ALANDA GREENE
and her husband are on a pilgrimage to visit the Buddhist temples that
date back to the 8th century, on the island of Shikoku in Japan. In this
final part of the journey, she sees the parallels with her life’s big
pilgrimage, and understands that the work is in the effort, not in
achievement.
The Challenges of the Journey
The Buddha taught the Eightfold Path as a means to be free of the innate
suffering of the unawakened existence. “Right effort” is one fold of the
Eight. Did Kobo Daishi teach about right effort when he wandered around
Shikoku? If he did, what did he say about this striving? If we, on our
small pilgrimage, begin to choose only
the temples in the countryside, only the temples we like, what is
determining our action then? I think of the ancient yogic teachings that
counsel freedom from the limitation and control of likes and dislikes.
When we open the can of worms of likes and dislikes, a whole host of
wiggly interferences ensues.
I recognize that I want certainty. If I stay focused on my goal of
completing the pilgrimage and visiting all the temples, I can muster the
drive and determination to complete this. It’s not that I don’t feel the
presence of distractions, hounding me like homeless dogs sniffing for a
handout. If I’ve lost the ideal of getting to all the temples, what will
hold back the temptation of, say, laziness? Because, in fact, we are truly
exhausted every evening and there is no denying the appeal of taking a day
to soak in one of the many natural hot springs on the island. I feel the
wiggly mass of likes and dislikes that congeal into tempting thoughts of
choosing the most comfortable and aesthetically pleasing routes. I hear
the panting at my heels of the distraction dogs, who conjure images of
historic castles, museums, and galleries. “This is it, isn’t it?” I tell
myself. Without the goad of success in completing this pilgrimage, I fear
my ability to sustain my commitment. I don’t trust myself.
Now I wonder if the practice is to challenge the aspect that wants it
perfect and, if it isn’t, well, what point is there to keep on
striving? The work is in the effort, not in achieving some concept about a
goal.
There’s an old tradition in Japanese pottery making. Deliberately flaw
the piece. Don’t let the temptation for perfection enter into it. Give the
work the best effort possible, then make it “less than.” I used to think
this was a message about not expecting perfection in this life, about
acknowledging that this is not a perfect world. Now I wonder if the
practice is to challenge the aspect that wants it perfect and, if it
isn’t, well, what point is there to keep on striving? The work is in the
effort, not in achieving some concept about a goal.
I grasp this about pottery making; feel less convinced about pilgrimage
making. I hum lines from a Leonard Cohen song: “Forget your perfect
offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light
gets in.” “Yeah, right!” I mutter to myself. But a pottery bowl doesn’t
hold its soup very well if it’s cracked, does it?
Each day as I walk, I ponder and question this theme. I wanted to visit
all the temples, wanted that sense of completion. That goal had to be
relinquished. Okay, I tell myself, I’ll come back another time by myself
and do it. But I know it’s a lie. Surrender can feel like such a cheap and
easy out.
I do want certainty. These signposts and little red arrows are fabulous.
We are learning where to look for them, how to find the clues that tell us
where the path is. We encounter astonishing help every day. I realize I
want that kind of certainty in the big pilgrimage also. When I struggle
with decisions, endeavor to understand what right action is, I have longed
for the red arrow of certainty to appear. If the heavens don’t part with
the message written clearly in a language that I know, couldn’t there at
least be granite posts with signs I can figure out?
Maybe it’s a matter of faith, I consider. Never once have I doubted the
truth of the red arrows on this route. I trust those pilgrims who went
before. In daily life, my mind does not recognize or accept the signs so
easily. When walking on Shikoku, I go where the arrow points. When walking
in my regular life, I sometimes don’t like where the arrow points and
don’t want to recognize it as an arrow. But not to be too harsh on myself,
usually it doesn’t even look like an arrow. If the Divine wants me to go a
certain way, wouldn’t it make sense to use a signal I can clearly
understand?
More challenges present themselves over the days, but these become less
bothersome because they are so compensated by the goodwill and
assistance we receive on our journey. I begin to have a profound and
heartfelt appreciation for the positive kindness we meet over and
over.
More challenges present themselves over the days, but these become less
bothersome because they are so compensated by the goodwill and assistance
we receive on our journey. I begin to have a profound and heartfelt
appreciation for the positive kindness we meet over and over. People go
out of their way to help us. We don’t recognize the bus we need, so
someone runs out of a ticket booth and hails down the bus, asking the
driver to make sure we get off at the right place. It rains, we have no
umbrella, a kindly woman in a shop makes us wait while she finds one in
the back of her store and insists we take it. An English-speaking man
appears from nowhere when we are lost and looking for the small inn where
we have reservations. After he takes us there, he explains our vegetarian
dietary needs to the owners, and we avoid the discomfort of being served
the fish that other guests eat. We ask directions to a lost temple, and a
woman clears out her back seat and drives us. Same thing when looking a
few days later for a train station. We meet helpful and cheerful people.
I cannot help recalling the times in other countries when I blundered,
didn’t know protocol or language, went the wrong way, and met the rolled
eyes, impatient sighs, long-suffering looks of pained bother, or the very
loud and then louder explanations that suggest I am dense or hard of
hearing. I resolve to be kinder. More helpful. Positive.
This feels like one clear message from the pilgrimage. Be kind. Be
helpful. But what about striving? What about goals? What about right
effort? I count up the stamps from the temples visited so far. It doesn’t
look good. At least as far as numbers go. We might get to sixty of
them.
The days are getting cooler and the maples are beginning to turn,
transforming the forested mountains to shades of red, orange and gold. The
beauty of our daily walks has me feeling like Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s
book, The Wind in the Willows, when Rat took him out in the boat
in spring. “It’s too much, Ratty. Too much.”
This feels like one clear message from the pilgrimage. Be kind. Be
helpful.
Photo Credit: sugar fresh 1 / Shutterstock.com
Sometimes it feels like my heart can’t hold this much beauty as we walk
along ridges, follow cascading blue rivers, find temples high in the
clouds. Then the next day, the same thing – different form, same
breath-catching beauty. I begin to forget about how many temples. We just
get to what we can each day.
As days pass, I recognize one more difference between this pilgrimage and
the big life one. We have a specific departure date whose presence I feel
looming. It’s hard to be in the timeless moment of now, when I need to
keep track of the date we need to be at Osaka airport. But these maples
and the mountain trails give moments.
In the big pilgrimage, I don’t have a specified departure date. Not one
I’ve been told about, anyway. I have no ticket with a flight and gate
number. Kobo Daishi is reported to have announced his date of death, set
his will in order, left clear instructions for his successor, and the day
before he died he helped complete his portrait that a disciple was
painting.
I
live the big pilgrimage with the unarticulated assumption that my
departure date is a long time in the future. Unexpected deaths of family,
friends, and neighbors reveal the unreliability of this assumption. “You
just never know,” we who gather to acknowledge the passing of a life nod
to each other. “You just can’t put things off.” I don’t want to put things
off. The fact is I don’t know my time of death the way the Daishi did, the
way I accept the certainty of my ticket from Japan.
The final temple we visit is in fact Number 88, Okuboji, but it is the
sixtieth of my count. We climb over a mountain and down to the temple, a
mountain once forbidden to women, where the Daishi changed the restriction
– a reminder that enlightenment is available in this lifetime, to female
and male alike. The climb is long, steep, and cold, but it’s the beauty
that is breathtaking. I didn’t think we could experience anything yet more
beautiful than the routes of the previous days, but I was wrong.
We visit this temple. I bid farewell to Kobo Daishi at the enormous stone
statue at the front gate, say prayers of thanks and farewell at the Main
and Daishi Halls. I wait for a sense of completion, finality. An insight.
There is no red arrow that points to understanding. Later, we wait for the
bus down the mountain to the train station, lean against a stone wall
where a small patch of the late day sun warms it, and eat Japanese oranges
gifted from a young man about to depart by motorcycle. “So, this is it,” I
muse. The last temple.
The pilgrimage ended. Is it finished, with all those unvisited temples
around the island? Do I yet understand the meaning of pilgrimage? Do I
know what impelled me to do this?
The guide map said it only mattered if I took the first step. This much I
do understand, from walking this island where Buddhism saturates the land
and where the sense of eternal presence leaks through everywhere. It leaks
out of the bowl to the always now and every step is a first step. It only
matters that I make it, one first step after the other. This much I
understand. This is enough.
Article by
ALANDA GREENE
