Quick overview of Buddhism

Since main goal of this trip is Buddhist pilgrimage maybe it would be helpful to explain briefly just what is Buddhism. This way also some of the terminology might make bit more sense. Mind you I'm not an expert so there could be errors in what follows. Sooo...From the start brief overview of the historical Buddha.

About 2500 years ago or so(though there's some disagreements on exact timing) prince was born to ruler of city state in what would be now northern India/southern Nepal and was named  Siddhārtha Gautama. As a child of a ruler he lived quite wealthy life(it's claimed he had 3 palaces, one for each season(guess they counted seasons differently to us) though how accurate that claim I cannot tell). When he had been born there bad been prophecy that he would either be great leader or great spiritual leader and his father had decided to make sure son would follow his footsteps.

Then on his late 20's he is said to have made first contact with old, sick and dead persons. Having lived life of luxury realization that everyone would face this(and having been taught from the childhood idea of eternal rebirth made it even harder. Eternal birth to suffering didn't feel appealing) he was distraught.

Then he met penniless wandering ascetic monk who seemed to be happiest person he had yet met. This led eventually to Gautama deciding to do become wandering monk himself. In middle of night(some claim without seeing anybody before leaving, some claim he went once more to see his wife and recently born son) and accompanied only by lone servant who refused to abandon him he cut his hair, took orange robes and left.

Incidentally around this time in India there was quite a few wandering monks and indeed it was considered socially appropriate for elderly people to start seeking spiritual happiness by becoming wandering monks when they were too old for productive work. Younger men like Gautama were presumably bit more rare.

Anyway for next 6 years he studied under other monks and meditated searching for way for happiness. He tried extreme ascetic lifestyle(in most extreme case 1 rice a week for food...) which only got himself nearly killed. Then one day he is said to have remembered one day in his youth(when he was still rich) when he had been watching farmers working and he had fell into meditative state and felt extreme peace of mind. Realizing then happiness does not require such an extreme ascetism(nor extreme abundance that he had had in his youth and which had left him dissatisfied) he started feeding normally again(angering bunch of other ascetics who felt he betrayed their ideal. They would be Buddha's first converts later).

Eventually under tree(whose variety is now considered sacred in Buddhism and one is almost certainly in every Buddhist temple ground. And why tree? Why it's ALWAYS a tree under which something is archieved? Well...Shade of a tree is pleasant place to sit so guess there is logical reason!) he archieved enlightment and got name Buddha(which means basically 'enlightened one').

He eventually started to wander and teach what he had learned. Most famous ones being the four noble truths: 

1) All life and experiences are ultimately dissatisfying. This is often translated as "suffering".

2) There is reason for the suffering.

3) It is possible to remove the suffering.

4) Finally that by following eightfold path, behaving decently and cultivating discipline you can archieve cessation of suffering.

Since suffering is so at core of Buddhism it is sometimes considered negative viewpoint(all life is suffering) but then again since it's teaching it's possible to be free of suffering isn't it ultimately positive viewpoint?

At it's core Buddhism says that the root of suffering is _inside_ you and therefore way out of suffering is ALSO inside you. Happiness does not come from external thing, experience or person. And ultimately source of this suffering comes from ignorance. One of his teachings covers the idea that everything is ultimately empty.

Empty? What he means by empty? I have glass full of water yet Buddha argues the glass is empty? The word "empty" is bit odd choice in my opinion but damned if I can think of better simple word for it! In either case question isn't how everything can be empty but from what they are empty? And again another misconception about Buddhism is that Buddhism is nihilistic belief in that nothing exists and nothing means anything. That's not what Buddha meant by being empty. It's empty of independent existence. Everything is dependant of everything. How deep you dig you do not find the ultimate IT that is what it is regardless of others. There is no "me" that is "me" without others.

Simply put. Tree is dependant of water, sunlight, seed it grew from. Remove one of them and tree does not exists. Car is dependant on tyres, engine, shape, designer etc. Remove one and it's not same car. I'm dependant on my body and mind. My mind is dependant on my experiences. I would not be same me as I am if my parents had been different or if one of them had died when I was but a child.

Humans  not fully realizing this put in self-centric assumptions how life should go and suffer when things don't go as it is. They put in values to something that isn't part of the object thinking it will lead to happiness but ultimately fail to get it so they latch on to the next thing thinking THEN I will be happy. I will be happy when I get thing A. I will be happy when I archieve Y. On and on and on.

Anyway back to the history. For next 40-50 years or so Buddha wandered around India and his teachings spread wildly. Eventually it spread to Tibet, China and from China also to Korea and Japan. Every country it spread to it changed a bit assimilating parts of the culture it spreads to. For example when it came to Japan it incorporated Japan's love of nature and worship of mountains(Kuukai, one famous Japanese monk for who is spiritual father of Shikoku pilgrimage was once asked why he kept staying in the Mount Koya rather than capital and answered to effect that the sound of trees and water are also voice of Buddha).

Phew what more? Buddha's teachings were for a long time spread in oral form taught from one person to another. Maybe that's why generally suttras(teachings of Buddha's in written form) tend to begin with "this is what I was told". There's tons of those from short ones to long ones. Some of the more famous ones are Heart Suttra(which is said to consist core of Buddhism and deals with the emptiness), Diamond Suttra and Lotus Suttra. And lots more. Those 3 are only ones I can remember by name and only Heart Suttra I have actually read yet(plus bits and pieces of Lotus Suttra). About 600 years later or so they were put in written so there's definitely room for changes that have accumulated during that time so how accurately they are what he said are bit dubious. There's also extra difficulty in that what is considered original language(Pali) has it's versions actually translated from _chinese_ versions. Originally Buddhism started in India and spread to Chinese. Then it was translated to Chinese. Later Buddhism was pretty much wiped from India when it was conquered by Mongols(I think). This resulted in large parts of literature being burned so when they were reintroduced...They were translated from the Chinese version.

Japanese Buddhism has obviously been heavily influenced by Chinese Buddhism from which it came and so differs somewhat from Tibetan Buddhism. And around 1200-1300 there was growing movement of abandoning Chinese roots so there's some Japanese origin styles as well. These days of course Buddhism is also spreading to western worlds and again just as it did in Asia in past so it's adopting itself to suit more for western people.

Goal of Buddhist people is archieve state of liberation from suffering(mind you this does not mean freedom from say pain. You would stab even the Buddha and he would feel physical pain. Just not the suffering which is more of mental thing). This is called archieving enlightenment.

Think this is long enough for now! More follows as time allows. Finally map showing the pilgrimage places I'll be trying to walk next week.

As can be seen the first 2 dozen or so are very close to each other. First 29 temples cover mere 45 kilometers out of 104 km or so...Temple 34 is missing. That's somewhat north of map edge.

Back to Japan, once again!

Another year, another trip to Japan. This time plans did not work out quite as I had planned but in the end I was able to go there after all!

This trip is going to be shorter than ever due to various reasons. Big thing being my next years plan which involves walking Shikoku pilgrimage. That requires so much time and money I had to scale down this years trip.

Shikoku pilgrimage will involve me walking around one of the four main islands in Japan. Assuming I manage to walk entire course I have planned, somewhat larger than minimum, it will result in about 1400 kilometers or so walk. This will be quite a physical challenge and have quite a bit of new things I haven't been doing like whole temple procedures. While I knew some part of it already there's parts of it I don't know and more importantly haven't been doing for real.

So lots of new things and physical challenge I have yet to try. Seemed like a good idea to have smaller practice run before the Shikoku pilgrimage. And that's how I ran into the Chichibu pilgrimage. Original plan had been multiple day hike in somewhere or maybe do part of the Shikoku pilgrimage but then while reading book about Japanese pilgrimages(which contained section of Shikoku) I discovered the three famous Kannon pilgrimages that form together 100-temple pilgrimage. Original one of those three is the Saigoku 33 temple pilgrimage. That involves 33 temples around center of main island of Japan including parts of Kyoto. All in all over 2000km distance...This being far from eastern Japan(including Tokyo or Edo as it was known then) it was quite hard for many to complete so another 33 temple pilgrimage was formed closer to Tokyo area but being well over 1000 km it was still quite tough one. So THIRD 33 temple pilgrimage was set up around Chichibu in current Saitama prefecture(close to Tokyo). Later 1 more temple was added to Chichibu, possibly to get the round 100 temples when combining above three temples.

All three pilgrimages are for Kannon Bodhisattva(I hope I got the spelling right) and the 33 temples comes from there being 33 shapes of Kannon mentioned in Lotus Suttra which he/she takes when helping people. Though curiously while main object of each temple IS Kannon same shape is repeated multiple times. Originally I thought all 33 shapes would be represented but that was wrong. Particularly common ones are the basic shape(shoukannon in japanese) and 11 faced Kannon.

So who or what is the Kannon? He/She is one of the Bodhisattvas in Buddhism lore and one of the most popular if not the most popular in Asia and in particular Japan. Kannon appears sometimes as male, sometimes as female(seems originally male but in China started to appear as female and Japan having got Buddhism via China followed in suit. Since Kannon is said to appear in different shape depending on person he/she helps that plays around to the belief). Bodhisattvas are basically those who have been able to archieve state they could reach Buddhahood/Nirvana but out of compassion for others have vowed to not enter that until everybody has archieved same. Kannon in particular is known for exemplifying compassion.

Above is extremely brief overview of the pilgrimage. I'll see if I'll write some more. Anyway original plan for this trip had been for spring around the time cherry trees were blooming but since at the work it seemed work could get very busy around that time and plane tickets were getting expensive it was decided to post pone trip until fall(november sounded like a good idea. Rather than cherry trees I would see autumn foliage). However as it turns out there was quiet period particularly for me but fall could be extremely busy so I started to wonder if I can even get the fall holiday! Then on last weeks thursday while chatting with work mate it occurred that now would be decent window to take small holiday and as it turned out plane tickets were quite cheap as well...So things moved suddenly so that 9 days later I would be leaving(30th april to be precise) for Japan.

I proposed somewhat shorter holiday than I had originally planned to sell the idea and to save cash in preparation for the Shikoku trip(doctor criticised what I eat generally as too little(?), too rarely and wrong types(including too small variety in vegetables. Amount good, variation too small) so I changed it but that's more expensive. I could still cover it but buffer for Shikoku was getting scarily small) so I have only 7 full days in Japan. This affected plans where originally I had planned to have 5 full days for the pilgrimage and 3 days either as reserve if I fail to make it in time or hike nearby mountains. Now I have 4 full days and 1 day when I need to return to Tokyo.

This is bit of a challenge timing wise. There's 34 temples to visit and overall distance(barring getting lost) is about 104 kilometers. Distance isn't too bad but spacing of temples is VERY inconvenient. First 29 temples cover mere 45 kilometers while last 5 temples cover rest!

This results in first 2 days(where I try to hit 25 temples. Incidentally verb in Japanese for visiting temple IS literally hit as in hit with a hammer. This stems from old tradition where using hammer pilgrims hammered in wooden name plate as proof of their visit. Nowadays paper slips have replaced it but the verb remains) I'm in quite a hurry trying to get all the temples I plan to hit. Quite possible I don't and in that case I jump ahead on 3rd day and do the last temples out of order. This is because on 5th day I need to head toward Tokyo so I don't want to wander away too far from station on last day least I miss them. So in the 5th and last day if I missed some temples on first 2 days I'll go them. If I DID get them all I could do some mountain hiking before going to Tokyo.

For place to sleep original plan had been stay in hotels near where I would be ending day but as the holiday ended up in Golden Week(basically all week long holiday in Japan) all hotels were fully booked. I was able to rent room in local people's homes(2 places). This means that day 3 and 4(and 5) starting points will be quite far so rather than walk there(takes time I don't really have) then I'll use taxi to get there(and back after finishing walk. After walking 33km or so I don't think I can do another 15km or so! Especially on reasonable time frame). Not quite how I planned but it will have to do. I'll be still carrying backbag though it's not technically required but good to get used to walking with about same as I'll be carrying in Shikoku(about 7kg or so).

After the 5th day I'll be heading to Tokyo to meet some friends. This time I won't be exploring Tokyo all that much(maybe not even see my favourite park!) and shopping won't be that easy to do for souvenirs. Only good news for that is that there's used bookstore close to the place I'll be camping in Chichibu. If there's coin lockers in nearby station to leave(heavy from books) bag for friday that should sort most of books I want to buy.

So there. Quick recap of my plans. Departure is on saturday, arrival on sunday, pilgrimage starts on monday. I don't know if I can do blogging every day or will I write entries after the holiday but I'll be posting daily notes and pictures sooner or later.