (emptiness or the Void) and a new and more intimate engagement with what it means to be a priest, a role that in many ways stands apart from normal, everyday life.

Before coming across Chiyono, I had not wanted to spend much time exploring the history of Zen nuns. I had previously read a book by a white American woman Zen priest that highlighted what she saw as sexist stereotypes in Zen and I found her discussion laden with white women's privilege, anti-Asian racism, and Western colonialism. Even if I could sympathize with her desire to lift up Zen women, her particular critique just wasn't something I wanted to be a part of.

Through Nene and other women like her, though, I often find stories and lessons that feel intimate and familiar… coming across a nun or woman priest isn't just illuminating—it feels like striking gold.

So, I said I'd be agnostic and take wisdom wherever I found it, from whomever. Finding Chiyono's poem forced another turn in my approach. It was like taking a dip in a clear mountain stream on a hot day—a revelation and a cool, long hug. From that moment on, I took a specific interest in Rinzai Zen women. I just decided I'd pursue getting to know them more on their own terms, not just through the perspective of progressive, Western womanhood.

On the one day I had free in Kyoto before joining Tea gatherings and exquisite kaiseki meals with Sayama Sensei, I went in search of Danrin-ji, the first Zen temple built in Japan by the Empress Danrin in the 800s. Sadly, the temple is long gone and I found no evidence that it had ever existed. Along with the convent that Danrin built, it long ago fell into disrepair and was razed, built over. Where Danrin-ji once was, now stands Tenryu-ji, the Rinzai Zen central headquarters temple from which my own temple traces its line. My efforts to find any Rinzai Zen nuns while in Kyoto also failed and I had all but given up on learning about any of my female Zen ancestors on this trip until I stumbled upon Nene.

Googling her later, I learned that Nene was Hideyoshi's first wife and remained a close confidante, a collaborator of exceptional intelligence, and his great love even as he rose in power and took on consorts. She also earned the highest recognition a woman can receive from the Emperor. Nene ran all of the diplomacy of the imperial court, wielded great influence, and is described as having had a captivating and gentle personality.

Standing at the top of the path to Nene-san’s grave, I had been drawn forward with a soft but unshakeable clarity. It was like being on the receiving end of a Jedi mind trick. In Nene-san's presence, I also felt a little more comfortable, as if I had been welcomed into a distant sisterhood of women who walked dual paths—the conventional one of wife, daughter, sister, and mother; as well as the path apart as monk and priest.

While I know that there are deep challenges that men face in becoming priests, I also know that, in committing to a monastic path, a woman turns away from not just her own small self, but who she is as defined by her relationships. So often, we women seem to know ourselves most by who we are for everyone else and letting go of that can be especially hard.

I wrote Three Years On The Great Mountain to first of all share my experience of vigorous, monastery-style training and the way in which it cultivates this different perspective, a life apart. It is also an exploration of intense Buddhist training from an Asian and Asian American perspective, and in that it feels worlds apart from the dramatic whitewashing of Buddhism so prevalent in the West.

In this sharing, perhaps I am trying to replicate for others the way that I felt sitting at the steps to Nene-san's final resting place. I felt quiet, resolute, and happy, like I was absorbing some of Nene-san's stature and insight just by seeing the world from where she sat.

I'm very excited to share Three Years On The Great Mountain with you over the coming months and to bring it fully into the world.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. There's much more to come.