2019-03-23: Day 9 – Temples 25 & 26

The owner of the hotel said I would be able to see the sunrise from my room and she was right.

It was nice sitting watching and listening to the waves crash on the rocks, watching the sunrise, while enjoying a cup of Japanese green tea. Felt like in paradise. I reflected on all the wonderful ohenros I have met so far, wondering who will reappear today. Sometimes it is like old home week, never knowing those that will appear and disappear (the Buddhist way I figure). I remember when I was studying Buddhism under the 102 year old Roshi in New Mexico, USA, and he asked me the koan (question) “where is Buddha?”. After many futile attempts on my part, I learned from him Buddha is in every person you meet, every sound you hear, every sunrise you watch, every drop of rain you feel, every breath of wind that touches you, every wave you see and hear. Live life to the fullest and you will find Buddha.

I had a wonderful sleep with the sound of the ocean waves on the shore. Yesterday while walking along the shore I found this nice small piece of drift wood and this small smooth stone I liked. I thought of Anna from Denmark and her stone collection, so decided to keep it in honor of Anna.

I like to stay at Temple 26, so today was an easy day of about 12 km, walking along the coast as much as I could. I wanted to stop at the post office to buy some stamps for post cards I want to send to my friends, so it would mean a small detour along the way.

After breakfast, as I was leaving, there was a local tourist representative and a couple of people. The best I can figure is when I told the owner I was going to take a leisurely walk along the coast path, she must have arranged a local guide to take me on a walking tour. Here is a picture of the three of them (the tour guide is in orange).

Even though I couldn’t understand Japanese I could get the gist of what she was explaining as she had a binder with pictures. I enjoyed her explanation about the Akou tree that grows around a large rock, so it has an anchor to survive typhoon winds.

It has a flower and produces small figs which are edible. They look like this:

She explained how the rock formations were pushed up from the two plates, which made some interesting shapes. Here is a picture of the lighthouse and statue followed by a map of Cape Muroto.

The walk to Temple 25 along the coast was fantastic. Here are some pictures of temple 25.

At Temple 25 I ran into Naomi, who said she was staying at Temple 26 tonight.

The walk to Temple 26 was nice. I took my time. Of course along the trail up the mountain there are statues and I just had to take a picture.

At Temple 26 they have a building where you can rest run by the local community, where they serve steamed sweet potato, pickled diacon, and sliced cucumber. Here is a photo of a group that dropped by. The woman in the middle is one of the community volunteers that run it.

As I was waiting there to check in to Temple 26 accommodations I was able to write the postcards I brought outside temple 25. After I brought the postcards, she asked if I had postage. I said no and she gave the postage as osettai. What a sweetheart, the little old lady was. She appreciated when I gave her a small Canadian flag pin.

The view from the room was amazing of the coastline.

I was able to do a load of laundry and have a bath before dinner. At dinner they mentioned you could fill out a form for the monk at the morning ceremony to say a prayer for a deceased person. Naomi helped me fill one out in memory of dad. She has been like an angel always willing to help out in any way.

Here is a picture of my room wall, which I liked.

At the little gift shop I was surprised to find pamphlet in English about efforts being made to make the Shikoku 88 Temple pilgrimage a world heritage designation.

Another wonderful day with sunshine and the fellowship of fellow ohenros. As usual I hit the sack as soon as I finish my blog entry. Sorry for any typos. Hopefully you can read between the lines. Looking forward to tomorrow.