Echoes of Incense A Pilgrimage in Japan by Don Weiss

Chapter Fourteen

Cherry Blossom Time

The next few days were a time of tunnels, o-settai and mountains. But most of all, it was cherry blossom time. Cherry blossoms blanketed the island. Almost every hillside that wasn't an orchard or a cedar plantation showed scattered bursts of white, cherry trees in full bloom. Riverbanks were planted with lines of trees, and the temple courtyards . . .

To the Japanese, cherry blossoms symbolize Life, a beauty that lasts only a short time. If a storm hits when the blossoms have just opened, the trees may be stripped in an hour. It's a reminder that life can end at any time.

To me, cherry blossoms have a different meaning. Clouds change constantly. Ripples on a stream, thoughts in my mind, these are fleeting. Cherry blossoms appear, then fall. So do all flowers, all things. Rocks too wear away to sand. Buddhism teaches everything that has a beginning must have an end. Everything born will someday die. Even stars. Even worlds. Even cherry blossoms.

I love cherry blossoms for their exuberance. From the bare leaves and tight buds of early spring, they burst open with an explosive force like the start of the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, one of the greatest moments in Western Classical music. Cherry blossom time is Japan's moment of glory.

At Ryukoin, the unnumbered temple near the inn where we always stayed in Uwajima, the cherry trees stood in full sun. They lit up the courtyard with a glow holding just a hint of pink. Even the dark wooden eaves of the Hon-do seemed to shine with the light passing through the cherry blossoms.

The river valley leading from Uwajima up towards Temple 40 was a cherry garden. Trees lined the river banks, providing clear, flat spots for picnics. The dark green hillsides climbed up from the river, with every 20th tree a white wedding gown of blossoms.

We spent two nights at the little inn in Koda where I had stayed in the winter. On our rest day, we met the Assistant English Teacher who was living in the town. We talked with him about our lives and his. When he learned that we had spent five of the preceding ten years traveling in Asia and Africa, he said, "Does traveling put a strain on your marriage?"I laughed. Phyllis laughed so hard, I thought she was going to cry.

We took a back road to Kuma. Along the way, we stopped at a village of a dozen houses and two small shops. We bought cookies and milk and sat on the steps of a nearby Shinto shrine, letting the cherry blossoms drift down onto us as we rested, picking them out of our food as we ate.

At the entrance to the shrine, just inside the gate, stood a big phallic stone about two meters long. It was set up at a 60 degree angle, with two round rocks at the base. Across the way, a boulder was cut open and hollowed out to create a fountain that was the female counterpart of the phallic stone.

While we were resting there, a bent old man came over and asked if we were truly henro.

"Yes. We are walking the pilgrimage. We live in Tokushima."

"Oh, Tokushima. I was in Tokushima. I walked the pilgrimage too, many years ago. I slept in shrines like this one because I was too poor to stay at inns. Is this your daughter?"Phyllis laughed. We're almost the exact same age. Someone else asked the same question later that day. Perhaps I looked unusually tired, though I felt fine.

The tunnels on the western side of the island are longer and more numerous than along any other part of the pilgrimage. I still sang my way through them, with "White Christmas"and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"still my favorites. Phyllis hated and feared the tunnels, especially the old, dark ones, without sidewalks. The worst one pierced a hill just outside the town of Uwajima. A kilometer long, it lacked sidewalks, and the traffic lanes were very narrow. We walked as far over as we could and flattened ourselves against the wet walls when big trucks came roaring at us. Most of the drivers saw us when they were about 30 meters away, but some didn't see us until they we were very close to them. Then they would swerve suddenly. I wondered if some of the drivers thought we looked like ghosts in our white pilgrim's outfits.

During our week on the western end of the island we received o-settai more often than on any other part of the trip. It varied from a package of gum in a store through fruit, lots of 100 yen coins, and 1,000 yen notes from half a dozen different people. Some of them gave us each 1,000 yen. One priest gave us 5,000 yen.

Our biggest gift actually came in Kochi. We were walking along a quiet back street when a small truck stopped right in front of us. The driver got out and stood before us, swaying, grinning, obviously very drunk. He asked in slurred speech if we were Americans and henro. When I said yes to both, he told us that when he was a child, during the Occupation, he had an accident, a head injury, and some American doctors saved his life. Then he took a 10,000 yen note out of his pocket and handed it to me with a deep bow. I was worried he was too drunk to realize he was giving us so much, enough for a night at an inn for the two of us. I said,

"Oh, this is a ten thousand yen note, isn't it?"His grin grew even wider. "Oh, the American henro understands Japanese money. Yes. This is ten thousand yen. O-settai."He got back in his truck and drove off, weaving dangerously.

We spent two nights at Temple 44. Another walking henro was staying in the room next to ours. Though only about 55 years old, he no longer works. He just walks. This was his tenth pilgrimage.

The big temple bell woke us at 5:00 for dawn services. When we got to the Hon-do at 5:30, the service had already started and we were just able to squeeze in at the back behind several groups of bus henro. The head priest, in his fifties, sat on a small dais with his back to us. To his left, an older priest sat very still on a raised dais, facing us, bathed in the glow of two small spotlights.

The old priest sat as still as death. He made no mudras and I saw no signs that he was breathing. Finally I realized he wasn't breathing. It was a statue. After the service I went up and examined it. It was the former head priest. He had died a year before. The wax head was the most life-like I have ever seen, even better than the ones at Madame Toussaud's in London.

After breakfast, we walked the mountain path to Temple 45, the most beautiful mountain walk I ever took in Japan. The route led up and down over two high ridges. Every few kilometers, the scenery changed. The first part was ancient forest, never logged. Trees of a dozen species arched over our heads and small green bushes by the side of the trail wore coats of tight buds, ready to spring open with flowers.

Heading down the other side of this first ridge, we saw dozens of enormous piles of logs for growing shiitake. Most of them were old and decomposing. Huge, misshapen shiitake grew here and there on the rotting logs.

We followed the path down into a valley and then onto a road. After following the road for two kilometers, the trail turned off, crossed a creek and went through a willow forest. Next we passed some farms that seemed deserted. Every half hour, the scene changed.

Above the farms, the route ran through a forest of young cedars. Beneath the cedars were thousands of logs piled up to grow shiitake. I saw enough shiitake in the next hour to cover every pizza I will ever eat. It was the Mother Lode of mushrooms.

When we got to Temple 45, we rested in the sun, glad to relax after the steep mountain trails. As we sat there, a walking henro came up and asked us if we were from Tokushima. When we said, "Yes,"he told us he had read our articles in the Tokushima Shimbun. He recognized us from our picture in the paper, the one of us on the stairs at Temple Two. He was just walking part of the route, as he did each year.

Instead of returning the same way we had come, we followed the road back to Temple 44. It was, in its own way, another beautiful route. Part of the time we walked along the river, where it was just the beginning of cherry blossom time. The trees deep in the mountain valleys were pregnant with fat buds. Only a few were open, showing the promise of a glorious spring a week away.

That evening, as I read Kobo Daishi's commentary on the Heart Sutra, I thought about all I had seen during the day. When I was reading about the esoteric meaning of the sutra, I was thinking about the green of the forest. When I read the passage about a man being stirred to thoughts of the evanescence of life by watching fallen leaves driven by the wind, I thought of the decaying piles of shiitake logs. Outside my window, as I read, a tall, ancient cherry tree was letting its petals fall in the evening breeze, coating the rocks, bushes, and the head priest's shiny new car.

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 June 17, 1999.