Life is HENRO… or is it?
Book bag from Temple #80 - Kagawa’s Prefectural Temple
The Shikoku Henro pilgrimage covers 1200 kilometers, includes 88 temples and, depending on many factors, takes 5 to 7 weeks to complete on foot. My half-way point timewise was Temple #38, Kongo-fukuji, which is perched on the southernmost tip of the island. The out-and-back nature of the day to the tip of the peninsula added to the mental shift from first to second half. During the “back” leg, I think you cross the 600km mark.
While lunching and resting on the temple grounds on a wonderfully sunny afternoon in November, I saw a bag emblazoned with “Life is HENRO.” It is important to say that a degree of caution is fitting when discussing English language phrases that show up in Japan: this is indeed the country with a collection of newspaper stands that feature, “Let’s Kiosk” in bold lettering. Nonetheless, “Life is HENRO” struck me as profound.
I recall having a conversation with a senior executive about productivity and performance. We arrived at a distinction between a “marathon” and a “sprint” when it comes to applying limited resources to ambitious goals. He used the former to describe his fiscal year, and I pointed out that an extreme athletic accomplishment requires recovery before embarking on the next one. His year-to-year plan had neither ramp-up nor recovery. The Shikoku Henro is somewhat unique in that it is a closed loop. As evidence of the metaphoric fit, I saw and interacted with several of perpetual pilgrims, all of whom seem to be straddling the space between enlightenment and homelessness. Maybe “Life IS Henro” has some legs… and blistered/callused feet.
The pilgrimage itself was originally fashioned by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kukai and it traverses, clockwise, the four regions (called prefectures) of the Shikoku island, whose name literally means “Four Countries.” The four stages of the pilgrimage map, for the most part, to these geographic divisions. Although it is a closed loop, there is a Temple #1 (Ryo-zenji) and a Temple #88 (O-kuboji). There is debate as to whether the pilgrimage is complete upon visiting your last temple or whether you should return to where you started to close the loop.
The stages of the pilgrimage are:
Spiritual Awakening
Ascetic Training
Enlightenment
Nirvana
Each of these is deserving of a much broader description, but below is a very brief presentation of each.
Spiritual Awakening: Inevitably some urge or curiosity brings one to embark on such journey. My discussions with other pilgrims often circled back to our reasons for doing this. In most cases, our reasons were not entirely clear, though we had all been pressed by friends and loved ones with such questions as, “What are you looking for?” followed by, “If you need to talk to someone…” My quick synopsis of this first phase is simply that one has welcomed the opportunity to shake up their life a bit. We were all curious. Our area of curiosity may have been specific or general, but entering this stage (awakening our spirit) meant we were ready for something new.
Ascetic Training: The literal use of “ascetic” involves denying oneself, which is the origin of vows of silence, abstinence, etc. For me, this stage has you push and find your limits, physical, mental and emotional. The stretch and strain came from covering long distances on consecutive days, facing different (mostly coastal) weather conditions, over walking on different surfaces and terrains (This phase is notable for the time you spend on the side of highways that have no sidewalks and in long tunnels that seem to have no end!). My body staged no fewer than three full-on revolts. “Denial” also takes the form of the daily search for lodging, often over the phone AND in Japanese, and navigating streets that literally have no names. We are “denied” the things that we can take for granted in regular life like knowing where we will sleep tonight.
Enlightenment: The exercise of testing your limits allows for two things: (1) development of new and sometimes surprising capacity, and (2) awareness of our limitations. These same areas are part of physio and rehab, i.e. “Let’s find where you can develop strength and flexibility, and, where you can’t, let’s learn to work around it.” I gained new awareness of the role of rest or at least diminished exertion. I had a much better understanding about how to work, including how best to use my new capacity for climbing steep mountain paths, as well as for tolerating near-complete absence of external stimulation.
(As a more literal application of “light,” very early in this third segment, I finally stopped carrying around a sleeping bag that I did not need. A new capacity to work within a narrower set of options was taking form.)
Nirvana: We are familiar with operating in a “flow” state where great things can happen with seemingly little effort. At this point in the pilgrimage I was covering large swaths of ground, including serious elevation, with no trouble at all. Blisters had hardened to impenetrable calluses. My body had stopped complaining and submitted to the abuse. I could confidently book lodging 40kms away, without fear of straining my body or arriving late (in the dark). In my last week, for the first time in the journey, I had all my lodgings booked in advance. Nirvana took the form of evenings without scrambling!
As tempting as it is to want to remain in that last stage, respecting the repeating cycle means one moves again, through choice or due to circumstance, to a spiritual awakening whereby we shake things up and start that whole thing over. The very natural tendency to remain in this stage—and deny the necessity to keep moving—has me reflecting a great deal on resistance to change.
My intent is to explore these concepts (and others) in the context of the professional work that we do, usually in collaboration with others. Just like our “place of work” can never be “a family” (but can have some similarities), our “professional work” cannot be “Henro” (but may have some similarities). Stay tuned for more.