What's Tony Thinking

From the Kunasaki Peninsula

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Today was the third day of our walking pilgrimage with Walk Japan. We are in the heavily forested and mountainous region of Kyushu Island, known as the Kunasaki Peninsula. It is in the northwest corner of Kyushu.

Kunasaki Peninsula has some things in common with our own beloved Wallowa Mountains in northeastern Oregon. Like the Wallowas, the Kunasaki is remote and lightly populated. Like the Wallowas, it is not easy to access.

Despite its natural beauty and historical significance, even many Japanese are apparently unaware of it. Green checkerboards of rice paddies fill the lowland valleys, as in the photo at right.

But the very remoteness is what made the region appeal to Buddhist monks who came here 1,000 years ago seeking refuge and quiet, isolation and natural beauty.

Because there are twenty-eight sections to the central Buddhist text, the Lotus Sutra, the monks built twenty-eight temples in the Kunasaki region. And because there are 69,000 words in the Lotus Sutra, they dotted the area between the temples with 69,000 Buddhist statues. This meant that a devoted monk could walk a pilgrimage route throughout the Kunasaki as a walking meditation on the Lotus Sutra.

While many of the Buddhist temples in the Kunasaki survived a 19th century turn in Japan to a more militaristic and nationalistic culture, many did not. Sometimes all you find left are the grounds and stone-work of some great historic temples. Other times you find the temples in tact and with some continuing religious life and practice, though not with the huge numbers of monks they once had. Prior to the 19th century turn against Buddhism, regarded then as a “foreign-import,” Buddhism and Shintoism (native to Japan, and then co-opted by the militaristic government) had existed literally side-by-side here.

Today we visited several temples that you can only access by hiking to them. They are buried in dense forests, often built right into rocky hillsides. Often our hikes involved going up long staircases and rocky trails through beautiful bamboo, pine and cedar forests. The staircase at right was one of the gentler, easier and more well-preserved.

In one way, we seem far from the U.S. and the election. But the many Buddhist temples that were razed in the 19th century remind us that an anti-foreign sentiment, however trumped up, is nothing new in human experience.

In the meantime, we are privileged to enjoy the gracious hospitality of historic inns, each with bathhouses and thermal pools. After a day hiking, the retreat to the on-sen baths is quite delightful.

Our walking pilgrimage has two more days, after which we set off on our own for another week in Japan with our first stop in Hiroshima.

 

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