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Impermanence is a pretty lofty topic for one of my blog posts. I usually try to stick to the view from the ground, and steer away as much as possible from talking about concepts or things of which I have limited understanding. Nonetheless, It’s hard to spend a couple of weeks walking on this island,…

Over the course of this pilgrimage, there are four “sekishoji” temples considered “spiritual checkpoints.” Today’s temple, Konomineji, number 27, is the spiritual checkpoint for the second prefecture, or the second of four portions of the pilgrimage. My guide’s explanation of the purpose of these temples is that they are where you find out whether or…

“The precious pot containing my riches becomes my teacher in the very moment it breaks” —Milarepa In Tibetan and other Buddhist traditions, the Bardo is a place or state that consciousness must pass through after it leaves one body and before it is reborn into another. Contemporary Buddhist teachers, most notably Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, have…

Back in Nepal, I had a palpable experience of veils lifting and finding access to a place from which I had previously felt separate and disconnected. I had a not dissimilar experience today here on Shikoku. I’m not fool enough to announce the end of tangaryo, when I don’t know the rules of this island…

At Tassajara, as at all Zen monasteries, new aspirants hoping to enter monastic training sit a period of Tangaryo. My understanding has always been that Tangaryo means something along the lines of, waiting at the gate. Technically, it means “sitting all day” in a room designated precisely for this activity by monk aspirants. Once upon…

I don’t yet have words for this experience of pilgrimage, or of being a Henro, as we are called here. It’s utterly unlike anything I have undertaken before and it moves far too fast for reflection. To keep the thread, and because it seems true, I’ll just start by offering a few basic facts about…

I spent my first night in Japan (not counting one at an airport hotel) at a Shingon temple on Mt. Kōya. Staying at what is in effect a training temple for the night was truly a boon for this transition. As strange as I have found much about the past couple of days, still arriving…

After ten weeks in India and Nepal, nearly all of it in relatively remote places, boarding a flight to Tokyo on a Japanese airline is certainly something of a transition. Add to this the fact that this will be one of the first international flights to land in the country on the day COVID travel…

Some weeks—or maybe it was lifetimes—ago, I wrote a bit about Barry Lopez, the mountain training, and the combination of presence and planning required to move safely in wild places. One essential feature i forgot to mention was the fine art (and survival skill) of knowing when to quit. For the entire time we have…

I heard them before I saw them. A cacophony erupted in the sky, hard to place but unmistakably the voices of bird people. I asked my guide what the sound was, and he responded, “vultures.” “I do not know what those are,” I said,” but those are no vultures.” We had climbed up out of…