Chapter 6 Pilgrimage Day 14

Diary of the White Bush Clover

Day 14 (19 October) Kanzan-ji to Hamamatsu

At Kanzan-ji I shared a room with three women. After breakfast in the temple we wished each other a safe trip and I started out at 8 o’clock. I already had a reservation for the shukubō, the temple lodgings where I would stay that night. I felt relaxed because I did not have to worry about finding a place.

In the fields I passed there were many chrysanthemums, carefully supported with stakes. The kiku blossoms were big and beautiful. In the corner of the field many small flowers had been thrown away but they were also blooming. Nature had given life to them equally but those kiku discarded in the corner were entirely different. Unlike the flowers that had been looked after carefully, these rejected flowers were weak and had grown crookedly. I felt that those flowers taught me about the human condition. I stood in front of them and contemplated their message for a little while.

I walked three hours from Kanzan-ji around Hamanaka-ko. They were constructing a bridge over the lake. In the future we would be able to cross the lake without taking a boat. After checking the map I walked into Hamamatsu. The airplanes of the Self Defense Forces were training in the blue sky. My cousin who died during the war had also taken this training and became a kamikaze pilot. I looked at the sky and the airplanes, wishing we had never had a war and that young people had never died like that.

Passing Komaki town I walked beside a castle. I asked directions to Yogyo-ji and found the temple easily. It was not big but looked old. A priest and his son looked after the temple. I had a little free time so I went to Hamamatsu train station where I bought some sweets and pickles and sent them home. I had not remembered for a long time that I was a housewife. My face was tanned from so much sun.

I ate dinner with the priest’s family. The priest talked about his two grandsons with a smile. He was both a priest and an ordinary grandfather. Today had been an eventful day.