The Living Frame - Hosen-in
The Question Kyoto Gave Me
[Loop. Kyoto] Vol.3 The Living Frame - Hosen-in
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(작가 블로그 가기)
Hosen-in
Ohara. Deep in the mountains, far from downtown Kyoto.
Stepping into the pitch-black room, a massive picture window waited for me.
A striking contrast—the dark interior against the bright world outside.
Through the glass stood a centuries-old tree.
A living frame.
Frames are meant to capture still moments. A photo, a painting, a landscape... A frozen second trapped inside a boundary.
But this frame was alive. Branches swaying in the wind. Leaves changing color as the light shifted. When the seasons turn, it will blush, fall, and bloom all over again.
I took a sip of matcha. The scent of ancient wood washed over me.
Hundreds of years. The Sengoku period, the Edo shogunate, the Meiji Restoration. Through all those eras, only this tree remained. People leave, times change, but the tree stands still.
Yet, this weather-beaten tree ages, too. It changes coats every season. It gets soaked in the rain, covered in snow, and blooms once more in the spring. It feels eternal, but one day, it will vanish.
Permanence and impermanence coexisting in one frame.
The Loop Everything loops.
The patterns in the rock garden, the rhythmic hands of a cafe owner, the seasons, the generations.
And the life of this tree.
It repeats the same cycle in the same spot, yet every single moment is different. This year’s autumn leaves are not last year’s. Tomorrow’s wind won’t be today’s wind. Repetition without sameness. Isn’t life just like that?
I stopped by Blue Bottle Coffee in Kyoto. A modern interior housed inside a centuries-old traditional Japanese home. They didn’t erase the past; they wove it into a new story. The old embracing the new.
Walking through Kyoto for a few days, an ancient verse of wisdom came to mind.
Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.
The fierce grind of my Ph.D., the agonizing burnout—it all felt like dust on a grand scale. That overwhelming sense of futility was the starting point of this trip.
But the verse doesn’t end there.
There is nothing better for a person than to eat and drink
and find satisfaction in their own toil.
True. Even if the loop of life feels empty, Eating, drinking tea, and fully embracing the moment inside that loop is a blessing.
At the edge of futility, I found a tiny sliver of freedom. If life is just a continuous loop anyway, can’t I just take it one step at a time, choosing whatever brings me joy in the moment?
That was the first answer Kyoto gave me.
Rewind
I rewind my few days in Kyoto.
In front of the rock garden, an endless chain of questions. Why do I live? What have I been running so hard for? Small yet massive questions that arrived at the tail end of my burnout. The looping felt meaningless.
In the rain at Shoren-in, those heavy questions finally washed away. Silence settled between the creaking floors and the sound of rainfall. And on that circular track where I thought I was completely alone, I found my father’s familiar footprints. The looping was no longer lonely or terrifying.
In front of Hosen-in’s living frame, the repetition looked different. Like the tree changing its seasonal coats in the exact same spot: We loop, but every single moment is new. The loop was neither empty nor lonely.
The rock garden asked the question. The rain washed it clean. And the frame answered it.
‘So, are you living fully in the present?’
Kyoto didn’t hand me a neat answer. It taught me how to hold onto a question. It told me it’s okay to feel the emptiness. It taught me I’m not alone. And it showed me that even if we walk the exact same circle, we return as a different person every time.
(Loop. Kyoto — The End.)
Micro-Mission: Rewind 🧐
Whenever I catch myself rushing forward for no reason, I ask myself:
‘So, are you living fully in the present?’
I wish the answer came instantly, but I’m still asking myself that question every single moment.
Because I know that simply holding onto the question has always been the anchor for my next choice.