24Apr10: Chris Gaskett

I had been very much looking forward to this ohenro walk. Hiking and religions are both life long interests to me, and ohenro is an excellent combination. I ask most people that I meet whether they are interested in ohenro in the hope that one day I will meet someone that hares some of my interests. I have visited about a quarter of the 88 temples so far, and walked between a few, but had not visited Motoyamaji, Iyadaniji, or Kaiganji. I was also exited about having a guide. I get a lot out of the books I have on ohenro and Shingon buddhism, but have never had a chance to hear or from a live person that knew anything about it. Even the weather was good - it seemed everything was lining up for me.  I'm sure someone else will give a great description of the whole day, so I'll just cover a few things.

We started by getting into the ohenro gear. The jacket was a good fit for me, but there was no hope of getting the hat on because my head is larger than a grapefruit. I also didn't take the bell, because I knew from experience that I would be irritated by the jingling. As a trader, I would have been very happy to short hats and bells as a day trade.

It was a short walk to Motoyamaji. On arrival we were given some basic history of the 88 temples, and told how to wash our hands to visit the temple. I was really surprised that we weren't told about the honzon of this temple, or the mantra. I was also surprised that there was no mention of stamp books or clothes. A friend of mine was also surprised, as he said, the stamp book is the best souvenir of Japan you could possibly find. The big surprise came when we weren't told anything about chanting the heart sutra. I had expected that we would all be chanting it together, just like every tour group that visits the temples. This was related to another big question I was hoping to investigate - why do so many Japanese people chant this sutra every day without having any idea what it means? The same goes for the short sutra that is chanted for each honzon. I've showed Japanese people the English version in my guide book, and so far every one has been surprised that the mantra actually meant something.
On the way to Iyadaniji I observed that all foreigners had gotten sick of the bells and stopped them from ringing. Several people that wore the straw hats now had a crown of thorns like pattern carved into their foreheads, creating an interesting reference to another popular religion.

Iyadaniji was a really interesting temple - it was built into the side of a cliff. We started to get some explanation of various features so I got some encouragement that deeper information would be forthcoming.  I got really excited when we sat in a room in the temple next to cave with several statues, and a priest came to do a presentation for us.  Unfortunately the presentation he gave us was exactly the information we had already heard. Obviously it wasn't planned that way, but that's how it turned out. I was hoping to hear something about Shingon buddhism, with a history and comparison to other types of buddhism. Gradually, many if not all of the foreigners also became embarrassed as we realised that by sitting in that room we were blocking other visitors from seeing the cave.

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised - if a person went on a church tour, information they receive would be mostly about when the church was built, not the history of Christianity. Still, I can't understand why the physical building is so important, but the background - why it was built - is not. The differences between different types of modern Japanese buddhism and whether they get along or compete is another puzzle to me. I know that some of the temples on the 88 temples tour are not Shingon.

The walk from Iyadaniji was excellent, hiking on a narrow path through a beautiful forest in the mountains. It was also fascinating to me to see the difference in walking confidence between people that grew up in flat places or mountainous places.  We took longer than planned, so a friend and I were the only people to visit the last temple, Kaiganji. Kaiganji is not one of the 88 temples of the tour; instead it is one of the 20 exceptional sites. I hadn't visited one of these before, and my friend pointed out that there was a special stamp book just for the 20 sites. This was a great discovery, and I enjoyed the visit to that temple the most out of the three.
Overall, it was a good day and I'm glad I went. I suspect my disappointments are mainly due to having different interests to other people. The 88 temples (and the 20 exceptional sites) are very important to me, but not because they are buildings.

Chris Gaskett