I started creating this character Tobo, in Kyoto in 2011, first from simply messing around with watercolour. I love cat's, I have two currently, or rather they have me, and I have had two in the past. Tobochan is inspired in part by my first cat companion who was a large ginger tom who I believe lived at the house that we converted into a Zen Temple in Australia - Jizo-an. In fact there are a lot of influences on Tobochan, all my cat meetings, my training experiences and observations of interactions and of course Zen. That said, some of my experience as a Zen monk are in him, but he and his journey with his monk friend Ikkyu are in no way autobiograghical in the direct sense.
Certainly my travel and training in Japan and some extent in Australia informs my work with Tobochan. Tobochan is partly a book about Zen, partly a book about this cat Tobo and his meetings and doings. Zen is ordinary, it has ritual Buddhism too, but mostly it's about the ordinary rather than some high off place. So Tobo's life here is Zen and Not-Zen at the same time.
I wanted to write a book about Zen without writing a book about Zen. I wanted it to be easily understood. There are heavy books on Zen, read them, for certain, it's the heaviest subject you can, because it's not really a subject at all, it's you and me. Just that. But when we write about Zen, talk about Zen, there's a problem, you understand this when you meet a really religious person, God this, God that etc. We all want to escape him. I hope Tobo's book isn't that.
Above all I hope Tobochan to open another door for people.
Perhaps some people who are cat lovers maybe identify, as I do, with the humanistic quality of cats. Sometimes for good, sometimes for cat-centric mischief.
For some the identity with Tobochan is I hope the smetimes neglected humanism of Zen. Zen in the West especially seems to neglect that. Strange because Buddhism I always say is Humanism and Zen with it's focus on experential understanding in this life rather than rebirth into another one, which Zen doesn't reject but just doesn't focus on, is the most Humanistic form of all.
Any way Tobochan is a cat on a journey of his awareness, like most of us he isn't nessesarily concience of this as it's happening, a dream of a tasty fish can be a distraction to us all.
A reocurring theme is his relationship with Ikkyusan, this name is famous in Zen for the 13th Century monk Ikkyo Sojun, who is something of a popular figure in Japan even today. Ikkyu eventually became one of the most powerful and influential Zen priests in history, but he was also a down to earth, sometimes down right anti-establishment figure, who left the powerplays of the then capital of Japan, Kyoto to wander when the feeling took him. But our Ikkyu is not him, I gave him this name because of course there is the famous affiliation, but also because Ikkyu is still a common name for a Zen monk today. So the Ikkyu carachter here in that sense represents anyone of us,ordinary people.
Another reacurring appearance is the Boddhisaatva Jizo, or O-jizosama which Tobochan seems to have a connection with. I included this because Ojizosama is a much loved figure in Japanese culture, in Zen, he is the guiding figure of Monks, Mothers, Children, Firemen and the Homeless. All people who find themselves on the edge of existance in many ways.
I hope though that Tobochan readers don't find he (Tobo) and I preachy, though I hope between some funny moments of cat mind there is identification with Buddha mind also or at least the thought 'Who am I?' or Genjo Koan, the Fundamental question of existance for us all, which is sometimes lost in the rush and pressure of existing another day.
