The Path of 10,000 Stones

When I got to Boston, I found myself enrolled in EN844: Medieval Mystics.

Now, this was hardly my first Medieval Literature course. In fact, I have had a long, tantric love affair with Medieval Literature that included a self-hating course

¹Me, not the course.

¹ in Beowulf, in its original Old English.

And so in reading the texts of the Medieval Christian Mystics, that these people would struggle to come to grips with their humanity was not so surprising. What was amazing was the lengths they would go to apply the critical theory they espoused in an attempt to transublimate the divine they found inaccessible in everyday life.

These people would veritably tear up the floor boards of their being to examine the bits and pieces of their soul. Their austere lives took, piecemeal, their psyches, removing it from its whole to scrub its parts until it lustered, getting to know every nook and cog, coming to know, intimately, the function of its pieces and begin to see the potential in the machine. The processes of prolonged fasting and physical and emotional self-flagellation laid bare the shape of their souls in the hopes to purify their vessel adequately to become a receptacle for the divine.

This is hardly a phenomenon unique to the West. Nearly every moderately developed religion produces sects of ascetic practitioners whose bodies of work leave indelible marks on the landscape of belief.

In the late 6th century, Prince Hachiko (蜂子皇子), the son of Emperor Sushuo (崇峻天皇), began a religious journey of self- (and political-) rediscovery as he fled the Soga clan (蘇我氏) from his home in the capital of Kyoto.

Having made the 700km journey from the opulent, steamy West of Geishas and tea houses to the austere, frozen, barbarian lands of Tsuruoka in Yamagata (鶴岡市、山形県), his diligence was rewarded with a vision from a three-legged cow, who came as a messenger from the gods: climb Mount Haguro (羽黒山), and there, purify yourself and you will find the enlightenment which you seek.

At the top of Mount Haguro, as one deposed and in exile, he would dedicate his life to rigorous ascetic pursuits and later establish a shrine, Dewa Sanzan (出羽三山), and two more subsequent shrines at the nearby summits of Yudono (湯殿山) and Gassan (月山), where he would achieve the climax of his religious experience.

The Dewa Sanzan (both individually and as a unit) persists as a testament to ascetic religious experience. Even today one can make the arduous three day pilgrimage (お遍) to the three sacred power-spots (霊山) in classic ascetic fashion, wearing straw sandals and the 浄衣 of the Shinto religious class. But if you’re not so hardy, as I tend not to be, one can take any number of buses to the summits of any three of the mountains, though it will cost you a hefty fee

²Public transportation: an ascetic practice all on its own.

². From Tsuruoka (鶴岡) Station, each bus takes about two hours to its destination, but just the bus to the Yudono Information Center alone cost us ¥$18 each (one way).

These buses run limited service in non-peak season, meaning that they run fewer than once every hour (mid-day we had to wait four-and-a-half hours for a return trip from Yudono), but it would seem that even that could be considered part of the ascetic journey, if you were trying to be optimistic. That being said, if you’re going to go to Tsuruoka, book a tour: it seemed much more convenient and expedient.

Kashew and I only had time (and energy) to visit the lower two of the shrines, Haguro and Yudono.

They say that Haguro is the most easily accessible of the three to visit, as there is literally a bus stop at the shrine-summit. But what kind of experience is that?

The alternative is to get off the bus at the Welcome Center and take the leisurely stroll up the 2,446 steps to the shrine

³

³. And while most of those flights are near-vertical, if you take your time, I can see how the cedar lined walkways could be quite the romantic experience, as the sunlight stippled stones wind their way over calm streams and around thousand year-old, moss-covered shrines and pagodas.

However, dripping with sweat and being beaten up the course by three, spritely junior high girls, I found it to be soul-crushing and humbling.

At the end of the stairs is an active, well-kept shrine in the modern style, as you would come to expect from your tours of Japan. While the shrine itself is not particularly the image of divine contemplation, I suppose it is supposed to be the experience of getting to the shrine that is sublime.

Actually, we spent most of our time, while not gassed and embarrassed by 80 year-old grandmas with walking sticks, looking for the 33 ancient carvings in the stone walk way. It is said that if you find all 33 icons, your dreams will come true. But between age and random tagging in the stone facing, at best we found only 15 or so. But, in the fine tradition of ascetic monks everywhere, I figure that there are probably really only 15 or so etchings; a Magritte-esque slight-of-hand to suggest that if our vision is so narrowed by our selfish desires, we miss the transcendence of the journey. Or something like that.

Ostensibly, from Haguro, one makes the eight hour hike to Yudono, a power-spot famous as being the artesian root of the hot springs of Tsuruoka. Here, in AD605, it is said that Hachiko was inhabited by the Buddha and given the revelation that the Shinto gods were all avatars of the Buddha himself.

And, thusly, Yudono, though not the highest of the three shrines, is considered to be the most important to the Shingon Sect. So sacred is the shrine, in fact, that pictures are strictly forbidden beginning all the way from the 大鳥居 gate at the welcome center, 2km away.

After a short walk along a ravine wall and across a narrow, wooden bridge, you find yourself at a Shinto-styled station waylaid by a brown and red stone face that overlooks lush, green folds of pines below. There, at the gate, you must remove your shoes and complete the remaining five minute walk barefoot over stones, but only after a short purification ritual (nominal fee: ¥$5

⁴Of course a small price to pay for your soul

⁴). As sacred as the site itself is, the priests there say that your experience at the shrine is just as sacred and so should never be spoken of or even listened to.

Suffice it to say, then, though the shrine at Yudono took no more than an hour to see, it was truly a unique experience, especially to merely be witness to any Shinto ceremony, which tend to be rather exclusive in its familial intimacy (and cost)

⁵Born Shinto, Die Buddhist.

⁵. Of course, admittedly, at the end of the eight hour hike to and from Gassan, the one hour at Yudono could theoretically feel like a spiritual eternity.

But I’ll leave that to you asceticists. I have a bus to catch.

For What It's Worth

A couple weeks ago Kashew and I realized that we had an extended weekend coming up. In September, we have a couple of Mondays and Tuesdays off, but these are no ordinary holidays. Rather, they are mid-week CTO for Saturday in-service for Junior High Open House and Bunkasai, which meant that, if we felt so inclined, we could prepare a trip almost anywhere in Japan and expect tourist crowds to be at a minimum.

For a long while we’ve been eyeing a trip to Yakushima (屋久島、鹿児島県、九州), the UNESCO nature preserve off the coast of Kagoshima that is home to some of the oldest trees in the world, as well as the inspiration for the setting of much of Mononoke Hime, only the best movie Japan has ever produced.

In August, we found some really cheap ticket prices

¹The influx of LCCs in Japan have really opened up domestic travel at around \$130 round trip.

¹ and were getting set to drop some dough and go for a four-day retreat and 温泉.

But I just wasn’t sure. By our estimation, we would fly into Kagoshima late in the weekend and catch the 4-hour ferry (or 3-hour foil) out to Yakushima. Theoretically, if we were to get back to Kagoshima in time to see anything in Kyushu before catching our flight back to Kanto, we’d most likely spend a mere two half-days on the island itself.

Admittedly, after perusing the suspiciously short list of things there are to do in Yakushima, two half-days would seem like an appropriate amount of time to see a good majority of the things there are to see there. Except that of the four things to do listed on the Japan-Guide.com website, only one of them did not use the words “multi-hour” and “hike” in any sort of combination.

This created a dilemma.

Would it be worth it to spend the hundreds and hundreds of dollars and half-dozen hours it would cost to fly down to Kagoshima and catch the ferry to Yakushima only to really be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’ve been there,’ but not be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that’?

"Cost" is an interesting variable, and one whose aspects have changed for me over time. Having grown up in a somewhat affluent area of Southern California, there have only been two distinct periods in my life where public transportation has played an important role in my every day traveling.

Back in 2005 or so, I used the extensive network of Boston Public Transportation to my full advantage, running from one end of Downtown to the other and, back and forth across the Charles by ferry or bus or rail on a daily basis.

At that time, what mattered most to me was not particularly the financial cost: what mattered most to me was time, which combination of transportation modes would get me from point-A to point-B in the least amount of time, regardless of back-tracking or line-skirting.

Whether there was any actual reason to be in a hurry was inconsequential. The mere shaving of minutes off of regular travel routes was its own point of pride.

And now whether it is that I have just grown somnolent in the last 9 years, but all of that rushing now seems so senseless and particularly pointless to me. My metric of value has shifted: no longer do those 3 minutes “saved” mean much of anything, especially if it’s a matter of spending 3 minutes in the train or 3 minutes standing on the platform waiting for the next train. What matters most in how I plan my travel itineraries now is “total number of transfers”: the total number of times I have to stand up, walk up the stairs and across the pedestrian overpass, and board another car, hoping to find an open seat.

If time is money, I have decided to cash in on comfort.

The 常磐線, the train route that services the greater Kashiwa area, has two lines, the Rapid and the Local. The Rapid stops at 8 stations between Toride and Ueno, skipping minor stations like Kita-Kashiwa, where I happen to live.

And while the Joban Rapid gets from Ueno to Kashiwa 20 minutes faster than the local, because I would need to transfer from the Rapid to the Local at Kashiwa to get to Kita-Kashiwa, it always gives me pause

This brought about the discussion of ‘worth.’ What does it mean that it would be ‘worth’ doing something?

The negative way of thinking in this situation seemed to be along the lines of opportunity: “When will you ever again have the opportunity to go,” especially if this is my last year working in Japan. As an opportunist, it may be surprising to think that this approach could be classified as negative. But, ultimately, the question is asking, “How will you know if you will ever be able to have this chance again?” which, to me, is a negative way of looking at opportunities of agency. The counter question is, “Why do you assume that I would not be able to go if I no longer lived in Kashiwa?”

The true opportunity is one of convenience, not of availability. And while every opportunity must be weighed against its cost, opportunities of convenience must be weighed against future cost + potential inconvenience.

Presently, the convenience offered is exclusivity (being a small minority on holiday at the time) and assured proximity (traveling from Kanto to Kyushu is much closer than traveling from LA to Kyushu, though next year I may very well find myself in Kansai, which would be a decrease in potential inconvenience).

The necessarily incurred inconveniences by taking advantage of this opportunity are our time limitations and travel fees plus incidental costs, such as the fact that my MacBook Pro just died and will have to be replaced at great expense within the end of the year.

At this point, the variables have become confused. This begs me to clearly articulate my analytic metrics: the one we will use in this instance is cost versus potential enjoyment against the cost of deferment.

This geometric theory can be summed up by asking, “Will I enjoy[Ʃ]: X(activity) for Y(amount of time) at Z(cost) more than [Replacement Activity]?” It’s the VORP of travel planning.

In the Yakushima Intiative, it appears that the sole variable in question is that of Y: time. The amount of time we have allotted would likely diminish the amount of potential Ʃnjoyment of said experience. Or would it?

Could anybody guarantee the greater amount of fun Yakushima would be if I had 2, 3 or even 4 whole days on the island? Or, incidentally, could that risk be mitigated by increasing the amount of time we could spend hanging out in and around Kagoshima before or after?

Presently, I would be inclined to say that at the current expected cost, such an improved outcome would be likely with more time to relax. So it would seem that deferring the trip would be preferable, despite the potentially great possibility that no opportunity to go would arise the longer I wait

²Though as an actionable situation, the variable of Will will ostensibly tilt the equation. One of my Statistics pet-peeves is the tendency to treat actionable situations as if they were random occurrences, and therefore suggest that statistics are predictive rather than indicative.

².

However, even if Yakushima scores lowly with the present metric (Event[Experience; Opportunity; Company; &tc.] :: Cost[Time; Money; Energy; &tc.]), within the immediate context, is there anything better I would be doing with my time than going? Finally get around to touring 青森県? Maybe even 福島県? Four consecutive days of 焼き肉食放題? Four consecutive days of 柔道? Four consecutive days of sitting at home alone and watching TV?

Despite having an overall lower ceiling, all of these other activities also happen to have much lower costs and, therefore, much higher likelihood of satisfaction associated with it. Thusly, not going to Yakushima seems to have a greater likelihood of resulting in Ʃnjoyment.

However, this is only so if I actually make other plans.

Summer Break 2013

Hey Nick,

Short post today. I’ve been tossing some ideas around for a while but none of them seem to stick to the walls. So I made an arbitrary deadline to post something by the end of Labor Day (even though it’s getting hard to remember, exactly, which day is Labor Day). But the blog’s been a little too quiet of late. I promise a more robust article on something (*anything) soon.

Perhaps one of the only difficulties about visiting home on vacation is that you know that there is going to be a short list of five or six questions that everyone is going to ask.

“How is Japan?” “When are you moving back to America?” “Have you married anyone?”

I don’t think it’s malicious or lazy, but because these questions do seem predicated solely upon the assumptions of social normalcy, they are tiring in their presumptive inevitability, like with clearing customs, it’s a probationary check-in on my progress as a ‘normal,’ contributing member of society. Sometimes, it would seem more efficient to print up an FAQ for distribution upon arrival: “Japan is great, but hot. My contract ends in July of next year and I have no firm plans yet, though I am looking. And no, I am enjoying my free time and copious amounts of bachelor ca$he.”

I guess that it’s the same regardless of which life stage you are in. The same kinds of questions are passed around like greeting cards to recent grads, to single people past their thirties, married peoples without children, and on and on and on.

Fact is, most people are genuinely interested in hearing how things are going, and if we haven’t been in constant contact, these micro-inquisitions are probably the most accessible, expeditious ways to jump right in.

And to eschew such conversation is the same to eschew all such small talk and ignore the fact that a large amount of information is still communicated through such seemingly meaningless exchange of white noise.

Over the weekend we had the opportunity to drive up to Nipomo for a family gathering. It was a pretty big event so we managed to pack the grandparents in with the luggage and make the short three-and-a-half hour drive up the coast for a weekend away.

While we were there, we met the grandmother of my brother’s fiancée, a Japanese woman of comparable age to my grandfather, who is also Japanese American. After the introductions were made, the two of them were left together to chat.

Their conversation faltered, so my grandpa started in to his version of small-talk: “What camp were you stationed at,” he asked.

Both being Japanese American and alive during World War II, this remains a touchstone for them 70 years later. It’s not the first time that I’ve overheard him begin a conversation with this and though he, personally, has always been reticent to talk to us about his experience at the internment camps, I’ve always been curious as to what sorts of identifiers he feels he learns from asking people where they were stationed.

I suppose the same sorts of things could be said about any or all small talk—the weather, work plans, internment: we’re all just plying for conversational ins and looking for pathways of permission from points of common contact.