I decided to walk on the day of new moon. It was planned by Charlie and me but the chance didn’t come this time so I decided to go on a walk on my own. I started to walk from 11pm and ended at 1am. I went to a beach and stayed there and sing songs sometimes. The footsteps on sand were clearly shown and I was surprised the difference from the day time. The ocean seemed not having water. It was mysteriously quiet. So I felt like I tripped to somewhere another world like 1Q84(Haruki Murakami’s). Haruki Murakami’s book ”South of the Border, West of the Sun”, there was a scene of a hero got confused because a lady he loves might have been an illusion and he doubted the memory of her. He even couldn’t find an evidence of her and he ended up closing his memory of her. 

The walk was like that. Now I can remember by seeing photographs and videos but if there is no evidence, I would think that walk was an illusion. 

 

I lit a candle and put in the middle of the beach and I went away to see the light from as far as possible. And I rushed back to the candle because the wind was strong to blow the candle off. If the light was blowed, the candle would turn to be an illusion too. 

 

And on the way to the beach, I found a leaf and it was making a sound like drumming. I felt that the leaf wanted to be found so I started to take a video. The leaf was blew by the wind from a car. And I was trying to catch the leaf with very cold hand in a glove but the leaf somehow escaped. This reminded me of a story which is about a guy who lost everything went to a temple and asked Buddha and the Buddha said that he should keep holding a thing which he touches. And when he was out of the temple, he failed at the entrance and he touched a willow. And a willow turned oranges, oranges turned fabrics, fabric turned a horse, a horse turned a house. I didn’t get anything valuable by chasing the leaf. But that taught me that sensing the small signs leads me to realize how important to be sensitive about small details of life.

In a zen book, exhaling is very important as same as inhaling. Gaining is easy but giving is difficult. I learned how exhaling is important from the leaf because the leaf was just relying on the waves of the wind. It was not afraid of being under a car. And it was sending a slight indication to me. The balance of being as it is and what to be found(I don’t know whether the leaf really wanted to be found though) I found from my perspective was incredible.