ROD OHIRA'S PEOPLE
Student of life teaches magic of awareness
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Gazing at the blue sky overhead, the man in the wheelchair with the gentle voice needs only a few seconds to find what he's looking for.
He tries to pinpoint the tiny white dot for a companion.
The activity attracts several curious onlookers, all of whom fail to spot Venus, even with the help of a rolled-up poster mounted like a telescope on a tripod.
In the world of Robin Fujikawa, a 53-year-old Kapi'olani Community College associate professor of Asian philosophy and Zen Buddhism, this is a lesson that emphasizes a concept in learning.
After a few minutes of trying, 36-year-old John Watson finds the dot. "I got 'em!" the second-year KCC student exclaims.
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"I took a couple of classes from him before, and we did this but I never saw it. This is the first time. It feels awesome."
Kap'iolani Community College professor Robin Fujikawa, right, helps Nancy Okada isolate the planet Venus in the sky.
Pleased, Fujikawa continues his explanation.
"When one finds Venus the first time, one knows what to look for the next time, and it becomes easier," he said.
"These 'ahas' or 'wows' are all around us. When we discover them, it allows us to make connections. The 'aha' experience is a shift, the turning point from book-learning words to a visceral, gut-level kind of understanding. When we make our own discoveries, it becomes exhilarating and powerful."
Fujikawa describes the experience as "finding the clear field," a process that turns something seemingly impossible into a learning experience.
Stricken with polio at age 4, Fujikawa spent 20 years preparing for a career in teaching. He has been a KCC faculty member since 1988.
What is overlooked by others rarely escapes his attention.
The banyan tree outside his second-floor office at KCC's Kalia Building, for example, is home to several 2-month-old white tern, or mano-oKu, chicks.
"What's amazing," Fujikawa said, "is that the mother builds no nest. The egg is laid on a branch. The bird that grows up is so trusting, to me it's like a child. Having a child's attitude (in terms of learning) is the starting point for 'aha' experiences."
From 1979 to 1984, Fujikawa studied at the Zen Daishuan Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. One of his stories deals with a mosquito during his first meditation session at the temple.
Instructed to sit still for 50 minutes, Fujikawa was targeted by a mosquito, which landed on his eyelid.
"Each time, the mosquito would probe and then there would be sensations — a tickle, small stab of pain and a growing kind of irritation that grew intense and would dissipate," Fujikawa said. "This was the process.
"When the 50 minutes elapsed and the mosquito flew away, I felt disappointed. I realized I had come a long way (in dealing with a seemingly impossible situation)."
Fujikawa's life has evolved from such learning experiences.
The second-eldest of three children, he got up one morning in 1954 and fell to the floor. Polio had left him paralyzed from the neck down.
Polio was frustrating to the child because he could not go outside to play. From his parents' perspective, Fujikawa said, "the prospects of their child's future was dim, since there was no telling whether I would recover.
"A child in that situation doesn't think in terms of chances of recovery or future prospects," he said. "It's right now, and I want to go out to play."
By kindergarten, he had regained movement except for in his right index finger. The Palolo Valley native graduated from Kaimuki High School, earned a philosophy degree at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, his masters at Colorado University, and went on to study at Otani University in Kyoto. He holds two doctorate degrees.
Michael Hewitt, a KCC student who has taken three classes from Fujikawa, said, "He changed my life completely. I suffered from deep depression until he showed me how to connect things in my life."
Fujikawa's wife, Linda, teaches Japanese at KCC. Their two sons — Gen, 15, and Sho, 13 — are championship age-group swimmers for Hawai'i Swim Club-Kapolei.
Although he can walk, Fujikawa uses the wheelchair more these days to slow down the effects of post-polio syndrome, conditions that return 40 to 50 years later.
"It can be worse than it was before," Fujikawa said. "Exertion makes it come back faster.
"I'm fortunate that I can still move and work," he added. "I have sobering thoughts about it, and I don't know the time frame. But in my mind, it's not an impossible situation."
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
