Ritual

DHS 51/100



I haven't given up on the 40 Day Behold Your Life review of your life, i just haven't felt like writing about it. You see, i don't plan anything that i write on this blog — it is all written as a stream of consciousness. However, Behold wants me to reflect on something and then write about that, and there are days when i sit down at the computer and my fingers just don't have anything to say. I guess the best approach will to be to write about each chapter as my fingers tell me they are ready and forget about the 40 consecutive days.

That said, i did notice two nice things in the book, at the end and out of the 40 main chapters. I'll post the second one tomorrow, but for today i'll mention a quote from another book that the author herself included in Behold.

"Life can become habit, something done without thinking. Living life in this way does not awaken us. Yet any of our daily habits can awaken us. All of life can become ritual. When it does, our experience of life changes radically and the ordinary becomes consecrated. Ritual doesn't make mystery happen, It helps us see and experience something which is already real. It does not create the sacred, it only describes what is there and has always been there, deeply hidden in the obvious."

Rachel Naomi Remen
Kitchen Table Wisdom

This is so very, very true; life has become habit for too many people. I can think of no other reason for the popularity of TV but that it serves as a tool to break up the habit and boredom that people have fallen into, realize they have fallen into, yet don't have the courage to try and change it.

On the other hand, as soon as i read this, i thought of Shikoku. The Henro Trail can be a magical place if you let it. In order to be that, however, the henro must recognize that it is very easy to let the daily experience fall into nothing but habit. Get up, eat breakfast, walk, eat lunch, walk some more, check in, take a bath, eat dinner, read or watch TV, go to bed, ..... and repeat this routine day in day out, week in week out, for up to two months.

That's the life of the henro when broken down to its simplest terms. And i've met henro who live on those terms; certainly not all of them, but you meet them. With this mindset, the henro is no more than a walk around the island.

As Rachel said above, though, with a little effort ritual can be found amidst all that routine, and this ritual can transform the henro into a walk through who you are. This ritual could obviously start with your visits to each of the temples and what you do there. It can also be found out on the streets and roads between the temples.

Notice what you are doing each every moment of the day. Don't day dream, stay alert. Notice the people. Notice the fishermen going out to sea in the morning and coming back home in the afternoon. Notice the farmers out in their fields. Notice the people signing your nōkyōchō. Notice the other henro chanting in front of the Hondō and Daishidō. Notice the cat sleeping under the steps. Notice the weather. Notice the cloud cover as it changes throughout the day. Notice the sun as it rises, passes overhead, and begins to set. Notice your footsteps. Notice the birds and other animals. Notice the boredom, irritation, and other emotions on the faces of the people in the cars that pass you by. Notice your breath. Notice how the wind feels as it blows against your face. Notice the sound of your walking stick as it taps the ground with each step. Notice the smell of cooking food when you check into lodging. Notice the owner's desire to talk to you and ask questions before going to your room. Notice the sound of the door as it slides open in its track. Notice the smell of the green tea as you pour a cup after sitting to rest. Notice the zabuton you sit on. Notice the music playing at the convenience store when you go in to buy lunch. Notice the face of the person who takes your money. Notice the feeling of the sheets in your futon as you go to sleep. Notice the sounds of the neighborhood as you lay there. ...

Notice your life. Notice being alive. Notice what it feels like to Be. Each and every moment. This can, with effort, become a ritual that you perform throughout the day. This can be a ritual you open yourself to. This ritual can be the door through which you can walk into that gap between two thoughts. This ritual can be the door which stretches each day from 24 hours to eternity, each hour from 60 minutes to eternity, each minute from 60 seconds to eternity. This ritual can give you Life.

As i said at the end of my explanation of the Heart Sutra on my web site about the pilgrimage:

So, if you are one of the lucky ones, the question that you find yourself faced with as you stand at the gate leading into Ryōzenji (Temple 1) isn't what kind of pilgrimage you want, but what kind of life you want. Anyone can make it around the physical henro trail.Vastly fewer will make it around the Heart Sutra trail. It's both infinitely harder and infinitely easier. It requires enormous amounts of effort and no effort at all. It's like a dream — while you may have worked up a sweat year after year after year in a dream, in that one instant when you wake up, you realize you had really done nothing at all. Yet the rewards for your efforts are unimaginable.

For those henro whose main map around the island indicates roads, highways, and cities, at journey's end, while they will have had an interesting life on the trail, the effects will slowly but surely wear off. On the other hand, for those henro that use the Heart Sutra as their main map, by journey's end they will have laid a strong foundation for an awakened life, a life with meaning, a life well worth living. A life full of living.

What kind of life do you want?

May you be one of those who dare to take the risk and see how far they can go.