Not if you’ve decided to drop by the D.T. Suzuki Museum in Kanazawa.
Which we did after hiking up to some wonderful shrines in the hills overlooking the city. When I was in college my Zen reading included Suzuki along with Alan Watts. I discovered after we got here that Suzuki was raised in Kanazawa and there was a museum. I was intrigued. How could a museum commemorate the teachings of Suzuki without becoming the butt of a Buddhist koan? Something along the lines of, “One truly honors Suzuki by not going to his museum.”
It was so un-zen of us to go. Inside the spare, undecorated building was a long hallway and two rooms. One listed Suzuki’s writings with a couple of blown up photos of Suzuki in different stages of his life. The other was a reading room with books about Zen Buddhism mostly in Japanese, although there some in English.
Then there was path by a shallow pool, all right angles of lightly rippling water within a white wall. At the end of the path there was an open room emphasizing the view of the pool with benches to sit on and meditate. That was it. The museum wasn’t about the museum, it was about one’s self discovery while visiting.
It was Saturday, but unlike every site in Kanazawa, there were no tour buses in the parking lot.