The Zen Mind – A Zen Journey Across Japan

From the Tokyo suberbs to the remote mountains, travel with us across Japan to explore the practice of zen today. With unrestricted filming, we will take you inside the modern Zen centers and traditional Zen monasteries to see both worlds in close detail. Step inside the meditation hall and the Zendo to experience Zazen – the practice of sitting – this is real Zen.

In Japan the cloistered lifestyle of the zen monk may be in decline but zen meditation is spreading. The Zen Mind is full of contrasts as we travel across the width and breadth of Japan from the dogen sangha in Tokyo to remote mountain zen monasteries. We join the formal ceremonies of Kyoto’s largest zen temple and witness the rituals that survive a thousand years. In the Kyoto countryside we visit a zen center that is carrying on the simple lifestyle that many temples have abandoned.

This contrast heightens as we enter Japan’s largest soto zen monastery and film unrestricted as we join the monks in their everyday workplace, cooking, cleaning and in zazen practice. The goal of which is to rid the mind of all ego and self doubt and to reach self-realization and enlightenment or satori.

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