Echoes of Incense A Pilgrimage in Japan by Don Weiss

Chapter Eleven

Beginning Again

Three weeks later, Phyllis and I began our pilgrimage together. We had planned our starting date to coincide with the annual spring pilgrimage of the Japan Walking Association. Two years earlier, we visited most of Kochi with them, taking buses when the temples were far apart. This time, we would walk with them the first day and parts of the next two. Then they would hurry on to visit all 23 pilgrimage temples in Tokushima Prefecture in a whirlwind five-day tour.

We got to Ryozenji just at eight, when the group was about to start. We prayed, got our stamps, and rushed to join them. There were 140 people in the group. All but a dozen were older than us. A few of them remembered us from the Kochi walk. They asked where we'd been the preceding year. I explained I had a motorbike accident and couldn't walk very well at that time. Actually, I was surprised my knee never bothered me on my Winter Walk. My heels hurt the whole time but my knee was fine though it made a clicking sound when I walked up or down stairs or a steep hill.

Many in the group were from Tokyo. They marveled at the quaint farmhouses and asked us the names of some of the local flowers and fruit crops. It was very strange to be a sort of tour guide for Japanese in Japan. It made me look at my surroundings with fresh eyes.

Right away, Phyllis started having trouble with her feet. Her toes rubbed against each other. She stopped every hour to take off her shoes and straighten her socks. Between temples Three and Four, we stopped at a tiny, unnumbered temple where the little Hon-do was filled with piles of old-fashioned straw sandals. I told her it was a perfect place to pray for an end to pain in her feet. Instead of praying, she put tape on her toes.

Near Temple Five, we stopped for a few minutes to say hello to our good friends the Kurota family. We took some pictures with their daughter Sayuri, then hurried to catch up with the Walking Association group.

A few minutes later we met three of my wife's students walking home from school. One looked up, saw us and stared, amazed. She grabbed her friend's arm, saying, "Weiss-san."Then they smiled and said "Hello."

We spent that night with the Walking Association group at Temple Six. As soon as we arrived, I rushed to the bath to stay ahead of the crowd. Then I sat in front of a big TV in the lounge and watched sumo.

The feeling of this trip, starting out, was completely different from my Winter Walk. I was rushing along with a crowd of people on a holiday. They had no responsibilities, not even finding the way. Once I asked Rev. Shono, the Head Priest of Temple 19, what he thought of bus henro. He said, "The first time, for all people, it is just like a sightseeing trip. The second time, they get some religious mind. And after ten times, maybe he's a real henro."

Dinner was at six, right after sumo. Our group filled the big dining room. The head priest came in and welcomed us. He wished us a good pilgrimage and said that, as we all knew, henro weren't supposed to drink alcohol so here were some other drinks for us. Then he waved at the servers and they brought in tray after tray of beer and sake. We all laughed and started to fill each other's glasses.

After dinner, we went back to our room. I read Kobo Daishi's commentary on the Heart Sutra. Phyllis, a fine calligrapher, copied the Heart Sutra. Then we both prepared name slips for the next day and went to bed.

There was only a paper-covered shoji separating us from the next room, so when our neighbors started talking at 5:15 they woke us up. I turned on the kerosene heater and opened the window an inch. There was a 6:00 a.m. service in the Hon-do, but I skipped it. At breakfast, someone passed out copies of the local paper. There was a picture of the Walking Association group with an article.

We gathered in the courtyard at 7:00. It was six degrees and raining. When almost everyone was ready, we did stretching exercises, then started off. The leader carried a flag with proper military bearing except that he wore pink rubber dish washing gloves because of the cold rain. He set a brisk pace, saying everyone liked to walk faster in the rain. We were in and out of the temples so quickly, Phyllis complained we had time to pray or use the toilet but not both.

About 9:30, I stopped at a store and bought a bag of locally-made ginger cookies. I shared them with some of the others. One old man said, "Old fashioned taste. Delicious."

After visiting Temple Ten, we left the group. They were going by bus to Temple 13 and would then walk to Temple 17 to spend the night. We would see them the next morning and walk together another half-day. Right now we were going across the Yoshino River towards Temple 11. But first we stopped at a noodle shop near Okada Ya.

As soon as we sat down, Shimada Kimiko came in and joined us. Shimada-san, the mother of one of my students, is a part-time photographer. She asked us about our schedule and said she hoped to take pictures of us that afternoon and perhaps other days, later in the pilgrimage. She showed us the local paper. In addition to the article about the Walking Association group, there was an article about us, with a picture of us on the stairs at Temple Two. We planned to write a series of stories about the pilgrimage. This article was an introduction to our stories.

We warmed up in the noodle shop, but as soon as we left, Phyllis started feeling cold again. I told her I never walked in so much cold, wet weather on my Winter Walk. I said it to encourage her, to show her that she was having trouble because she was doing something difficult. She didn't seem encouraged. She grunted and went into a drug store to buy some kairo, catalytic heat packets of dry chemicals that many Japanese use to help keep warm. She bought a box of ten, put two in her pockets and one down inside her shirt against her stomach. During the next few weeks, she used several boxes of kairo. Sometimes she held one in each hand while she walked in addition to two or three pinned under her clothes.

We got to our inn in front of Temple 11 at 4:15. It had rained all day, a cold rain driven by an icy wind. Phyllis immediately put on a yukata and went to take a long, long bath. She didn't eat much of her dinner. I said she should try to eat more to keep up her energy, especially on these cold days. She said, "I don't want to get fat on the pilgrimage, I want to lose weight."She's not at all overweight, but in Japan, where most of the women are small by American standards, she always felt large. I suggested it might be dangerous to try to lose weight, walking so much in the cold but she didn't want my advice. She pressed her lips together, saying nothing. After dinner, she did her name slips and then went right to bed, pulling a wool hat onto her head.

I sat at a little table in front of the heater, preparing my name slips for the next day, comparing my name slips with hers. Mine were written in English. Hers, elegantly, in Japanese. When I came to Japan, I tried to learn calligraphy but the brush never became part of my hand. I use a pen and my written Japanese isn't very good.

Phyllis immediately took to the brush. Perhaps it was in part because she had studied watercolor painting for several years. But more than that, the brush allowed her to express a part of herself. The brush expresses what the heart feels. Tension, peace, discipline, excitement, all these live in the ink. Her name slips showed her unhappiness. The characters were clear and correct, yet they lacked life. They could almost have been printed by a machine.

If I could have done calligraphy that night, I think my characters would have been light and delicate. It had been a day of rain, wind and cold, but, in its own way, it had been a good day. The rain soaked into my shoes, my cheeks were chilled by the cold wind, my wife was unhappy, but none of these thing bothered me. I simply observed them. I saw them, but they didn't trouble my heart. I felt calm, at peace. Basho wrote:

A misty day,
Fuji's unseen absence,
Showing me delight.

The next morning at breakfast we sat with a couple in their early 60's. The man spoke excellent English. He was an electrical engineer from Osaka. He retired in February. Now, fulfilling his wife's long-held wish, they were walking the pilgrimage. I asked him how long they expected to take.

"We plan to walk for about 90 days. We must go very slowly because we are old. We do not want to take the mountain trails. We are afraid we will get sick or become lost. So we are following the roads. It is okay. It is not important to rush. I am retired. We have much time."

The Walking Association group arrived from at 7:30. We joined them at Temple 11 and started up the mountain. Though the path climbed steeply, they kept up a moderate but steady pace. I never stopped marveling at how vigorous these old folks were. Despite my Winter Walk, I wasn't in much better shape than some of the sixty-year-olds. Even those well into their seventies had little trouble keeping up.

The weather started out cold and cloudy. Soon it got colder. By the time we had climbed to 400 meters, the temperature was about zero.

We rested at Chodo An. Once there was a regular temple there, but it was gone. Only the outlines of a building remained under the fallen leaves. One tiny chapel stood in a clearing in the forest and even that had long been empty. But about a year before, a priest came to live at Chodo An.

He was a gentle, friendly man from Kyoto. The first time I met him, he was alone. This time there were three other people there with him, cleaning up the ruins. When I returned two months later, the others had left, leaving him alone again. He lived a life of utter simplicity. He found some wild foods in the forest. People walking by sometimes gave him a little food or bought some of his brush paintings. Twice each month he walked into town to buy rice, cigarettes, and a little sake. I asked him what sort of Buddhist practice he did.

"Only this. Meeting people who are walking between the temples. My practice is meeting people. For me, this is enough."After my second pilgrimage, I gave a talk to the International Association in the town where I lived, Ishii. I told people that if they wanted to meet Kobo Daishi, they should go to Chodo An.

A little further, in front of a small temple called Ryusui An, the Walking Association (which has these trips very well-organized) was cooking a stew in giant pots over open fires. We ate bowl after bowl, enjoying the warmth. The temperature remained near freezing.

We ate quickly, then said good-bye to the group because we had much further to walk than they did. I'll always be grateful to them, but especially to Aihara-san, Ikuhara-san and Ueta-san.

Soon we got to an 800 meter-high ridge, the highest point of the trail from 11 to 12. Stairs climb the last few dozen meters. At the top, under one of the largest cedars I've ever seen, there is a six-meter-high statue of Kobo Daishi. The tree is a Prefectural National Treasure. According to legend, Kobo Daishi planted it after sleeping here and dreaming of Amida, the Buddha of Boundless Light.

Dark shade covered the ground under the tree. I saw patches of old snow here and there, making the scene feel even colder than it was. I decided to call this pilgrimage A Walk Into Spring, since I knew it had to get warmer.

While we were standing there, a family of four Japanese came up the steps. We had seen them several times the two previous days. They were just walking together this first part. The next day, they would all go home except for the college-aged girl, who would continue a few days longer on her own. The mother said she and her daughter saw me on January 7th at Temple Two. I remembered a group of four women with tiny packs who said they were just walking from Number One to Number Five that day. Yes, she told me, that was them, with friends. They were testing themselves to see how they liked it.

An hour later we arrived at Temple 12, Shosanji, Burning Mountain Temple. It was over a hundred years old when Kobo Daishi came to visit. A great serpent had appeared on the mountain, terrorizing the people below with powerful storms. Kobo Daishi climbed the mountain to tame the serpent, but it covered the forest with a sea of flames. Unafraid, Kobo Daishi called on the Bodhisattva Kokuzo. Then the fire disappeared and the serpent hid in a cave. Kobo Daishi sealed the mouth of the cave and carved two sacred images to guard the serpent.

We went though the temple gate and followed a row of towering cedars to the Hon-do. When we got there, we saw a man standing on the porch in front of the incense holder. Right next to where other pilgrims' incense was sending curls of smoke into the darkness where a statue of Kokuzo stood, the man put down and opened a book of music. Then he took a bamboo shakuhachi out of a box and began to play.

From the first note, from the breath that began to give voice to the bamboo, he played as a prayer to Kokuzo. The mist from his breath flowed through the shakuhachi and curled up like smoke. The melody flowed, now smooth, now coarse, now with breaks, twists and pauses that held their own rhythm. He played the shakuhachi as if it were an extension of his body. It was as if he were dancing without moving his feet.

The tone of the shakuhachi is of infinite variety. It sings, but also it whistles, hums, and speaks. Twice the music cried out like a soul in pain. Then it sang of peace and green grass under sunny skies. After he finished, the last notes echoed in the Hon-do as if the statue were playing too. Then the song ended, the echoes, like incense, drifting in nothingness. The musician stood still a moment longer, then did gassho, hands in prayer, bowed, and turned away.

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.