Butterflys, Bells, and Henro

Not home yet not here.
Dreams again of the henro.
Butterfly or man?

For unknown reasons, i woke up in a really foul mood this morning. Really, really, foul. Once in that fog, the only way i know out is to go for a run, and while on the side of the road turn on the autopilot, turn off the brain, and become nothing other than a pair of moving feet. To help stop the mind, i usually load my mp3 player with Korean pop music because the melodies keep me moving without my brain trying to listen to lyrics that i can't understand anyhow.

Today's music did it's job and i wasn't a half mile away from home when my mind silently slipped off to wander the henro trail. In hindsight, this wasn't all that surprising since last night my dreams found me visiting Bangai Temple 7, Shussekiji.

Shussekiji has always been one of my favorite temples to visit — not because of the temple itself, but because of the experience of walking there during my first visit back in '99. It's a long hard climb to over 800m, uphill all the way, with the last bit of the way through the forest. On that day, the mountain top was completely encased in fog, and, with that and all the trees, you could see nothing other than a little bit of the trail in front of you.

I have always been in love with the sound of temple bells, ever since hearing one for the first time back in the mid-'80s when i stumbled into Japan knowing nothing. The sound of the bell when it is struck transports me to places i have never known or understood. There's that first CRACK as the wooden striker hits it, then this ever slowly decreasing series of overlapping high and low tones that just seem to sit there in the air daring you to crawl inside. My brain, for whatever reason, has always accepted that challenge and gets lost in those peaks and valleys every time.

On that climb up to Shussekiji, there must have been a group tour at the temple as i was walking because the bell would ring every few minutes. Because the fog had so completely restricted my visual sense, my hearing was even more open than usual. And then ........ all of the sudden ....... the bell rang out ........... and the sound seemed to roll slowly down the mountain towards me, over me, and then continued downhill ....... and it grabbed my mind as it enveloped me while sliding past ....... and i was completely, totally, at peace ....... and i forgot for those few moments that there was an 'I' and a forest, that there was a henro and a henro trail, that there was a sound and a listener, that there was anything.

Then, just as i started to come back to life, the bell was struck again. Then again. Then again. Have you ever been so amazed that you just wanted to sit on the ground and cry? Have you ever been so at peace that you could say to the universe, 'kill me now because i can't imagine anything in this life being any more perfect.'

There's a poem about this in the spectacularly, astonishingly, incredibly, wonderful anthology of poems edited by Czeslaw Milosz called A Book Of Luminous Things. The poem is by the ancient Chinese poet Ch'ang Yu and is called A Ringing Bell.

I lie in my bed,
Listening to the monastery bell.
In the still night
The sound re-echoes amongst the hills.
Frost gathers under the cold moon.
Under the overcast sky,
The first tones are still reverberating
While the last tones are ringing clear and sharp.
I listen and I can still hear them both,
But I cannot tell when they fade away.
I know the bondage and vanity of the world.
But who can tell when we escape
From life and death?

Ahhhhhh......

I might as well share one more of the poems i like from this collection, especially since my mind is on the mountains. This one is by the one person that would be the focus of my studies if i ever went to graduate school and got a PhD, which i will never do, unfortunately, but that's life, or mine anyhow. The poet is the 13^th – 14^th century poet, gardener, zen monk, political advisor, and all-around jack of all trades, Muso Soseki. The poem is called Magnificent Peak.

By its own nature
   it towers above
      the tangle of rivers

Don't say
   it's a lot of dirt
      piled high

Without end the mist of dawn
   the evening cloud
      draw their shadows across it

From the four directions
   you can look up and see it
      green and steep and wild.

Can you see that mountain he is talking about? Are you able to let go of the images and thoughts you had a minute ago and see it? Can you relax into just being it?

I could say the same things about the henro trail.

The Henro Trail
By it's own nature
   it wanders through
      myriads of villages, large and small

Don't say
   it's just asphalt and cement
      stretching kilometer after kilometer

Without end numerous henro
   countless experiences
      paint your mind with impressions

From the four directions
   you can see it
      long and inviting and waiting.