It’s a month since the tsunami crushed the coast of Japan north of Tokyo. Shodo Harada Roshi along with Ekai and Domyo travelled to the area in early April.
Harada Roshi wrote on his experiences and the text is available here.
In Sendai there is a priest and a temple with which we have strong karmic affiliation. He has always sent samugi, rice, and straw sandals used for takuhatsu to the people training at Sogenji. Many, many times he has sent these things for the people at Sogenji.
In some way, in any way possible, I wanted to go there and support him. The Shinkansen (high speed train) was not yet running up there, the local trains were irregular and frequently nonexistent ,and all the roads had been destroyed and were still impassable. Anywhere near the site of the disaster it was impossible to enter, except for the national guard and other emergency groups in their special vehicles. Regular vehicles could not get there.
On the 27th day of March, the roads finally were opened and it was by chance that it was the end of the month so this was the opportunity I had, using every possible means we were able to go to Sendai and to the Fukushima area. Luckily, there was an all night highway bus going all the way there after changing from a train to Kyoto, and we were able to get seats.