Re: Kobo Daishi and the Shikoku Pilgrimage
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 12:01 pm
Reasons for undertaking the Shikoku Pilgrimage
People have been asking. I told a Christian friend about the pilgrimage earlier today and she is one of the few who has not thought it odd. I get a lot of comments on the decision to walk in February -- a cold month in Japan, for certain. Others ask why I am "really" undertaking the pilgrimage. Some of my responses, all true, but not in any particular order --
-- Because I have long been curious about Buddhism in Japan
-- Because I have lived in, and traveled to, Japan over the past 28 years but have never been to Shikoku
-- I want to see Shikoku
-- For my physical health
-- For my mental well-being
-- it is a challenge
-- I feel drawn toward Guanyin/Kannon
Here is the reason that is rather long-winded and which only my wife knows (and all too well): I finished a PhD last year and found the whole thing, especially the final few years, rather hellish. Toward the end of the grind, I got sick, and about the same time I began studying Buddhism and the Dharma with ever greater. I got better. I am a constitutional skeptic but believe in the power of the imagination. I have a religious bent. It bends toward the Dharma. I want to pay homage to the Dharma. I cannot explain it any more fully because I don't understand it any more clearly myself.
As for the cold weather: I fear the heat and rain more than the cold. I live on a tropical island. People in northern Europe dream of Malta and the Canary Islands. My fanasties tend toward grey skies, evergreen trees, mountains and the broad wintry sea. I cannot explain it more fully than this because I do not understand it any better myself.
I leave in a couple of weeks. I hope to walk through Tokushima and visit the twenty-three temples in that prefecture.
May all beings discover the path to liberation from suffering.
Su Dongpo
People have been asking. I told a Christian friend about the pilgrimage earlier today and she is one of the few who has not thought it odd. I get a lot of comments on the decision to walk in February -- a cold month in Japan, for certain. Others ask why I am "really" undertaking the pilgrimage. Some of my responses, all true, but not in any particular order --
-- Because I have long been curious about Buddhism in Japan
-- Because I have lived in, and traveled to, Japan over the past 28 years but have never been to Shikoku
-- I want to see Shikoku
-- For my physical health
-- For my mental well-being
-- it is a challenge
-- I feel drawn toward Guanyin/Kannon
Here is the reason that is rather long-winded and which only my wife knows (and all too well): I finished a PhD last year and found the whole thing, especially the final few years, rather hellish. Toward the end of the grind, I got sick, and about the same time I began studying Buddhism and the Dharma with ever greater. I got better. I am a constitutional skeptic but believe in the power of the imagination. I have a religious bent. It bends toward the Dharma. I want to pay homage to the Dharma. I cannot explain it any more fully because I don't understand it any more clearly myself.
As for the cold weather: I fear the heat and rain more than the cold. I live on a tropical island. People in northern Europe dream of Malta and the Canary Islands. My fanasties tend toward grey skies, evergreen trees, mountains and the broad wintry sea. I cannot explain it more fully than this because I do not understand it any better myself.
I leave in a couple of weeks. I hope to walk through Tokushima and visit the twenty-three temples in that prefecture.
May all beings discover the path to liberation from suffering.
Su Dongpo