Two stories about the parochial

Two incidents in the past week have had me reflecting on the notion of parochiality. 

I have recently come across Japan being described as parochial, a designation that has startling accuracy in certain senses, even while its use is utterly secular. Or is it really secular? What a people identifies with and worships and how and where they do it surely informs the concept of 'the parish'. Ideally, the parish is the first home from home. It's an idea that makes me wistful and doubtless informs some of my admiration for Japan's great spirit of neighbourliness. Over the years I've learned that having a mono-cultural milieu makes neighbourliness much easier even while it tends to drive discrimination of various stripes into dark and impossible to access places. I suppose any group identity is vulnerable to its shadows, the parish no less than others . . .

The first incident concerns a species of parochiality that may well be frequently encountered in the small pockets of 'Anywheresville'. It's something that reminds me of the question of the relevance of certain kinds of knowledge. I remember reading many years ago about some kids in a rurally situated school doing poorly on some British standardised test; the point being that had they been asked about stuff that was relevant to them --sheep and wool, say, or planting or harvesting or husbandry-- they would have aced the questions and those in the 'centre' would have performed predictably poorly. Situatedness in learning promotes community and out of community arises a wealth of opportunity. 

So, I went by the police station recently to pick up my renewed drivers' licence. It was an easy and pleasant encounter if, in retrospect, also curious and slightly baffling. There seemed that day a distinct resemblance in Japanese bureaucracy to Alice's experience down the Rabbit Hole. The officer at the desk said, looking at my carefully filled in paperwork, "Soooo, where were you born?" Naturally, I'd had to write the town and country of origin, and I read it aloud for her as she pointed at it. "Oh, is that in America?" It stands to reason [in Wonderland] that all people who look like me --non Asian and/or non Japanese--must be from America (aka, The Foreign Country).

"No, not America," said I. "It's in Africa." 

"Well, your passport says you're British.  You must have been born in England (* presumably in America.) Please cross out where you said you come from and write England because you cannot come from where you say you come from. For one thing," pointed out the officer patiently, "it doesn't match that maroon passport of yours."

[* Caveat: Liberties taken in mindreading.]

Well, this information was evidently outside the box of the officer's professional and geographical remit and she could not make the sum of my white, African, British parts add up to anything sensible. Why should I mind the gap? I took the path of least resistance--the way of harmony--and why not? Who was I to add (further?) to the confusion of the world? I crossed out my birthplace, replaced it with "England" and we parted on friendly terms. She, having set the worlds to right, and me licenced to the motors.

Then, there was another incident--another mind the gap event, in fact--that made me proud of good human beings, this time acting in concert. Taking a break at work a few days ago I came across this story of a woman falling between the platform and the train in Tokyo rush hour traffic. I would have been gripped by terror were it not for the picture --the ultimate reassurance--of commuters leaning on the train to make space for her extraction. It happened at the time that a rendition by the Salvation Army of Nessun Dorma (none shall sleep) was playing on the radio. A remarkable, and I confess, rather emotional synchronicity, knowing that at that hour of the day in that metropolis people are in, at best, liminal states of consciousness . . . but lo & behold, the clarion call came and it was all hands on deck. 

And, despite the gaps, we all lived, happily ever after.

'Summer should be cool': so says Tea Master Rikyu

Note to the gods?. . . Deluded Weather Forecaster? . . . or, simply Wishful Thinking?
 
Over the past week you could be forgiven for wondering which of the above applied. The rainy season ended abruptly and a particularly beastly start to the summer emerged. There were seven continuous days at 35C or more. Nighttime temps drop to a balmy 24 on a 'cool' night, but mostly hover around 26C-ish. Ugh.

One of the teahouses at Korakuen

What could the tea master have meant? There is a memorable aphorism penned by John Milton in Paradise Lost that has some bearing on the tea master's claim: 'the mind is its own place, and it itself/ Can make a heaven of hell' . . . Not that suffering (the heat) is by any means all in the mind, nor exactly do I believe that heaven is a state of mind, nor hell. It's just that since we have minds, and this is what we can know (in some sense), we might as well use them to participate with the place we find ourselves (as best we can . . . though I acknowledge that any application of the mind in climates of high heat and humidity feels like a tall order!)

Paper Scroll made by local artist, Umeda san

In Sanmi Sasaki's magisterial book on the way of tea we find in each season a treasure trove. One is introduced here to a beautiful sense of the poetry at the heart of traditional Japan. The way of tea, it is said, is basically concerned with activities that are a part of everyday life, yet to master these requires great cultivation and diligence.

I asked a friend about her tea lesson recently, 'Hot,' she replied. 'You may imagine that it's not pleasant to be near the kettle in this season. Nevertheless, we felt really refreshed afterward. When we hear the kettle boiling we imagine waves rolling in toward the pine trees on the coast line. We call that sound 松 涛 (show-toh).' Pines, waves - so the characters say - what you imagine is really up to you . . . But it is kind of cooling, isn't it?

The tea celebrant is to be mindfully centred in the summer in the principle of Ryou-ichimi, which means something like effortlessly exuding (via careful preparation) simplicity and a sense of cool that in turn imparts a sense of relief & refreshment. Master Rikyu taught that the mind of the host enables coolness at tea and this is enhanced by coolness in imagery and also in the poetry shared for the occasion.

Lotus leaf, silver rain puddle & drop

In this season guests might like to see pictures of, for example, plum trees drawn in indigo ink, or fire flies, or singing frogs. There may be a scroll that speaks of cool mountain breezes. The pottery may be of earthy appearance and wet through. Hanging boat-shaped vases may also turn the mind to cooler climes. For the waiting room, guests may get into the mood for tea seeing images such as green rice shoots with the wind combing them; a white heron on the water; a silver kettle; blue-green or white porcelain and a cup for sipping water. "This might," his instructions go, "be enough to generate coolness."


Master Rikyu's followers in the Urasenke tradition hold that

"Instead of shielding ourselves from climate or circumstances, or complaining about them, we accept them and find some enjoyment in them. We can do this for ourselves anytime, any place, simply being where we are and accepting what comes our way. If we can appreciate a slight breeze in the heat of summer, or the feel of a warm bowl of tea in the midst of winter, how much more our enjoyment of life will be."

Old Stone Pond at Zuishin Temple

Deep, cool, indigo thoughts to you friends in the warmer of the northern climes. 

Keep your flow fresh, the incense burning and your spirits up!

Fragrant Delight

There is a line in one of Rainer Maria Rilke's poems: 'God explodes from his hiding place.' This same explosion happened in fragrant and delightful beauty right upon our dining room table!

Two Encounters with Pilgrimmage

Straw sandals traditionally used by pilgrims in Japan hanging on a temple gate. 

The Ancients well knew that the combination of energies, both human and divine, required for pilgrimage prepare the path to insight like nothing else. This sacred, time out of time journey, must be a marvellous zone of space-time for close encounters with ten thousand halos! The demands on one's attention, enthusiasm, body and the mind are surely concentrating, and loosening, and shaking up of the you you thought you knew. New dimensions of what it means to be human and alive are, by all accounts, to be anticipated.

So I believe. I'm also encouraged to believe it is a thoroughly worthwhile endeavour. I've done one memorably long walk on the Annapurna circuit  in the Himalayas, and I wonder if is it mere fantasy to dream that an added dimension exists on pilgrimage, drawing the heart to higher, deeper things? I felt myself raised by the experience of that long walk, but I have not put my mind to doing pilgrimage (yet?) despite my more or less regular practice of praying with my feet. I live a train ride away from a very well-known Japanese pilgrim trail and even nearer to parts of a lesser known walk dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. Pilgrimage is, I think, a particular grace, a calling of a kind. And not, from all I have read, to be undertaken casually. Why on earth bother? It should be purposeful. Still, I suppose there are as many reasons for the journey as there are pilgrims.

In the past week I have been reflecting on a terrific interview with a pilgrim (Ailsa Piper) who completed the Santiago de Compostela in Spain and wrote a book about her experiences. The interview, done by the inimitable Rachel Kohn on the Australian Radio National show called The Spirit of Things, was, as usual, excellent. I highly recommend a listen. It runs about an hour.

There's something very fragile about describing a spiritual journey to a general audience for there are hazards aplenty in autobiographical writing. Not the least of them being the temptation of self-deception. I have recently finished a book whose author ran crashingly into many, if not all, of these hazards while recounting her pilgrimage (run) around the 88 temples on the island of Shikoku. The final straw came at temple 88, the final and symbolic point of Enlightenment, a point she used to regale us with the (humourous?) cat & mousing of television crews trying to get  footage of her approach to 'Enlightenment'. Certainly, and perhaps unconsciously on her part, we are left in no doubt about who the star of the show was meant to be: HER! The writer had made occasional reference to the dying necessarily involved in pilgrimage. But the most apparent form of dying that she shared occurred in her frequent references to blisters. The whole 'dying to self' appeared to have been a hastily swallowed but poorly digested insight.

I'm trying to work out why it felt cheap and disappointing, quite apart from its rather obvious self-aggrandising bent. I had high hopes. I suppose one reason could be that, when you read a book about pilgrimage you want to feel like you are traveling with the traveler/writer and sharing in some way in their experience of transformation. Being lifted somehow from your own daily cares and carried along. I did not connect with the folksy tone the writer adopted at times including interjections like "Whoa Nelly!" and "Shit! I forgot to pray for X-san", the constant name-dropping (nice for those involved, but with no context, actually meaningless for the reading public) and nor did I get the point of untranslated lines of prayer peppered in the narrative, particularly concentrated toward the end. (I suspect there was some kind of superstitious 'seasoning' going on here. If it was, the magic dust failed to transport me beyond the jejune character of the narrative.)

The end of the road in this book was one Great Relief.

Good autobiographical writing, like the painted icon, points beyond the writing itself to deeper truths that allow for the weaving of insight. There is something immensely powerful and positively transformative about a likable and trustworthy narrator who bears the heart and bears it humbly. This seems to me to be particularly important to the pilgrimage narrative. I don't know if this kind of writing can honestly be done in a secular way, or via an adopted practice (Esoteric Shingon Buddhism in this case). Anyway, I am looking forward to reading Ailsa Piper's book when I can get my hands on it.

I'm not going to mention the locally written book by name because it is hard work to write a book. However, if you are into a sort of Japanese da Vinci Code cracker set around the same areas in Japan and taking in a good bit of the 88 temple journey, I did enjoy Hidden Buddhas by Liza Dalby. She has written a couple of very enjoyable novels centered in Japan which I can heartily recommend.