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Japan by Train 15: Tsuruga

September 4, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

First stop for the loop bus in Tsuruga is Kehi Jingu, the town’s main shrine. As I got off, I noticed something odd, and turning round found myself face-to-face with a large brown owl perched on a coffee sign. For a moment we stared at each other, then it flapped its large wings and flew off to the shrine grove. I had never been that close to a wild owl, and without thinking I followed in the same direction, as if it was an animal messenger sent to guide me.

At the entrance to the shrine a small hump-back bridge signified the transition to a sacred realm, a feeling enhanced by passing through the portal-like frame of Japan’s third largest wooden torii. Within the compound is an ever flowing spring, the water of which is said to ensure a long life. Put all that together with the owl, and it is no wonder that the Harry Potter boom of recent years has led to a dramatic upturn in shrine visits amongst the. young.

New Age wizardry, driven by bestselling anime and manga, holds Shinto’s ancient shrines to be ‘power spots’ charged with energy and home to glamorous young miko (shrine attendants). Authorities have reacted with ambivalence, for ‘magick’ speaks to the universal rather than to ancestral concerns. On the other hand, shrines are more than happy to welcome the increase in custom.

By this stage of my journey I had come to consider Basho an unseen travel companion, and it was comforting to find a statue of him in the grounds. The poet had come here intent on seeing the full moon, and when he arrived a day ahead of time the sky was promisingly clear. Alas, the following evening it clouded over.

The autumn moon –
Ah, the Hokuriku climate
So variable

Of the five haiku Basho wrote at Tsuruga, only the above made the final cut. Kehi Jingu however has chosen to immortalise another, which references the shrine. For over a thousand years Shinto and Buddhism were fused in religious expression, and the shrine was once part of a Buddhist complex. According to tradition, the monk Ippen, founder of the Ji sect, laboriously carried white sand from a beach to cover over the shrine’s muddy access, and the practice was continued by his successors. Basho uses this to fashion an image of spiritual radiance.

The moon so pure –
shining on silver sand
laid by monks

Approach to the Haiden, sadly not sand glistening in the moonlight

Japan by Train 14b: Fukui

August 25, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

For the connections of Zen and Shinto, see the previous series of 22 postings starting here.

The extract below concerns a visit to the large Zen seminary outside Fukui City – Eihei-ji.

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Sweeping leaves in the surrounds is an exercise in mindfulness

Eihei-ji is more than a seminary; it is a memorial to ‘the saint of Zen’, Eihei Dogen (1200-1253). As founder of the temple, he established the lines along which it is still run today. He was someone who truly ‘walked the walk’, and you can’t help but be in awe of a man so committed to a life of hardship. Born into the noble class, he embraced a life of poverty, bitingly cold winters, low-level sustenance, and a ceaseless round of meditation, work and sutra chanting.

For each aspect of monastical life, Dogen laid down strict rules. Take bathing, for instance, only permitted on days of the month containing a 4 or 9 in the date (roughly every fifth day). Before entering the bath, each monk had to make three bows while reciting, ‘We bathe vowing to benefit all beings; may our bodies and minds be purified both inwardly and outwardly.’

Along with such strictures, Dogen had a knack for maxims and captured Zen’s distrust of words by stating, ’The more talking and thinking, the further from the truth.’ He had too a poetic side, and in Zen fashion cut to the heart of things in his verse…

In the spring, cherry blossom
In the summer, cuckoo
In autumn the moon, and
In winter the snow, clear and cold

For his seminary, Dogen chose the name Eihei-ji (Temple of Eternal Peace). His presence pervades the buildings, and when haiku master, Takahama Kyoshi, visited in November 1949, he communed with the spirit of the founder.

Still now
At his reliquary shrine
Maple tree viewing

The temple is dauntingly large. Dauntingly austere too. The whole site is set on a slope, and steps are everywhere. Perhaps after prolonged sitting, steps provide an antidote. There are moss-covered steps on the approach, steps to enter buildings, steps to the next room, and a long, long flight of steps all the way up to the main assembly room. Steps on the path to enlightenment too.

It quickly becomes clear that apart from religious training the seminary is a major tourist sight, for bustling confusion fills the reception area. Visitors are instructed to follow coloured markers on the floor; choose the wrong colour and you could find yourself becoming a sponsor. The majority head for a lecture room where, before a large map, a monk explains the layout. ’Seven buildings represent the core of the monastery,’ he says. ‘Auxiliary structures total seventy in all.’

Let loose on the buildings, visitors are steered by ribbons, ropes and directional signs around the public face of the institution. The pleasing simplicity of the woodwork is largely bereft of decoration, save for the 230 paintings of birds and flowers on the ceiling of the Reception Hall. The Monks’ Hall forms the heart of the complex, with its one-by-two meter tatami mats. For those in training, the narrow confines comprise the limits within which they must eat, sleep and meditate.

There is a tendency to romanticise monastic life as a utopia free of everyday concerns. For the reality you only need turn to the best-selling Eat Sleep Sit by Kaoru Nonomura, who left his job as a Tokyo designer for a year’s training at Eihei-ji. What follows is a shock. Trainees are routinely slapped, kicked and shoved down stairs. ‘When you passed a senior in the corridor,’ writes Nonomura, ‘failure to join the palms in respect was punished on the spot with a blow.’ Extreme stress and fear are compounded by exhaustion, hunger and loneliness.

The military-style training conjures up the hierarchical world of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and in either case the aim is similar; ‘to break down the self-centred ego.’ The group takes priority over the individual, and obedience, discipline and subjugation of self are expected at all times. ‘Absolute submission was a must,’ writes Nonomura. Seen in this light, the connection of samurai and Zen makes perfect sense.

Japan by Train 14a: Fukui

August 19, 2022 / John D. / 4 Comments

The street leading to the Tojinbo cliffs is lined with the kind of souvenir shops you often see at famous shrines and temples. At the end is a terrace offering a fine panorama over the rocky coastline. From the terrace a path twists its way downwards towards the sea, alongside which people pose for photographs against the dramatic backdrop.

At the foot of the cliffs little passenger boats manoeuvre into inlets, while keeping a cautious distance from submerged rocks. Columns soar some twenty-five meters into the air. Geologically, the phenomenon is so rare as to be found in only two other places – Mt Geumgang in Korea and the east coast of Norway.

The path down is steep, and the slippery rocks are alarming. According to legend, the cliffs take their name from a corrupt priest lured here by resentful villagers and hurled over the edge. Did the Buddhist ecclesiast have karma on his mind as he plummeted towards his rocky end? Whatever the truth of the story, the cliffs went on to become a notorious suicide spot.

The Jesuit missionaries of the 17th century, men of keen intellect, noted that Japanese faced death with greater equanimity than other races. This was true not only of the samurai who trained for death, but of the populace in general (the most fervent Christian martyrs came from the peasant class). The subjugation of the ego is a factor in this, and one that at the same time makes Japan so pleasant a place to live because of the widespread modesty, humility and civility. At the end of life, it may make it easier to let go. People die as they live, we are often told.

In the Western mind suicide and Japan are closely linked, fostered by images of samurai committing seppuku (ritual suicide). Mishima’s spectacular death furthered the association. But pro-active measures in recent years have lowered the number, and in 2019 Japan ranked twenty-fifth in per capita terms, below the US. The biggest category is of men who cannot support their family, either by business failure or losing their job. The forest at Aokigahara near the base of Mt Fuji is notorious as a suicide spot, but sadly a more common means is throwing oneself in front of a train or subway. Apart from the emotional stress for drivers, it can also be a cause of great hardship for families left behind who are responsible for debts caused by damage, cleaning up and disruption to services.

In recent years suicides at Tojinbo have also shown a sharp decrease, mainly thanks to a former policeman, Shige Yukio. His job included pulling bodies out of the sea, and on retirement he set about tackling the problem. Together with a handful of volunteers he initiated patrols, and over 18 years they talked to as many as 650 desperate people. As a result the suicides have been drastically reduced, testimony to the difference a single person can make.

Japan by Train 13: Kanazawa

August 5, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

After visiting the castle, I passed over the bridge to Kenrokuen, a stroll garden laid out for the feudal lords of the early seventeenth century. I had rarely visited it when I lived nearby, put off by the countless tour groups listening to loudspeakers announce that the grounds are noted for tranquility. And if that were not enough, there were school excursions and shouts of ‘Harro’, or if particularly brave, ’Harro, how are you? I am fine, thank you.’

Now however in a time of Covid there was time to stop and stare, time to take in all the beauty. It was as if I was seeing the garden for the very first time, with ability to appreciate. Before me lay an organic museum: rambling root and twisted bough; an awe-inspiring boulder; a tree trunk colonised by moss; 10,000 irises set along a rippling stream; the vigour of cedar trees; the elegant stone lantern adopted as symbol of the city.

When Basho visited on his long distance walk, he spent ten days in Kanazawa meeting with dignitaries and taking part in haiku gatherings. He may have been a wandering poet, but he was no solitary soul. It was late summer, and a haiku he wrote tells of the lingering heat.

Bright red sun
unrelenting, merciless –
yet an autumn breeze

Near a monument celebrating Basho’s visit stands a larger-than-life sculpture of Yamato Takeru, mythological hero of Kojiki (712). It was put up in the nineteenth century to commemorate soldiers killed fighting ‘the last samurai’, Saigo Takamori. While I was looking at the puffed cheeks of the statue, a man approached me and asked in Japanese, ‘Don’t you think it’s kirei?’ (Kirei can mean clean or beautiful, significant for Japanese aesthetics.) ‘It is made with a bird-repellent,’ continued my interlocutor, ‘which is why pigeons do not sit [or shit] on his head.’

As we walked, I realised the would-be guide was glad to have found a solitary gaijin with whom to share his love of the garden. ’You see the cherry grove,’ he said, ‘there are 420 trees and 40 different types.’ It was impressive, but I was already punch drunk with facts and figures and fauna, so I invited him to join me for a green tea on the veranda of an ancient teahouse. Before us was a pond with the oldest fountain in Japan, and we sat together listening to the sound of falling water. Like the carp, we were immersed in the moment.

To one side, three middle-aged women in traditional gardening gear were meticulously clearing away dead leaves from behind bushes, and it dawned on me that the garden had been maintained in this way for four hundred years. The pursuit of beauty, awareness of transience, the seasonal round, attention to detail, the cultivation of tradition, harmony with nature – it was all here, compressed into a garden, and it was in Kanazawa that I first awoke to the aesthetics. And the aesthetics, I later came to realise, are virtually synonymous with the ethics.

Japan by Train 12: Toyama

July 29, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

In surveys about the quality of life, Toyama Prefecture is always near the top, thanks to the prosperity and pleasant environment. The town is located by the side of a bay, with spectacular views of the Japan Alps. The combination of sea and mountains means the fish is fresher, the air cleaner and the water clearer than pretty much anywhere in Japan.

Apart from the castle, the shrines and the temples, there are any number of well-endowed art galleries and culture halls, which owe themselves to a generous level of funding derived from the prefecture’s industries – pharmaceuticals, electronic parts and metal products. The town’s leading attraction is a Glass Art Museum, housed in a light and airy building worth seeing in itself. Designed by famous architect, Kengo Kuma, the building is shared with the city library, which explains the number of visitors who carry books and never show up in the museum. The exhibitions can be dazzling, but the highlight is invariably the spectacular Glass Art Garden by master artist, Dale Chihuly. Even those uninterested in glass tned to be wowed.

The prefecture’s Mt Tateyama is one of Japan’s ‘three holy mountains’ (together with Fuji and Hakusan). At the top, a Shinto priest waves a purification stick over bowed heads. In my early days in Japan this was puzzling to me, so I asked the priest to explain. ‘You pay me money and I purify you,’ he said. ‘I see,’ I replied, ‘but is there something more? For example, rules on how to behave in everyday life.’ There was a short pause. ‘Yes,’ came the answer, ‘you pay me and I purify you.’

At the time I thought the answer amusing. Later, as I came to understand more about primal religions, I realised he was right. The concern is not with morality, but with harmonising with the spirit world. Whereas the material world is characterised by disease and decay, the spirit world is free of taint. Pure purity, in other words. The waving of the magic wand is the Japanese acknowledgement of what Arthur Koestler called ‘the ghost in the machine’, the animating spirit that lies within the physical body. Here at the top of the mountain the priest was evoking oneness with the universe.

Voted Japan’s best Starbucks, it stands next to the canal a few minutes walk from the station

Japan by Train 11: Niigata

July 19, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

The journey from Tsuruoka to Niigata was delightful, at least on the stretch to Murakami, with views of rocky headlands, small islands, and inlets where the incoming sea has carved bites out of the landmass. Here and there were fields peopled by figures wearing traditional mompe clothing and straw hat, interspersed by long tunnels and a reminder that the mountains had not gone away. They never do in Japan.

For much of the way the track runs close to the sea, passing by fishing villages huddled together for comfort. Shinto shrines spoke of sea spirits, and sacred rope was draped between rocks in picturesque fashion. Old women bent double scoured for seaweed, while out at sea their menfolk bobbed up and down in distant boats. Basho had walked this route, and not surprisingly the poems he and his companion wrote focus on the seaside scenery.

The ferry to Sado leaves from Niigata, an industrial port of importance but not noted for scenic sights. The town exemplifies modernisation, when much of Japan’s heritage was jettisoned in favour of industrial catch-up. Will Ferguson, hitchhiking through here in Hokkaido Blues, described it as ‘sullied and soiled and worn-out’. The Rough Guide is more generous, calling it ‘a likeable but unexciting city,’ Lonely Planet dismisses the town altogether, saying ’There is little to see in Niigata.’

In 1879 Isabella Bird had a very different impression. Bird’s Niigata is a ‘handsome, prosperous city’ of beautiful tea houses, excellent theatres, attractive houses and miniature gardens at the back of long narrow buildings. It is an Oriental Venice in which life centres around canals and goods are delivered by boat. The town is picturesque, Bird tells us, but then adds an ominous note: ’The Niigata of the Government, with its signs of progress in a western direction, is quite unattractive-looking as compared with the genuine Japanese Niigata.’ Here we have surely the earliest expression of the ‘Lost Japan’ sentiment, which was to colour the writing of Lafcadio Hearn over a decade later.

Japan by Train 10: Sado Island

July 12, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

There was a scorching September sun when I arrived, but volunteer guide Tsukakoshi Takayuki whisked me into his air-conditioned truck and away we sped. Raised in Tokyo, his Sado-born mother had taken him to the island for summer holidays. After graduating in mechanical engineering, he was seconded to work in Kentucky at a time when American car companies were eager to hook up with Japan. Fate intervened in the form of 9/11, after which the Homeland Act came in and foreigners were out. Instead of an American Dreamer he became a Sado Dreamer, working as a freelance translator and guide. Had it been a good move? ‘Yes, yes!’ he said emphatically.

With little work because of Covid, Takayuki had set aside time to show me around. His time in America had made him easy-going, friendly and flexible. When he asked what I wanted to see, I mentioned four things for which Sado is famous: exile, gold mine, Noh and taiko. If I could fit them all in, I would be more than happy. ‘No problem,’ he said.

We had not been driving long before we passed a copse-encircled Shinto shrine. The torii gateway was in the syncretic Ryobu style, indicating Buddhist connection, and the rundown condition of the buildings spoke of a former grandeur. Spiders’ webs covered the doors, and the faded glory exuded a melancholy air. It felt almost as if a good friend had succumbed to old age. I asked about depopulation. ’When I came here twenty years ago, there were 70,000 people,’ he said. ‘Now there are only 50,000. If we continue like this, there will be no one left in fifty years. It is very, very sad. People have been living here since Jomon times.’

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One of Sado’s famous exiles was Zeami (1363-1443), founder of Noh. Despite his status, he fell out with a shogun and in 1434 was sent into exile, where he is thought to have remained until the shogun died seven years later. His legacy, remarkably, is some fifty plays and treatises that spell out the aesthetics. The slow and dreamlike atmosphere is so far removed from the busy life of modern Japan that it is a wonder it still survives. In Sado it is deeply enrolled in community life. Or was. There used to be well over a hundred stages; now there are ‘only’ thirty, which given the small population is extraordinary.

Takayuki explained that the popularity had little to do with Zeami as such, but originated centuries later when the country was in Edo-era lockdown. The plays were introduced by samurai officials running the gold mine, and the isolated islanders took to the upper-class entertainment. And so it was that uneducated farmers sat entranced as ghostly figures moved with eerie slowness to the otherworldly sound of musicians. Performances became a measure of a village’s worth, and the stage a measure of its standing.

All that is now left of Zeami’s stay on the island is a small rock on which he stopped to rest. Not so much a case of Zeami lived here, but Zeami sat here. Since there was no one around, I started to imagine the scene as the setting for a Noh play. A local farmer planting rice is approached by a robed figure who asks the way, and the farmer tells him of a famous man who was exiled here. He sits on the rock, and discloses to the stranger that he is in fact the spirit of Zeami, unable to rest because of the injustice done to him. In the second part of the play the stranger takes a nap, and in his dream Zeami appears and does a stately dance reenacting his wrongful exile. The play then ends with the stranger awakening and the ‘hungry ghost’ pacified.

I tried to tell Takayuki the story, but he had little enthusiasm and said he did not care for Noh. His tastes were all American, he confessed. Cowboys and Disney and pop music. It was a case of mirror images: the Japanised Westerner face to face with the Westernised Japanese.

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For more about Noh and the links with Shinto, see this posting.