Neon Pilgrim Read online

  First published in 2009 by Aduki Independent Press

  This edition published in 2017 by Ventura Press

  PO Box 780, Edgecliff NSW 2027 Australia

  www.venturapress.com.au

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  Copyright © Lisa Dempster 2009

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Author: Dempster, Lisa

  Title: Neon Pilgrim / by Lisa Dempster

  Buddhist pilgrims and pilgrimages—Japan—Shikoku Region.

  Shikoku Region (Japan)—Description and travel.

  Shikoku Region (Japan)—Religious life and customs.

  ISBN: 978-1-925384-95-6 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-925183-88-7 (ebook)

  Cover design: Design by Committee

  Internal design: Design by Committee and Working Type

  The paper in this book is FSC® certified. FSC® promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.

  AWAKENING

  STARTING OUT

  In a budget ryōkan in Tokushima, I sat in a small tatami-laid room. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Tomorrow I would set out on the 88 Temple Pilgrimage, an arduous 1200-kilometre hike. Against many odds, I’d managed to scrape together some money, get to Japan and get to the starting line. My bravado, however, hadn’t made the trip with me.

  I was terrified.

  The vending machine on my floor at the ryōkan was calling my name and I made several trips to buy mid-sized Asahi Super Dry beer, which I knocked back at high speed. I couldn’t contemplate the enormity of what lay ahead. Instead I wondered, how did I get here?

  When I was a teenager I went to Japan. As an exchange student, I spent a culture-shocked year living and attending school in Kochi, a rural city on the smallest of the four main islands, Shikoku. In the 1990s, foreign tourists rarely went to Shikoku, and with good reason: there’s not much to do there. And so, although I had an enormous guidebook to Japan, the entries for Shikoku and Kochi occupied a few miserable pages in my Lonely Planet, and for a fifteen-year-old were fairly lacklustre in the excitement department. Except for one small box of text:

  O-henro-san (pilgrims) have been walking clockwise around Shikoku for some 1200 years. They follow in the footsteps of the great Buddhist Saint Kukai (AD 774–835), who achieved enlightenment on the same journey … The walk is an arduous task, no less than 1200km around the island and 88 temples in all …

  I knew nothing about Buddhism, nothing about the history of religious pilgrimage and nothing about hiking, but my imagination was ignited. And no wonder: the story of the 88 Temple Pilgrimage – the henro michi – is a great one.

  The pilgrimage exists to venerate Kōbō Daishi, a ninth century Buddhist monk and one of the most important figures in Japanese history. Kukai, as he was known during his lifetime, introduced Shingon Buddhism to Japan, a move that changed the main religion in the country from Shinto to Buddhism. He built many temples and religious centres, including the immense Mount Koya temple complex outside of Osaka, assisted countless towns to build necessary infrastructure, like irrigation ponds, and opened schools to include all children, not just those of aristocrats.

  A saint in the minds of Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the impact this one monk had on Japanese society. A scholar, priest, teacher, administrator and enlightened Buddhist monk, he is a cultural icon and hero, still revered by Japanese people today.

  And one of the many ways in which Japanese society continues to pay homage to Kōbō Daishi is to undertake a pilgrimage on the island of his birth, Shikoku. The eighty-eight temples included on the henro michi – literally, the pilgrim’s road – were chosen for their importance in the history of Kōbō Daishi. These temples make up just a handful of all the temples on the island of Shikoku, and are spread around the 1200-kilometre circumference of the island.

  Of the eighty-eight temples, sixty-one are located in the mountains and twenty-seven are on the plain near the coast. Of the sixty-one temples located in the mountains, twenty-five are located at or near the top of their mountain, with the highest situated at an elevation of 1000 metres. In some areas, the temples are close together and it’s possible to visit several in one day. In other, more rural areas, it can take up to three days to walk between temples.

  The toughness of undertaking the henro michi cannot be underestimated. And the hiking all comes back to Kōbō Daishi. It is always about the Daishi. Pilgrims believe that his spirit still lives in Shikoku, and that by travelling the pilgrimage they will be walking in his presence. To venerate him, yes, but also to seek some kind of fortune in their own lives.

  As a teenager, I would occasionally see these pilgrims, these henro, cutting a figure through town. With their white robes, wooden religious staffs and well-worn backpacks they were delightfully foreign and represented all the romance and adventure that I, as a fifteen-year-old, was longing to have.

  The pilgrimage was, in my mind, adventure travel on an epic scale. It fit with my world view of myself as a dusty, travel-worn explorer – well, I would be one day. I made the decision to return to Japan to walk the henro michi, one way or another, as soon as humanly possible.

  Fast-forward thirteen years. My life was vastly different to what I pictured it would be. Severely depressed, socially withdrawn, overweight, on the dole and living with my mum – I was twenty-eight and miserable.

  And then, completely by chance, the henro michi came back into my life. In a small community library in Kangaroo Flat I stumbled across the iconic text Japanese Pilgrimage by Oliver Statler, the book on the pilgrimage.

  Halfway through, Statler recounts the story of a suicidal lady who decided to walk the henro michi with her husband – or die trying. While they knew the risk of her death in their attempt, it was their only hope left. Starting at Temple 1, they walked a short distance each day, and for several days it was agonising for both of them. But they prayed as they walked, and over time she was strengthened and the walk became easier. When she reached Temple 88 she was cured. The nature of the pilgrimage – the physical exercise, the dwelling in the mountains and nature, the dogged perseverance and discipline – was necessary to their miracle, but without their faith and their prayer a cure could not have happened.

  I put the book down, stunned. I didn’t need any clearer sign. I didn’t even need to finish the book. I was hooked.

  I decided then and there to go back to Japan as soon as I could, to finally fulfil the promise I had made to myself as a fifteen-year-old: I would walk the henro michi, and walk myself back to health at the same time.

  I brushed aside the barriers that other people might have found daunting: the 1200 kilometres of mountainous terrain, the likelihood that I’d be going in the middle of the Japanese summer, the fact that I’d never done a multi-day hike before.

  It didn’t matter that I wasn’t fit, I’d get fit.

  It didn’t matter that I had no money, I’d do it on the smell of an oily rag.

  It didn’t matter that the summer heat would be sweltering, I’d tough it out.

  I would do the pilgrimage, or die trying.

  The night before my trek, beer cans piled up as I got increasingly nervous. I triple-checked the few notes I’d copied from the internet and obsessively reorganised my pack, which was looking bigger and more unwieldy by the minute.

  I shouldn’t be here was the refrain running through
my head. A secular Western girl had no business undertaking a Buddhist pilgrimage in Japan. An unfit depressive was crazy to try tackling a hike of such distance. I shouldn’t be here.

  Finally, I put the beer and my thoughts aside and prepared to sleep. I took comfort in going through the familiar steps of setting up the futon. Hey, I wasn’t a total stranger in this country. I could speak the language – in a rusty, formerly fluent kind of way. I understood its customs. I had old friends, but a prefecture away, in Kochi. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  During the night I kept waking up, sweating despite the air conditioner. I shouldn’t be here. But I was here. Against all odds I’d managed to pull myself together, make it to Japan and get to the starting line. I was really going to do this thing.

  It was time to walk the henro michi.

  MOMENTS LIKE THIS

  An estimated 150,000 people undertake the 88 Temple Pilgrimage every year, but walkers account for just one per cent of all pilgrims. It’s a democratic pilgrimage, with no distinction in achievement between those who travel by car, tour bus or bike – or public transport, taxi or even helicopter (yes, it’s been done). It’s not necessary to visit the temples in numerical order, or all on one journey, or even start at Temple 1; praying at each of the eighty-eight temples is all that matters.

  Despite that, most people do begin their journey at the first temple, and Ryōzenji buzzes with it. Smaller than you’d expect, given it’s the launching place of an epic pilgrimage, the temple grounds contained just a few buildings. But the large adjacent car park was full of luxury touring busses, and the temple was overrun with white-clad Japanese people thronging to pray, buy souvenirs and take photos.

  Lingering shyly in the car park, I tried to figure out where I needed to go. Unlike churches, which tend to have one main building and a yard, Buddhist temples are made up of a cluster of buildings. There’s the hondo, the main hall, where the deity of the temple is enshrined, and usually a number of smaller shrines as well. At each of the eighty-eight temples on the pilgrimage, there is a daishido, a Daishi hall, where a figure of Kōbō Daishi is enshrined. As well, there is a temple office and a house where the priest lives. There can be other buildings too, like shops, cafés or temple lodgings. Not two minutes into my pilgrimage, I was feeling overwhelmed.

  Supplies first, I thought. There were quite a few things I needed to buy for the coming weeks. Entering the on-site shop, an older saleswoman grabbed me and whizzed me through the basics. In a matter of moments I had a white vest, incense sticks, name slips, candles, a stamp book, an English map and a staff in my hands. I chose the cheapest gear, except the staff. Faced with having a totally plain wooden walking stick and one with an embroidered purple cover on the top, I took the slightly more expensive option. Austerity may be a virtue but the brocade walking stick came with a little bell attached, an essential item for pilgrims; it keeps them focused on the task at hand and stops them from daydreaming.

  The shop lady also held up stuff I hadn’t planned on buying and I shook my head each time: a neck scarf, white pants, a small white temple bag and a hat were set aside. I was going to be a minimalist pilgrim. Henro-lite. Which was a good philosophical position to take, given I was totally broke.

  Back in the car park, I felt self-conscious putting my cotton vest on. The oizuru, as the vest is called, is a long, white sleeveless over-covering. In ancient times, henro often died along the pilgrimage route, and wearing white meant they could be buried wherever they fell. Not so many henro die these days, so although it represents a burial shroud, the vest is mainly a visual indicator that the person wearing it is on a pilgrimage. Once my vest was on not only would I be marked as a pilgrim, I’d be a pilgrim.

  As soon as I’d done up the ties of my vest I was approached by another pilgrim, a gaijin guy – a foreigner – about my age or maybe a bit younger. His name was Sylvan, he was French and I was glad for his company. Kind of fat and unfit-looking, Sylvan didn’t speak a word of Japanese and seemed to know little about the culture. Suddenly, I was the experienced one.

  ‘Have you started? I mean, done the thing,’ he asked, gesturing to the temple.

  ‘Not yet. Wanna go together?’

  He looked grateful, and we waded into the crowds bunched around what I suspected was the hondo, the main hall. I’d been worried about the prayer aspect of the henro michi – it’s kind of an essential element of a pilgrimage, after all. But I was no Buddhist, and although I intended to pay due respects along the way, I didn’t want to do anything insincere. For now, I thought, it would be enough to make an offering.

  I relished the role of teacher, showing Sylvan the little routine of candle and incense lighting, throwing small coins into the offertory box and bowing to the altar enshrined in each of the halls. It was a bare-bones routine for sure, one that I cobbled together on the spot from memory and also from copying the people in front of me, but it did the trick. We’d begun.

  ‘You know what you’re doing,’ Sylvan said, in what I believed was an awed tone.

  I shrugged.

  ‘Not really,’ I said modestly, though on the inside I was dancing the cancan. I’d started, I hadn’t stuffed up, I was even showing people how it’s done. Pilgrimage? No worries.

  ‘Do you know the prayers?’

  ‘Um, not exactly,’ I admitted, coming back down to earth.

  Okay, so I didn’t know the Buddhist prayers yet. Not to worry, I had the important one, the heart sutra, written down somewhere.

  Intrinsic to the henro michi, the heart sutra is a foundational Buddhist prayer that imparts the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. Written in only 278 kanji characters, it summarises all of the Buddha’s teachings, and just saying the words is said to help bring enlightenment. So I had the heart sutra handy, figuring I’d get to the traditional temple routine – the actual praying bit, for example – somewhere down the track.

  It turned out Sylvan was doing the pilgrimage on his bike, but we walked together for a while, chatting in English as I tried to get used to carrying my staff. It was a complication I hadn’t expected. Other henro accoutrements are optional – the vest, special bells, a stole – but every pilgrim carries the walking stick; vital because it represents the physical embodiment of Kōbō Daishi. Inscribed on each staff, and a million times along the henro michi, including in large characters on the back of my vest, were the words dōgyō ninin, variously translated as ‘we two, travelling together’ or ‘two people, one practice’. The phrase symbolises the presence of the Daishi, travelling on a physical and spiritual journey with the pilgrim.

  The staff, a square, straight stick that fitted easily in my hand, came up to about shoulder height. It was weirdly awkward to use and I kept stumbling, tripping and twisting into weird positions. Walking had never seemed so hard.

  Sylvan and I bumbled through our offertory routine at two more temples, clocking up our first few kilometres before parting ways. He flew off on his bicycle with a wave.

  I was on my own now, walking the henro michi like I’d always dreamed. So far, so good!

  I dropped my pack on the footpath and sat down on it in the shade of someone’s front fence. It was the fifth time I’d stopped that hour. It was day one and I was dying.

  It wasn’t meant to be this hard. Well, not right away. The few things I’d read about the henro michi – there’s little available in English – made the start sound like a pleasant multi-day amble in the flatlands to Temple 11. Then it was supposed to get hard.

  But here I was, struggling to reach Temple 4, literally unable to go a couple of hundred metres without needing to rest and catch my breath. Panting, I ran through my problems. My pack was too big. At eleven kilograms, I had previously thought of it as light, but now it felt so heavy I was practically bent over double. It was too hot. Worse was the humidity, the hot air dense with moisture. I was experiencing the slow, unmistakable feeling of my skin burning, despite the sunscreen I had applied. Mostly, I was tired. Really tired. A
nd, I finally realised, way more out of shape than I thought. The fact that I’d done no training suddenly felt like a folly.

  I stumbled into the grounds of Temple 4, sweaty, red-faced and bleary-eyed. My oizuru, so new and clean only a few hours ago, was damp with sweat. At the water stand I washed my hands and rinsed out my mouth, a purification ritual required at all temples. Then I ladled water over my head and face, rubbing away some of the grime and cooling down in the process.

  Inside the gates, the temple was packed with white-clad bus pilgrims. Skirting around them unobtrusively, I hoped, I went to make my offerings. As I clapped my hands softly together and bowed, a sudden loud noise caused me to jump. Looking around, I spied a man with a bugle, and behind him, a busload of henro peering up at me. A few were praying but most were staring at me with unabashed curiosity. Even the man with the bugle, dressed in religious-looking robes, looked directly at me as he pumped out toots and honks on his instrument. Self-consciously, I descended the daishido steps to make my escape. The group of forty-odd people turned their heads in unison to watch me scurry away.

  At Temple 5 I considered my options. I had planned to end my day at the next temple – five kilometres away – although I wasn’t sure I could walk that distance. But I was keen to get there because Temple 6 offered free accommodation for walkers.

  I wasn’t just doing the pilgrimage – I was one of the tiny number of walkers who wanted to do the hike nojuku – loosely translated as ‘sleeping rough’. Although most modern pilgrims, including walkers, stay in hotels, B&Bs and temple accommodation, there are various mountain huts, free lodgings and campsites along the pilgrimage route to house henro who nojuku – a boon for the budget traveller such as myself. The downside was that some nights there would be no free lodgings, and I would need to find somewhere to sleep – a park bench, a beach or, well … I wasn’t sure actually.

  That was why I was desperate to reach Temple 6 that day – to make use of their free lodgings. Considering the hard time I was already having with the walking aspect of the pilgrimage, I could use all the help I could get for the camping part.