Chapter 6 Pilgrimage Day 10

Diary of the White Bush Clover

Day 10 (15 October) Abazaki to Gamagori

Last night I enjoyed talking with the Abe family until 1 o’clock in the morning. In the morning they came with me to the sub-temple of Kenkoku-ji to pray over the notebook.

At 8 o’clock I started walking along Route 247. After a little while it became a country road. Running beside the road was the Tōkaidō railway. In some of the train carriages I could see school children on an excursion. They waved at me as the trains passed going west and east. I remembered when I was a school girl going on field trips by train many, many years ago. I also had talked with my friends and waved to people on the road.

While I walked I ate onigiri, rice balls wrapped in seaweed. It was not good manners to eat and walk but I did not have much time. It was a very simple road. I walked for six hours, step by step. Sometimes I stopped to look at the map to make sure of where I was. The map was completely boro boro after being opened and closed so many times. I repaired it with many pieces of cellophane tape.

At last I could see the sea. I had not seen it for a long time. The sun was setting against the horizon and the silver waves were shining in the sunset. I arrived at a city. On my right side I could see Takeshima, an island that held a special honzon of Benten, the Shinto water goddess. Today was the Benten festival and many stalls had been set up. I went to Takeshima to pray to Benten and came back to the mainland.

Finally I reached Takeshima Hotel. My room had an ocean view. The sea breeze softly brushed my cheek. I saw someone fishing. Everywhere the sky and the sea were turning red in the sunset. I took a bath and then went for a walk along the seashore. It was hard to walk on the sand and my legs were very tired but after soaking in the hot water of the o-furo I needed to stretch my legs. The fish I had for dinner was delicious. After dinner I wrote in my diary.

The son of the hotel owner came into my room and I talked with him about my diary. “You walked from Kyōto?” he asked, surprised. I said, “Please do not forget the many people who lost their lives in the war.” He was a young man but he cried listening to my story. Nowadays many young people say, “Why didn’t they refuse to go to the war?” Or they say, “It’s nonsense to die for one’s country.” But this young boy had a gentle, pure mind, so he could understand. I try not to push my ideas on young people. I just talk to them and some day they may understand the real meaning of the preciousness of life. 

Chapter 6 Pilgrimage Day 9

Diary of the White Bush Clover

Day 9 (14 October) Nagoya to Abazaki

Today was a special day, the anniversary of the death of the previous head priest. The praying started at 5 o’clock in the morning. Putting on my clothes, I hurried to the main room of the temple. Many believers came to pray. The current head priest explained to the worshippers why I was there so they also prayed over my notebook.

At 8 o’clock the priest’s wife saw me off. I walked a different way, off the old Tōkaidō. This road was very wide with a lot of traffic in Nagoya. It was hard to walk because the road was built for cars not pedestrians.

Then I saw a hana densha, a small train with only one carriage, covered with fresh flowers and all lit up. It was specially decorated as part of a matsuri, a city festival. There were many decorated dolls inside the carriage. Many people with children lined both sides of the street to watch the train pass. When I was a child I had seen the flower train in Tōkyō every year. At that time the dolls were Momotarō, the superboy born of a peach, and Hanasakajiji, the old man who could make cherry trees blossom, and also Kaguyahime, the princess of the moon. But the dolls in this train were Atom Boy and monsters!

Leaving Nagoya I felt freed from the pollution and noise of traffic. I visited Honyo-ji, a very small temple on the edge of the city. I had only heard about it the day before from the priest at Kenkoku-ji so I did not have an appointment. An old woman, the wife of the priest of Honyo-ji, came towards me and I spoke with her about my journey. The priest prayed over my notebook. We talked together, sitting around the warm fire of the hibachi. The priest and his wife were always smiling and I felt their warmth in my heart. I felt lucky that I happened to go there because they could truly understand the meaning of my journey. In my travels I had met many people and felt many things. Most people cannot usually understand each other’s deep feelings just by talking and listening but these people could.

This temple was not big or fancy but there I felt so much peace and I recalled the words of the priest at Ōgaki about the two kinds of heaven. Now I understood what he had meant by satori. I also felt I came to understand the heart of sadō, the way of tea, which means serving from the heart. After meeting the priest and his wife at Honyo-ji I felt they exemplified the essence of sadō. Before I left, the priest prayed for my safety on my travels. He also wrote a poem for me.

myoho no

ontomo o shite

jyakko e

sankei sen no

keiko naramashi

Walking humbly 

with the power of nature

to arrive at enlightenment

is one kind of spiritual practice, 

is it not?

One way to attain enlightenment is by sitting to meditate. The priest was saying that I was also practicing meditation by walking.

When the sun began to set, I crossed over the Yahagi bridge. This was the historic place where the famous samurai leaders, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Hachisuka Koroku, were destined to meet for the first time. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was living there when he met Hachisuka Koroku and thereafter Hideyoshi became a famous daimyō. Hideyoshi is referred to by his first name because it was traditional to use the first name of top leaders to avoid confusion since they usually had the same family name. As I crossed the bridge I thought again about the wonder of human destiny. I arrived at the home of the Abe family just as the lights of the houses were being turned on.