A Secret Near Tokyo

The core idea behind Buddhism, in my interpretation, is that everything you attribute outside of yourself as essential for your happiness is your brain making fun of you. At least that’s how I like to write it, how to define it.

Not to be a last-man reducer unto the thought that all satisfying emotions are chemicals to fire, but one ought to wonder where any of your feelings come from. However you want to confer a soul-connection to spiritual, chemical, the feeling still comes from somewhere within you. However it visits, it visits within.

Thus, theoretically, and with some testimonials and a thousand year history, if you can somehow tap into the faucet of “Inner Love” directly, you no longer need anything else. You do not need to be understood. You don’t need acceptance, status. Nor people, and you don’t even need most food and pastimes. This is why ascetics smile serenely: they keep this open secret close.

Thus as I waddled through the long, long walkways of the Haneda Airport, huffing with my sweat stained Pikachu shirt (unfortunately I don’t actually have any such graphic tees anymore), nevertheless I was ready to see the alternative of existence. The alternative where, instead of this “thousand year open secret”, one may still take a half-world flight to find novelty, to find another answer or at least a stabilizer in our strange reality.

Will I finally find the urge to purchase something more than edamame and bean sprouts? I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I know is that I was walking through long, long paragraphs of many tourists, actual enthusiasts before me, photos too — though in a way, I was more interested in seeing a “fallout” of infatuation (at least in my personal theories) of Japan Life, though such “fallout” is perhaps my personal narrative nowhere to be found. Maybe I was hoping for a comfort to pad against my disinterest in Japanese culture. A disinterest as of late, at least. There’s a mild shame, maybe, in visiting places you have no interest in. I hope the travel gods could spare some pity seeing as I can’t figure out if I’m interested in anything abroad. The whole “abroad” shtick seems like a core 00s and 10s thing, and now we’re in the “whatever” phase. If I were to be put to trial, I would claim I am doing this for the person in my memories; the person that would’ve loved traveling to Japan.

Thinking through those who’ve done this before, with such fervor, mastering all the accents and obscure media, finally a place to escape the blood and money of America and feel smart about it, I don’t know. As soon as I boarded the subway train toward the AirBnB I felt all of the ghosts of 2009 right beside me. The years where the novelty was at its peak, supposedly. But what do I know? I am a philistine, please understand this and excuse my less than substantiated theories and claims.

Thus far the best parts about Tokyo are the quiet places. The parks at least, they’re quite calming and that’s all you can hope for. Sometimes you can get a “shot” of modernity through the hip districts, sure, though I must admit I felt a little nauseous going through some of them. Maybe because I struggle trying to relive a childhood that’s been scorched for many years. Something like that. Maybe it’s more like, I wish I could see what they see, but all I see are idols and wallets full of blood. Dead ends?

Going through the meme districts and their flagship stores, or bars, or just general clustered malls, I had to fend against vacuousness. The Buddha nature kept calling at me while I passed the Sega store, to Nintendo, to the BL section at the top of some narrow stairs all checkered. The keychains, I could wonder, well, what life would buy this, and could I rewrite my existence to be the one to do that? I suppose some stylize their room & wear, but I never did that and probably never will. Maybe because I always had to share a room growing up. Again, it doesn’t pain me, because again, everything you attribute outside of yourself, even making an austere room “cozy” and “like you”, is just your mind playing tricks on you. That’s what I whisper to myself, at least; keeping the apartments blank makes for easy exit and entry.

Visiting some of the shrines and taking the methodical photo I wonder what, exactly, was I collecting, other than an excuse to not get any souvenirs. If you take enough photos maybe they accrue enough weight and count all on its own, stored in iCloud until my hand is forced to upgrade to the next plan out of an avoidance of all the other photos of other people and places I don’t want to remember nor delete.

The days commenced, they did, whether to the national museums or universities (I’m always a fan of walking through universities for the usual fact they’re quiet), though I did especially appreciate the null-space between the entrance of the imperial quarters and the rest of the central Tokyo. Endless grey rock, and so I am reminded about how one’s environment reflects one’s mind. While trekking along I wondered if I was wandering in an imperial mind, purified, rocks for miles and serenity between jags of nature and fencing. If given the space and interest, what would my quarters look like in comparison? Or, is this the Hojo clan and their Zen still dabbling an influence behind the scenes?

I wonder if that was ever a theory, or maybe I read about it and forget the sources. That the Zelda symbol is a wink and suggestion, though you’ll never prove, of some unbroken secret society still running things. Which would be romantic, probably, seeing as their secret society would be theoretically based in silence rather than sacrilege. If Jesus’ Kingdom was founded on love¹, what would Buddha’s Kingdom be predicated on? I think it’s either silence, or perhaps logic.

Of Ginza I don’t have much to comment, other than feeling like I was in New York once more, which isn’t something I mind necessarily. Do those that buy designer clothes know something about them I never will? Sometimes, I think, someday at least, I’d drain my savings and get a tailor and throw away all my clothes and only wear suits. I think that day is soon approaching, and then I wonder what’s the point of designer clothes when you can just get a tailor. Don’t all the real rich folks just use a tailor? Staring out of the Nissan semi-invisible corner window I tried to spot the distinction between the design clothes enthusiasts and the normal, and I couldn’t suggest any difference nor wonder if I ever found cars interesting enough; it was another photo before sitting, and before realizing I was getting in the photos of everyone behind me and thus exited quickly. Perhaps the best part would be the bookstore and the rooftop of some essential Ginza building. The rooftop was serene.

A day for Yokohama I must give some credence, perhaps the coastal undertones tickle at my origins, though not to excess: I don’t remember that many palm trees. And whether I pass the seemingly defunct British Embassy, to the Korean, to another mall center and about the theme park, beyond the pier terminal and onward I began to feel how all of Japan seems designed as a massive amusement park. It certainly felt that way, and maybe a little sad or reductionist thought from a stupid tourist. One can instead appreciate all of the rides and trolleys, or the lovely manicured walkways with flowers galore. I think that’s why it felt like a theme park: there’s always a trace of beauty in the integration between nature and concrete. Like a dedicated team making sure the foliage is pristine. Ordering a sweet potato from the local fair and stall was most satisfying, the same as the food courts of the amusement parks I grew up with.

I kept trying to imagine living here for more than a month, though I suppose I am the embodiment of the “whatever” phase of the 2020s, if that is a thing. After fiddling with my cards to get through the convenience stores and supermarkets, taking advantage of the subway lines to traverse past all the usual places, I must admit, on day 45, I don’t see myself doing anything especially different than what I would do in any other place in the world. Perhaps one could find some mutual delusion and suggest a Coffee Meetup, start some scene of… well, I think all scenes are a 00s and 10s thing too, but you could cosplay one, maybe. In any case, past day 45 would be a day spent holed up in a room staring at the calendar, most likely.

If I could buy one thing it’d be a set of monk clothes and shoes. Maybe on day 50 I would sit still on the balcony. With enough meditation I could finally, certainly, access the higher planes of consciousness and no longer need to hobble along with a half-flimsy dissociative disposition; gaining some energy from the few Buddhist temples I did visit. The more you contemplate how every part of material life is a roundabout scam from what your “mind” can readily give you, today, the more it seems absurd. Thus as I wondered through Don Quixote, through Bic Camera, and all of the advertising and bold neon letterings, I don’t know, they felt the same as leaves at the temple, and maybe they’ll drip down and the bright colors will return to the gray rocks the Zen imperials intend for all of Japanese society.

For a first international visit I was looking forward to what “culture shock” would feel like, but I think I am so disassociated from what “my culture” even is that I don’t have anything to contrast with and feel the physical distance. So I suppose this only confirms the extent of alienation, though maybe it’s just because I’ve been exposed to Japanese stuff all of my life, too. The few times I felt a “little off” would be the complete silence of the train some mornings, where you realize the silence may not entirely be self-imposed, but more because of the work day pending.

As an alternative, perhaps I am no longer able to piece together the prior parts. However many Razor scooters I could revive, or to take your hand and hop to the back of the bus, make some window haze smileys and not yet realize the hollowing nature of the cosmopolitan force sucking the marrow of anything left American. To be born a nomad infected; the blood swirls between Christian eschatological yearning and the cradle of Faustian destruction. However many times we could pace circles in a childhood room, rearrange the Legos, together, do you think we could finally patch the burnt books? I keep on seeing flashes of rotting towns, crumbled walls, the pastor sits silent in ashes; I haven’t explained myself in decades, and I wouldn’t be sure to begin and, besides, what joy is there staring down the cobblestone well, where the ripples may offer memoirs animated, yet they’re all tinted in a blue, demanding a hook into vein to keep the picture moving?

While roaming the Tokyo Costco I didn’t feel any different than the ones right where I live; the only difference was a mild switch in demographics, small variance in my typical staples. Thus as I stand hall-crowded and stared at the fine twindled hair a half-foot from my iris, I thought each head as crop, strands as shoots, of the long line of harvest and planting. Humanity’s garden. And that long chain and yield now blooms in front of me. For centuries separated and here we meet, completely distinct and roaming the same store; what is there to explain? I wonder if our ancestors could make sense of it.

Of course there was more that I visited and did but I’m curious if anyone actually enjoys cataloguing such experiences. After awhile the temples seem to blend together, shopping malls too, parks even and the walkways and peoples and I ate mostly the same everyday. Toward the end, before departure, I wondered if there was something I wasn’t understanding. I came here searching for the alternative, of the novelty gravy train held so closely in the hearts around. But all I found was how the metropolis stares back at you. Hoping to hand you the same open secret monks give away freely.

You could also disregard my conclusion and twist this all into the often phrased remark.

That you can go anywhere in the world, but you still bring your self.

Footnotes

1. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him. — Napoleon Bonaparte

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