Shabten Pilgrimage in Japan

On May 28, 2011 eight members of the MSB Kyoto sangha set out in a rented van for Shikoku, the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. The trip was conceived by one of our members, Eiichi Okamoto, originally as a visit to the cave where Japan’s greatest saint, Kobo Daishi (known during his life as Kukai), meditated in the 9th century and attained enlightenment prior to founding a sect of Vajarayana Buddhism that is still powerful in Japan today.  Since the cave is beside the sea, we decided to incorporate our shabten life release practice into the trip. Plans were made to purchase live fish from a local fish dealer and release them into the sea somewhere near the cave.

Nature took a hand, however.  The day before the trip was to begi n, it became clear that a typhoon would soon strike Japan from the south bringing intense winds and heavy rain to Shikoku.  Releasing fish in southern Shikoku would be impossible. Another of our members, Shingo Takeuchi, who had worked hard to make all the arrangements for our trip, consulted with Eiichi and together they devised an alternative plan. Now we would go instead to northeastern Shikoku to visit another major site connected with Kobo Daishi’s life.

The temple Zentsuji, our new destination, stands on the site where Kukai was born in 774. It is one of the three most sacred pilgrimage sites in Japan connected with Kobo Daishi. Zentsuji is the most prominent link in the 1200 kilometer chain of 88 Sacred Temples of Shikoku that are visited in sequence, often on foot and over a period of months, by staff-carrying, white-coated pilgrims. The first 22 temples in the chain represent awakening bodhicitta, the second 22 discipline and practice, the third set Enlightenment, and the final set of 22 Nirvana. Zentsuji, as the 75th temple in the circuit, is part of this final section.  We arranged overnight accommodations at Zentsuji, and after some difficulties, Takeuchi-san and Eiichi-san found a nearby fish seller who was willing to go along with our life release plans.

Soon after our early morning departure from Kyoto it began to rain. The rain continued as we crossed the long suspension bridges connecting the main island of Japan to Shikoku, and it was raining fairly hard when we arrived for our 2:00 appointment with the fish dealer.

The dealer, Mr. Fukita, greeted us warmly and invited us to come into the work area to help load the fish we would release.  The importance of the release was underlined by the scene we encountered there: workers were cutting into living fish on bloody tables, and preparing them for market. We walked past the cutting tables to the seawater tanks beyond. Mr. Fukita, pointed out that his mother had been born in a temple and expressed his enthusiasm for our project. He showed us how to pick up the fish without letting them slip loose.  Half an hour later, we had transferred 72 fish, mostly larger varieties, into buckets and other vessels, and Mr. Fukita and his helpers carried these to a waiting truck for transport to a beach on the Inland Sea.

The life release was a moving experience for us all, and no doubt for the fish as well.  More than one person commented on the fact that setting the fish free had made us feel somehow freer ourselves.  After we had finished, we dedicated the merit to those affected by the earthquakes and tsunamis in northeastern Japan. Then Mr. Fukita, who had freed several of the fish himself, thanked us for what he called a “fine experience” and drove off in his truck in the rain.

We climbed back into our van and drove to Zentsuji.  After we checked into our rooms, evening chants were about to begin in the Miedo, the shrine hall built over Kukai’s birthplace, so we decided to do sitting practice there for an hour until the hall closed at 5:00. This turned out to be unexpectedly entertaining, since the evening chants were performed that day by monks in training. One novice monk in particular was having a lot of trouble maintaining his posture and holding his chant book at the proper distance from his face. A somewhat comical scene ensued in which a patrolling senior monk repeatedly scolded the young monk, straightened him up, and at one point knocked the accordion-style chant book from his hand. The monk, obviously distraught, gathered up the unfurled text, complaining, reasonably enough, that unless he held the chant book close, he couldn’t read the text, but the senior monk would have none of that: “I don’t want to hear any excuses!”

It was time for dinner, but we chose not to eat in the temple dining hall since the main course that day was to be fish supplied by the very fish dealer we had visited earlier in the day. We asked two monks where we might eat instead, and while they were debating this question, the head priest of the temple, a man of great presence, strode in and spoke to us all warmly and at length. He spoke about a trip he had taken to Tibet, about a visit to Zentsuji two years earlier by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and about a Tibetan sand mandala encased in glass in a nearby hall. The priest also made a suggestion about where we might go for dinner.  After eating at a noodle shop he had recommended, we did the protectors chants together in one of our rooms and called it an early night.

A gong sounded at 5:15 a.m., and we all attended morning chants at 5:30 in the Miedo, this time sonorously led by more advanced monks.  Afterward, the head priest gave a short talk. He told us that the exact place of Kukai’s birth is considered too sacred to be visited by anyone, but that those who wish to form a strong connection with Kukai are permitted to visit a small underground shrine that lies directly below the sacred spot. We were invited to visit this shrine room, which lies down a flight of stairs and at the far end of a long, pitch-dark tunnel. We were told to feel our way along the zigzagging wall of the tunnel with our left hands. In the darkness our hands would pass over 88 images of the Buddha, and if we were thinking about our greatest wrongdoings and obstacles at that time, they would thereby be purified. The small dimly lit shrine at the end of the tunnel contains a precious old bronze vajra about two feet long. We practiced in this room, then touched our hands and foreheads to the vajra.

In a nearby building, we each made offerings at each of 88 small shrines arranged in a miniature version of the Shikoku temple pilgrimage, and repeated the mantra associated with each temple. Then, after breakfast in the temple dining hall, we visited the eastern grounds of Zentsuji, a short walk from the main temple. On these grounds stands an enormous and very beautiful camphor tree believed to have been planted by Kukai himself as a boy. A sign alongside the tree notes that he loved the tree very much and often mentioned it in his writings.

We wished to visit several other important Buddhist temples in the area but learned that most of these had been closed due to the extreme weather. We were told, however, that Iyadani-ji, another temple of the 88, might still be open.  Iyadani-ji is known for an impressive natural cave (the Lion’s Cave) in which Kukai meditated as a youth. He was educated at the nearby temple, Rengezan Hakkokuji, between the ages of 7 and 13.  In 804, at about the age of 30, having encountered in Japan texts connected with tantric teachings that he could not understand, Kukai made a perilous journey to Chang’an (near present day X’ian) in western China, where, in 805, he met the Buddhist master Hui-kuo. Hui-kuo immediately recognized Kukai’s brilliance and welcomed him as a student. Although Hui-kuo had only a few months to live at this point, before dying he fully empowered Kukai as a master of his esoteric (Vajrayana) lineage and asked him to return to Japan to spread the teachings of this lineage. Kukai arrived back in Japan in 806 and the following year returned to the cave in which he had meditated as a boy. He built a temple to house the cave, and installed there a thousand-armed statue of Avalokiteshvara. It was to this newly constructed temple that Kukai gave the name Iyadani-ji.

To approach Iyadani-ji, pilgrims climb a long stone stairway. We parked our van and walked to the tall wooden gate that marks the beginning of the climb, but what greeted us was not what we had expected. The stairway on this particular was day a cascade of rushing rainwater, and it became clear that, apart  from 7-year old Haru Okabayashi, who had had the foresight to bring his tall blue rubber boots and was anxious to brave the flow, we were not equipped to make the climb.  We began to walk back to our van, ready to abandon the visit, but at that moment a car emerged from a side road and Oka-san flagged it down.  The driver said we could get to the temple via that side rode, so we boarded the van and a few minutes later found ourselves above the flooded portion of the stairway.  We climbed the two remaining flights of stairs to the building housing the Lion’s Cave. Although natural, the cave is very room-like, composed of several large flat slabs of grey stone embedded in the mountainside. A small amount of sunlight enters the cave through an aperture in one of the stones. We practiced in the cave for a while, then returned to our van for the long drive home.

As we crossed the bridges leading back to the main island of Japan, the rain grew more intense and the winds of the typhoon blew our van from side to side. We did shabten recitations all the way back and arrived safely in Kyoto at 6 p.m. There had been some challenging weather, but we all felt pleased to have made the trip and vowed before breaking up that day that we would make our Shabten Junrei (Shabten Pilgrimage) an annual event.

Freeing Lobsters in Maine

Early in the morning on June 13th, four cars left Pema Osel Do Ngak Choling in Vershire, VT heading “down east” to Portland, Maine to engage in a tsethar, or life release, as part of this years shabten. During the four hour drive, many were reflecting on the detailed Four Immeasurables guided meditation given by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche at that previous weekend’s Modern Day Bodhisattva training program.

There was a small group of sangha locals gathered to greet the procession and Kongtrul Rinpoche at the end of Portland Pier, where most of the nearly 12,000 lobsters the MSB sangha has liberated over the years have returned happily to the Casco Bay. The conditions were just about ideal, cool and overcast, which we think the lobsters prefer over hot and sunny. Teams pulled the animals one at a time from their over-crowded crates, cut a small V-notch in the tail to identify them as females (which the lobstermen throw back to encourage reproduction), snipped the rubber bands from their claws, and gently placed them back into the bay. They were a very lively bunch; holding tightly to one another, arching their backs and segmented tails, spreading wide their pair of claws and spidery legs. One even managed to get a little pinch of Rinpoche’s knee.

The practice of tsethar or life release is as old as Buddhism itself and is a powerfully positive and transformative act of virtue. With this in mind we can conclude that both lobster and liberator benefit from their brief, altruistic encounter. With nearly 12,000 lobsters saved from an unimaginably horrible death, we dedicate the merit to the welfare and ultimate enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Colorado Life Release, June 15, 2011

On Saga Dawa Duchen, thirteen members of the MSB sangha gathered at Samten Ling Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado for a life release as part of this year’s shabten. Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, the Samten Ling retreatants and a few Crestone locals met to release over 400 earthworms into the rich soil around the retreat land’s active spring. Purchased from fishing bait shops between Boulder and Crestone, these worms, which were destined to dangle from a hook as bait for another’s meal, were instead dug back into a moist earthen home.

After reciting the Increasing Life and Prosperity practice we dedicated the merit of this simple but profound practice on this most auspicious day. As one of the younger participants, Nyima said, “that was a lot of fun!”