Blog 14.
This Sunday, I depart from the bustling city of Matsuyama by train, returning to the point on the route where I had last stopped, not far beyond Temple 53. Here, late in the day, at the tiny port of Hojo, I had started my tourist activities with a ferry ride to Kashima island for an hour on the beach, finally dipping my baking feet in the sea, followed by a visit to an onsen a stone‘s throw from the shore.
This morning, back on the route, there is another heatwave, and by noon it must be 30C. But it is glorious walking the route to Temple 54 alongside the Seto Naikai, the inland sea between Shikoku and the Japanese mainland, Honshu. I can see Hiroshima prefecture across the pond. At points, I can also see fish in the sea, so close the pavement takes me to the edge. It is stunningly beautiful.
There is something about this day that makes me get out my notebook and jot something down:
„It is easy to be accepting of life when things are going well, like when you are falling in love or have just started a fabulous new job, or such. What the henro is teaching me, I think, among other things, is to accept the rough with the smooth. If you can accept that life‘s components are bitter as well as sweet, you can walk through your life more grateful for your time LIVING, in general. It is so precious.“
This sounds so obvious, and in theory I knew it already. But today I get it at a whole different level.
The old saying about all good things coming to an end must have some truth to it, for the scenery changes quite dramatically when the road veers past a petrochemical plant the size of a small town. According to my route guide, there is a henro hut just behind this complex, where I intend to eat my rice ball for lunch and take off my shoes for a while.
Sure enough, in a little copse at the back is a small temple with a henro hut, and despite the industrial roar, I am in another world. This hut is one in which pilgrims can actually sleep, and it is fitted out with tatami mats and futon.
Sliding open the door, glad to be out of the heat, I dump my rucksack down on the floor and commence to remove my shoes. But I am not alone. I realise I have disturbed a monk praying quietly, sitting at the side where I did not see him. I apologise for barging in and interrupting him and ask if I can eat here. Of course, henro huts are for everyone. He gives me an orange. (This is a major citrus growing area of Japan).
We get „chatting“ to the extent we can and I tell him I find it hard to follow the Hannya Shingyo heart sutra at the temples, for it is so fast. I play him part of a recording I made of a group reciting it to help me follow the text in the book. He tells me it is too fast, it is best recited with a slower melody, and demonstrates this by tapping out a slower beat with his fingers on the floor, chanting it slowly for me. But it is slightly different, somehow. His rendition is more „traditional“, if I understand him correctly.
His name is Enkaku and he is 38, from Nara, travelling Japan on his spiritual journey, stopping at this temple today. His backpack is twice the size of mine.
He shows me some of his Buddhist things: a fragrant bag of incense ash, his prayer books, beads, a bell, a heavy golden implement I don‘t know the name of. He gives me some wafer thin sections of a wooden fan to crumble into the incense vats at the temples.
How glad I am that timing has conspired that this day I stop at this hut and meet a monk in this setting.
He shows me a photo of himself doing part of his ascetic training, standing in a pool under a waterfall being pounded on the back by the freezing water. It was February, he says. A few days later I pass this training ground, Shirataki, on the mountain and I think of him.
I ask whether he would recite the heart sutra for me, as in my book, so that I can record it. He gladly obliges. About half-way though he makes a mistake, laughing, and wants to start over.
He prefers to record his version of the sutra. I venture further into his space and make myself comfortable kneeling on a pile of cushions in front of him, my phone in the middle. He puts on a monk‘s robe and sits in lotus position for the recital.
When he is ready, I press record and close my eyes to meditate to it.
How can I describe what happens?
I guess it is not called the Heart Sutra for nothing. Something comes over me and I find myself grinning, feeling something like bliss, or pure peace. My words don‘t do it justice. I am in the moment so much that I must be overjoyed, for tears spring to my eyes. Where is this zone that I am in now?
He finishes the sutra and I slowly open my eyes and press stop. He looks at me and I say, shaking, „wow“. I try to gather myself. I can only point to my heart and say „power“, a word I am sure he understands. I am smiling and crying tears of something I cannot describe, right in front of him. In that moment I just see gentle understanding in his eyes. I help myself to his roll of toilet paper to dry my eyes, but the tears don‘t stop.
With his right hand he says „plus“, with his left he says „minus“. He brings his fists together and says „zero“. They balance each other out. I draw a waving line in my notebook, up and down, like life‘s road. Exactly. He draws a line through the middle and says „flat“. Just like what I had written earlier that morning.
He somehow explains with the help of a sketch, that the heart is now open to the cosmos. The wall around the heart is broken.
I think that is what happened in that meditation.
On the back of my pilgrim guide it lists seven gifts needing no wealth, a Buddhist alms practice all about kindness. One of them is Shinse: offer your heart to others.
This pilgrimage has been full of Shinse, but of all the wonderful moments on the henro, this is the most special by far. BY FAR!
I must have taken more than an hour of his time, and need to resume walking to the next temple in the next town, still some ways away. We exchange henro nameslips, white for red. Red implies he has completed the henro somewhere between 8 and 24 times. He agrees to a photo.
We both rise from the floor. I feel vulnerable yet celebratory and I need a hug. I politely ask for one. He holds me surprisingly tightly for a few moments before I put my shoes back on. I bow goodbye in awe, wonder and gratitude.
I don‘t make it to the temple before the 5 pm closing time.
Early next morning, though, alone at the temple, I ring the bell. Bowing as the chime reverberates, a new prayer comes to my lips.
Dear Universe,
Please come into my open heart. I am willing and eager to feel you.
To feel you as joy.
To feel you as wonder.
To feel you as laughter.
To feel you as beauty.
To feel you as peace.
Thank U. Gassho. Amen.
I stand in front of the Daishi hall and put the wood in the ashy embers for Enkaku.
I play my recording of his voice.
X
Marion Gibson 