Echoes of Incense A Pilgrimage in Japan by Don Weiss

Chapter Eight

To The Cape Of Enlightenment

Kobo Daishi wrote much about Buddhism but little about himself. In one of his books, he said that when he meditated at Cape Muroto, the morning star appeared in the sky. Japanese Buddhists think this means he became enlightened while doing the Morning Star Meditation in a cave called Mikura-do. It overlooks the sea near the cape.

Phyllis and I visited Muroto soon after we moved to Tokushima. We came by bus and visited every tourist site in the area, wondering what the signs said. It was all so mysterious. I decided that the young man now known by the posthumous name Kobo Daishi took the religious name Kukai because of the view from this cave. In its most literal meaning, the name means Sky-Sea. More poetically, it is sometimes translated Sea of Void, referring to sunyata, the Sanskrit word used to describe the essential nature of existence. The Heart Sutra says, "Dharma is fundamentally sunyata." Dharma, meaning Truth. So the phrase could be interpreted, "All things are essentially void in nature."

It was cool and clear the morning I left Kochi. The traditional henro route followed a back street. The road was narrow, and the sidewalk just barely wide enough for one person. With the busy morning traffic, I felt squeezed at the elbows and assaulted by the noise and fumes from cars. I was constantly moving to dodge other pedestrians, cyclists, people on motorbikes. Parked cars and bikes, signs, and bags of garbage blocked my way. The noise and smell bothered me, so I walked quickly, not pausing to enjoy the sight of timbered buildings of another era. Kochi City is lovely, but not at rush hour.

Then I reached Temple 30. Actually, there are two Temple 30's, Anrakuji, downtown, and Zenrakuji, to the north. Zenrakuji, The Temple of True Joy, is the original Temple 30. In the 1870's, when Japan was rapidly modernizing, many temples were destroyed. Many priests returned to lay status and since that time most Japanese Buddhist priests marry and have children. Zenrakuji was destroyed and its Honzon was moved to a temple downtown, Anrakuji. Later, Zenrakuji was rebuilt, but the priests of Anrakuji refused to return the statue. So now there are two temples claiming to be the "real" Temple 30. I had gotten my stamp at Anrakuji the day before. The priest at Zenrakuji had to turn to one of the extra pages at the back of my stamp book to register my visit. He glanced at me but said nothing. I thanked him, paid my 200 yen fee, and went on.

All the temples were crowded that day. As usual, I was given a lot of food, drink and small change as o-settai by bus henro. Farmers in their fields who helped me find my way also contributed. Between temples 29 and 28 I had a lot of trouble staying on the right path. The route led across an area of farms, and there were so many little roads, so many turns, that I kept losing the route, looking at the map, asking for directions. I never got more than about 150 meters off the right path, but it was the first time I'd had any trouble in almost a month.

In a way, it was a good day and a good place to get a little lost. The fields were mostly bare, but there were greenhouses everywhere filled with flowers, strawberries, even tangerine trees. The farmhouses all had a fat, prosperous air, as if deciding in which direction to add on another room. The roofs were of expensive gray tile, with solar water heaters and small satellite dishes spoiling their traditional style.

The last few kilometers of the day, the route followed the coast. The wind was picking up and the salt spray from the sea filled my lungs and my eyes. At one point, the walking path actually followed the beach. I met some people taking care of racks of small fish drying in the sun. The fish looked delicious. I wanted to eat some, but of course these were still being dried, they weren't ready.

In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, Kobo Daishi says that neither people nor the world are deficient in anything. That night, when I came down to dinner, glowing from a long, hot soak in a huge tiled bath with a view of the dark Pacific, I found some of those fish set out for me. There were two of them on a small plate next to a little brazier that was fitted with a fuel bar. I took matches from the nearby ashtray, lit the fuel, and set the fish on to cook. The fire made them sizzle, the sound drowning the muted drone of the TV. I watched closely as their skin cracked and the sesame seeds turned a toasted-brown color. I smelled sesame, soy sauce, sugar, fish, and the sea. Most of all, the sea.

The next morning's walk was along the sea. For 18 kilometers there was a walking and cycling path between the road and the beach. Much of the way, the path was overhung by trees. It was cold in the shadows and the wind raced over the waves, coating my glasses with salt spray. I found that the brisk wind no longer made me walk faster, just as the pain in my heels no longer slowed me down. Heat, cold, pain, joy, all were gradually becoming equal in their affect on my daily routine ‹ no effect. The Heart Sutra says, "no suffering, no craving, no extinction, no path, no wisdom, no attainment." What it seemed to mean, at this stage in my pilgrimage, was that when pain is experienced but not feared or suffered, it has no effect. When pleasure is experienced but not craved, it has no effect. Yet the pain still hurts, the pleasure still pleases. But that is on the surface. The true mind, the heart, is not affected.

I spent that night at an inn called Drive Inn 27. It was really a restaurant, but the owner had two houses nearby. Her family lived in one and kept the other as an inn for henro and any other travelers who might need a place to sleep 65 kilometers from Kochi by the henro route.

I spent an hour talking with the owner. She loved sumo so we talked about the young brothers, Takahanada and Wakahanada (now called Takanohana and Wakanohana) and the Hawaiians Konishiki and Akebono. Then she surprised me by saying I wasn't the first foreign henro to stay at her inn. The year before, four young American boys stayed there. They also walked the pilgrimage.

The next day was Valentine's Day. Phyllis and some friends planned to drive down to Muroto to spend the night. It seemed like a good opportunity to see her, talk, and maybe see if there was still a chance to stay together. Valentine's Day in a pretty inn where we had stayed at a better time in our marriage was a good opportunity, I thought. But when I called home, I found out that our friend Fukiko was sick and her husband Tony was going to stay home to take care of her. Phyllis said she didn't feel like driving down by herself, just to spend the night with me. I told her that was fine. We made a tentative date for the following Saturday afternoon, when I would stop by a small temple near our home to visit a priest I knew well.

The following day seemed the warmest of the trip. It only got up to 15 degrees but the sun shone and I walked much of the time in a tee-shirt and pilgrim's shirt.

After going along the coast for a few kilometers, the pilgrim's route turned inland and uphill, following a farmer's road. I saw trees, sea and sky all around, with tiny clouds in the pale blue sky and little fishing boats on the sea. Spring filled the day with bird song, blue sky and sunshine. I met four walking henro, another sure sign of spring, though it was still February.

There are three pilgrimage temples on the strip of coast called Muroto City. Temple 24, just above the cape, Temple 25, in town, and Temple 26 on the hill to the west. The locals call them East Temple, Port Temple and West Temple. I reached West Temple from above, coming down the farmer's road past a few hectares of tea bushes.

At West Temple, Phyllis and I had met the man she called The Express Henro. Following our first visit to the caves at Muroto Cape, we spent the night at Ota Ya. After breakfast, we started walking to West Temple in a steady rain which gradually got stronger. After we visited the temple, we went into a coffee shop in a trailer in the temple parking lot. The owner gave us coffee and tea as o-settai, then discussed how wet we looked with a man sitting at the only other table that fit into the tiny trailer. He offered to drive us to Temple 27. We happily agreed.

Our driver showed us his schedule, written neatly in a notebook. He was doing a third of the pilgrimage in a three-day weekend, with every minute accounted for, from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.. So many minutes for prayers, so many to drive, so many for lunch, etc. He wasn't getting a book stamped. I asked if he had done the pilgrimage before. He said, "Yes. Eleven times. The first time, to pray for the soul of my mother. Next time for the soul of my father. Now I just pray." Sometimes he goes alone, sometimes with his wife. Whenever he can take three days, he does a part. He called himself a Nichiyo Henro, A Sunday Pilgrim. We spent the next day and a half traveling with him. I expected to see him again when I was walking the pilgrimage, but I never did.

Ota Ya, in front of Port Temple in the middle of Muroto City, was one of the nicest places I stayed on the trip. I also liked being recognized again.

"Welcome o-henro-san. Oh, I remember, you were here before. Is your wife well?"

"Yes, very well. The weather is very beautiful today, isn't it."

"Yes. Your Japanese is very good now. Before, you spoke only a little, I think."

"No, before I could not speak Japanese. Now I speak a little."

"No, really. I can understand everything you say. What would you like for dinner?"

"Well, the last time I was here, you made katsuo no tataki. It was very delicious. Can you...?"

"Oh, that might be a little difficult. The katsuo are good in the spring and summer, but now . . . "

In normal speech in Japan, "a little difficult" means "impossible." I quickly said, "Oh, anything will be fine. A little fish, some vegetables, whatever."

It was, as I expected, more than fine. In addition to all the usual dishes, I was served a whole nodogoro. I'd had it other places, but it seems to be a specialty of Muroto. At Ota Ya, 200 meters from the dock, the taste was bright and clear, like water from a mountain stream. It was braised in mirin, a mildly sweet sake used for cooking. Once I took a bite, I ignored the rice, vegetables, and other fish set before me. I slowly stripped the firm white flesh from the bones and ate it all, not pausing to look up. When I was done, the plate held a clean skeleton attached to a head. The big, dark eye stared up at the ceiling. It still looked bright, clear, and alive.

I slept very little that night. My thoughts danced about. I planned to mail some things home to lighten my pack for the final nine days, and I went over and over what I had, what I might need, what I might send. Would the warm weather continue? I could send back some clothes. But maybe not. Should I send the film I had taken? Yes. The brochures I had picked up from towns along the route? Yes. The souvenir towels I had been given? Definitely!

I didn't think directly about my wife, but her absence was a thought drifting by, repeatedly, during the night. When I was walking during the day, I was focused on what I was doing, just walking. But now my thoughts were scattered, flying, uncontrolled. Buddhism speaks of the Monkey Mind, undisciplined. I slept with a monkey that night.

There's a story about the Zen priest Hakuin. A young unmarried woman who lived near him became pregnant. When her father asked her who was the father of her child, she said, "Hakuin." When the baby came, the girl's father took it to Hakuin and told him, "Here! You're the father. You take care of this baby." Hakuin said, "Ah, so desu ka?" "Oh, really?" He took the baby. He carried it with him as he begged for his food, and many people criticized him, saying he was an immoral man. But he never complained or tried to deny that the baby was his.

Later, the girl admitted the truth to her father. He went to Hakuin, apologized, and took back the baby, saying, "You do not have to care for the child. It isn't yours." Hakuin said, "Ah, so desu ka?" Oh, really?

Hakuin was not attached to his reputation or the baby. I was mentally holding on to my wife, not accepting the fact that my marriage was ending.

I ate breakfast slowly because I had a short day planned. I sat cross-legged at the low table set up in the dining room. It's usually an uncomfortable position for me in the morning but I had tossed and turned so much the night before that I wasn't as stiff as usual. I sat comfortably, not shifting around every five minutes to ease the tightness that usually gripped my legs at the start of each day.

Breakfast was standard, but I enjoyed it more than usual. I'd walked three consecutive 30 kilometer days, yet I felt refreshed, relaxed, and sensitive to the weather, the sights, and the food. The rice tasted excellent. At each bite, the flavor spread out in my mouth with a reminder of sunshine on flooded paddies, farmers walking barefoot, planting by hand to fill in the gaps left by the mechanical planters. Japanese who grew up just after World War Two told me their parents used to say, "When you are walking to school, bow to every farmer you see. Without farmers, there can be no rice. And you must eat every grain, never waste one grain of rice. A farmer worked barefoot in the mud to grow that rice. Be thankful."

It was another warm, beautiful day. I left at 8:15 and by 8:30 I was walking in shirtsleeves through the backstreets of Muroto. Half the houses had racks of fish set out to dry in the sun. Little fish like I had seen two days before, small squid, larger fish cut into steak-sized pieces... Everyone was saving some of the harvest of the sea, not wasting a grain of seafood, another kind of harvest.

East Temple, Temple 24, stands 160 meters above the sea a kilometer from Muroto Cape. It's a less forbidding place than Ashizuri Cape. The main road passes just inland of the waves. There are no high cliffs.

Hotsu Misakiji, The Temple of the Cape, feels like a hermitage in a forest. Even the pagoda seems about to be overwhelmed by the trees which lean out, as if peering down on the pilgrims saying the Heart Sutra.

After three long days, I was glad to have a short day planned, especially in such fine weather. I sat in the temple courtyard and ate a whole box of cookies, looking at things I had missed on my two previous visits.

In the middle of the courtyard, there was a lumpy limestone boulder the size of a cow. I saw visitors take small stones and bang on the big block, trying to make it ring. I saw similar musical stones once before, at a Mayan temple in Mexico.

Near the pagoda, a group of ladies stood next to a little enclosure. I went over and discovered a strange little fungus, not quite a toadstool, not quite anything else I recognized. I looked, marveled, and went away.

Leaving the temple, heading east, I took the path that led through a thick forest of trees, vines, and bushes. Many of the trees were camellias. Scarlet flowers dotted the green forest above me, on both sides, and on the ground.

Temple 24 was the last temple in Kochi Prefecture. I felt like my pilgrimage was moving into its final phase. It was warm and quiet in the forest. The light shining through the trees was soft and green. I heard my breath flowing in and out, I felt the air moving across my lips and tongue. It tasted of the earth, of the forest. I smelled the trees. I looked at the light and the way the bark of the trees glowed as if alive with power. The pilgrimage had become a sensual experience for me, not an intellectual exercise. Now all my senses were flowing together. I sat down, looked, listened, and let the forest speak to me.

The loudest sounds had been made by me. Now I just sat and listened to the quiet voices of the forest. I heard birds high above, out of sight, singing in the treetops. I heard insects flying past. There were rustlings in the old leaves, something crawling. And every few minutes I heard a soft impact as a camellia blossom, its life fulfilled, left its tree and fell to earth upon a bed of leaves.

A warmth seemed to flow from the earth and sky into my body, flow through, and then radiate back into the space around me. It was like the "circulation meditation" I had practiced at Temple 61. The earth, sea, forest and sky were all, equally, Dainichi Nyorai. The warmth was the mantra of Dainichi, and it flowed between us, unforced, unobstructed, unhindered. I sat, not thinking of the pilgrimage, or my life, or myself. Not thinking of the trees, or the light, or the earth. Just sitting. Just looking. Just seeing. Just listening.

Published by Don Weiss (henrodon@gmail.com) -- All rights reserved. You may read this electronic copy on the web or print it out for private reading but no part may be sold or included in any work for sale except for short excerpts used for review purposes.All photographs and maps are likewise copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission except for private, non-commercial use. Updated February 2, 1999.