FEILER: I'm in Japan to witness
one of the world's great pilgrimages.
(chanting)
Each year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims
from around the world come here
to complete a rugged 700-mile journey,
covering 88 temples.
JENN TSAI: At the end of the day, my feet always hurt.
MARIANNE DRESSER: Everything that happens on the way
is equally important to reaching the goal.
FEILER: This historic Buddhist trail
includes secret ceremonies, grueling climbs
and for pilgrims, a deeply personal question.
What am I looking for?
What am I hoping to find?
STEVE WILLIAMS: It's a journey of learning about faith
and what faith means to me.
FEILER: Today, organized religion is more threatened than ever,
yet pilgrimage is more popular than ever.
I'm Bruce Feiler.
In this epic series, I travel with American pilgrims
on six historic pilgrimages.
I bathe in the rivers of India,
dance in the heart of Africa,
cleanse in the waters of Lourdes,
trek through the temples of Japan
and walk in the footsteps of prophets in Mecca
and Jerusalem.
I attend some of the most spectacular
and moving human gatherings on earth.
And I ask, what can these journeys tell us
about the future of faith?
I'm about to announce my arrival
at the birthplace of the most revered figure
in Japanese Buddhism, where every spring
tens of thousands of pilgrims trek for weeks on end
to catch a glimpse of enlightenment.
(bell reverberates)
(men chanting)
This journey is part of the ongoing search
for meaning at the heart of Buddhism,
the world's fourth largest religion
with 350 million followers.
Here in Japan,
Buddhism took on a unique popular form
1,200 years ago, largely because of the scholar monk
known as Kobo Daishi.
Today, a 700-mile pilgrimage route
retraces his footsteps around the island of Shikoku,
where he was born and lived.
It's a treacherous journey, linking 88 temples.
On foot, it can take more than 45 days.
While most of the 200,000 pilgrims
who come every year are Japanese,
an increasing number are from the West.
Many are not even Buddhist.
I've come to find out what's drawing them.
Are they seeking adventure?
Personal insight?
Or something deeper?
At Temple 1, where most people begin,
I ask the priest what inspires pilgrims
to make such a difficult journey.
TRANSLATOR: A pilgrim is someone
who wants to connect with Kobo Daishi.
They call upon the spirit for help when it is needed.
Human life is complex.
During periods of pain and transition,
there's need for clarity.
At such times, pilgrimage is comforting,
a chance to heal.
FEILER: Americans Jenn Tsai and Alex Fu recently graduated
from medical school.
They aren't looking for healing,
but they are at a time of transition
before they become doctors.
So what question do you hope to get answered
by coming here?
I think we all had sort of certain reasons
we wanted to go into medical school,
to help people,
to satisfy our intellectual desires,
things like that.
Now we're at another turning point in our lives
where we now have responsibility
to actually take care of people.
And I feel like a lot
of the ancient traditions,
you know, are about healing and self-discovery
and there's a lot of things that we can learn
from looking back in the past,
and hoping to do some of that here.
It's a good time to kind of reflect on that
and think about how we want to carry our lives
from now on.
FEILER: Jenn and Alex have set an ambitious goal.
They want to walk the entire 700-mile route
in just 38 days.
That's a week faster than the average.
Not everyone meets their goal.
Retired Marine Steve Williams is training in California
for his second trip to the island.
Last year, he traveled from Temples 1 to 23
before injuring himself in a fall
and heading home.
WILLIAMS: I'm not planning to do the whole trail this time,
just from Temple 24 to 51.
It'll take me about a month to get that far.
A lot of people are athletic,
probably don't need much training,
but for myself, I need to lose the weight
and get in shape because it's very arduous,
you're walking 15-18 miles a day.
FEILER: Steve first became interested in the Shikoku pilgrimage
in the 1980s.
WILLIAMS: After high school I joined the Marines
and did 23 years,
and I spent eight of those years in Japan.
I saw pilgrims walking
and I decided I wanted to do it.
And I had forgotten all about it until I retired.
All my life, I've been like a lot of people,
always living in the future.
I'll be happy when this happens,
I'll be happy when I get this.
And I hope this journey will teach me
to live more in the present
and be happy with day to day
and not living in the future.
FEILER: Another group of Americans has just arrived on Shikoku.
Their plan is to spend ten days
hiking the most scenic parts of the trail.
Their leader is Japanese American John Osaki.
OSAKI: I was raised as a Catholic,
one half of my family,
and the other half was Jodo Shinshu Buddhist,
so I went to Catholic church every Sunday,
and then temple for important days.
So I guess I feel like I can flow very easily
between both of them.
CHRISTOPHER LOH: I'm not a Buddhist myself,
but I like the Japanese landscape,
I like their architecture,
I appreciate the companionship
of all the people that came from different backgrounds.
FEILER: While most of the group is drawn
to the physical challenges of the journey,
one member has been a practicing Buddhist for 30 years.
MARIANNE DRESSER: This pilgrimage I've been wanting to do
since my 20s, before I even had become a Buddhist.
And then my life went on its way,
and now 30 years later I'm able to do it.
FEILER: The group begins, like most pilgrims,
at Temple 1.
John has enlisted pilgrimage historian
David Moreton to explain the rituals at each temple.
MORETON: Everything starts at the front gate.
So usually the first step before you enter is to bow,
just to say "I've arrived."
FEILER: Once inside, pilgrims purify themselves
by washing their hands and mouths
before announcing their arrival to Kobo Daishi
by ringing the temple bell.
MORETON: You should not ring the bell when you leave.
That's considered bad luck,
and all your wishes will go up in smoke.
So just ring when you arrive,
then light a candle, light incense.
A lot of people have the name slips.
It's sort of like a business card.
You write your name, the date, your address,
and some people write their wish,
why they're making the pilgrimage, on the back.
FEILER: The ritual is the same in every temple,
a familiar set of steps that brings comfort
after the hard work involved in getting to each location.
The same prayers, or sutra, are recited in each place.
(chanting)
The most popular is the Heart Sutra.
Among the best known of all Buddhist scriptures,
it teaches that compassion comes only
with the destruction of personal ego.
(chanting continues)
(bells tinkling)
Inside Temple 1, there's a shop
where pilgrims buy clothes that identify them as henro,
the name given to Shikoku pilgrims.
White is the color of death in Japan,
and the tunic is like a burial shroud.
The conical hat symbolizes the coffin
while also protecting the pilgrim
from Shikoku's frequent rains.
Together the hat, tunic and other accessories
reinforce the idea that the pilgrim
is separating himself from everyday life.
There we go.
Okay.
So most pilgrims often buy a staff.
They believe that this is Kobo Daishi.
It's actually written here, "dougyou ninnen."
"We two walking together.
"”
This character can mean "to go."
It also means "same practice."
So we're walking together,
we're sharing the same practice.
Beautiful.
FEILER: The final essential is the nokyocho,
or pilgrimage book.
At each temple, an attendant stamps
and signs the book with exquisite calligraphy.
MORETON: This is actually the temple name.
That's beautiful.
So it's a little memoir
that you've been to each temple.
FEILER: As John's group leaves Temple 1,
they are less concerned with visiting every temple
than walking to the ones they do visit.
DRESSER: Pilgrimage, you know, it even means walking, right?
It's wandering with a purpose, really,
like you set out on a path, there is some goal,
but it's everything that happens on the way
is equally important to reaching the goal, I think.
FEILER: Kobo Daishi is venerated across Japan
as the man who first made Buddhism
accessible to the masses.
On Shikoku, many believe the Great Master,
as he's called, walks beside every pilgrim
along the trail.
It's one of the many beliefs that keeps his memory alive.
To learn more, I've come to the place
where Kobo Daishi was born in 774 CE.
More than a million visitors a year come to Zentsu ji,
the "birthplace temple."
(chanting)
The morning service is always crowded with henro.
(chanting continues)
The Buddha developed his path to enlightenment in India
more than 2,500 years ago.
His teaching spread across Asia,
reaching China and eventually Japan, around 500 CE.
Buddhism's core teaching
focuses on the true nature of reality
and says nothing is fixed, all actions have consequences,
change is inevitable.
Before Kobo Daishi,
Buddhism in Japan was an elite religion,
focused mostly on the security of the state
and the enlightenment of its highest officials.
Kobo Daishi's biggest change
was to open the religion to everyone.
TRANSLATOR: Kobo Daishi wondered,
why can't we all have
the same chance of enlightenment?
Why can't we reach enlightenment in this life
rather than waiting for the next?
The idea that anyone can be one with the Buddha,
that's what Kobo Daishi thought Shingon Buddhism should be.
FEILER: A temple priest guides me to a statue of Kukai,
Kobo Daishi's given name,
when he was a young scholar monk.
In 804, when he was 30,
Kukai made a dangerous sea crossing to China
to study mystical Buddhist teachings
that had been transmitted from teacher to student
for hundreds of years.
So this is a great story.
So before Kobo Daishi went to China,
he thought he might never see his parents again
so he came to this pond
and he wanted to give them a memento,
so he looked into the water,
saw his reflection and drew a self-portrait
and gave it to his mom
because this was a dangerous thing
and he thought he might die for his cause.
That's the story he just shared.
Kobo Daishi returned from China
and became the Japanese patriarch
of a more populist and mystical form of Buddhism.
(speaking Japanese)
TRANSLATOR: We think of human life as most important,
but Kobo Daishi taught
that plants and animals are just as precious.
We believe this in our hearts
and it's Kobo Daishi who's responsible for that.
FEILER: Over time, this strand of Buddhism
that began in China began to take on
more and more qualities of Japanese life,
especially its reverence for sacred mountains
and other natural phenomena.
Like all religions, Buddhism adapted
with each new country it went to.
When it arrived in Japan, it became infused
with the Japanese love of nature
from its traditional religion, Shintoism.
There's one expression of this that I love.
If you look at traditional Japanese paintings,
those long scrolls of nature,
there's usually a person contemplating the scene.
Nature and humans in conversation with each other.
It's the perfect emblem of the pilgrimage.
WILLIAMS: Taking the bus would be an easy way,
but you get to see a lot more as you're walking,
seeing the trees and the ocean and the mountains.
FEILER: Retired Marine Steve Williams
has been walking the trail alone for a week.
He began at Temple 24, the Cape Temple,
where he injured himself last year.
During the month he's on Shikoku,
he hopes to walk 300 miles, ending at Temple 51.
WILLIAMS: The spiritual side of the trail is very personal.
It's different for everybody.
For me, I know God is inside,
and on the trail I get more in touch with myself
and I feel I just relate more
to the spiritual side of myself
as I'm walking and going to the temples.
(bell gongs)
It kind of reinforces
the whole meaning of the trail.
That's what it's all about is getting to know yourself.
It's a journey of learning about faith
and what faith means to me.
FEILER: There are countless ways
to make a pilgrimage these days.
You can do it by foot, you can do it by train,
you can do it by taxi, you can do it by bicycle,
you can do it by wheelchair,
but for most people,
the most popular way is to do it by bus.
Did you ever think about walking?
(speaking Japanese)
TRANSLATOR: It's about physical strength.
I'm 75 years old.
I would love to walk, but with my health,
it's not possible.
But those of us on this bus
and those of us going on foot are on the same path.
Why have you come on this pilgrimage?
(speaking Japanese)
TRANSLATOR: I've been working very hard
and feeling a lot of stress.
My hope on this journey is to relax my heart and mind.
Being on pilgrimage is different from everyday life.
It's like stepping into another world
and creating a better incarnation of myself.
(speaking Japanese)
TRANSLATOR: Every time I come, it's new.
The energy in the air feels different each time.
And this time, I feel it's not me that's moving,
but the gods pushing me along.
FEILER: One attraction of this pilgrimage path,
like many around the world,
is that it never closes and it never changes.
It's an open invitation for pilgrims
to come at whatever stage of life they're in.
And a surprising number of people
come year after year,
using the stability of the route
to mark their own evolution.
MORETON: With the paper slips,
there's different colors of them.
Those who have done it one to four times,
the pilgrimage, they use white.
Okay, so we have here all of the different colors.
So the gold is the highest?
This is for over 50.
And when you get over 100, it's cloth.
However, some people are very humble,
so no matter how many times they've done the pilgrimage,
they always want to stick with the white.
So this fellow,
he's done it 142 times.
So this 142 means he has been to this temple,
or the entire pilgrimage 142 times?
He's completed the whole circuit 142 times.
FEILER: 700 miles.
142 times.
That's almost 100,000 miles!
Even if you drive, that's years of travel.
How many times have you made this pilgrimage?
MAN: Nana.
FEILER: Seven?
TRANSLATOR: I feel that Kobo Daishi
plants something inside of me,
like a calling to keep coming back.
There's just a cut.
You can see actually the next temple
on the far peak over there.
Taking the bus definitely has its advantages.
For anyone walking to this temple,
it's a tough four-mile slog
up the back side of the mountain.
When you travel by bus,
you can see a huge amount of terrain
in a very short period.
You can be in a crowded city,
you can be alongside a rice paddy.
And here we are
at one of the highest spots on the island,
at the Temple of the Great Dragon,
where I discover it was our guide
who'd made the trip so many times.
(chanting)
You have made this journey how many times?
(translated): 142 times.
Have you ever walked the entire route?
Yes, the first 120 times I went by car,
but when I turned 60,
I decided to walk it.
So this time you're leading a group.
What message do you want the group to take away
from ts experience?
I hope they remember their thoughts and feelings
and share these when they go home.
FEILER: John Osaki's group came to hike
and now they begin
the toughest and steepest ascent on the trail,
2,000 feet straight up the side of a mountain
to the Peak Temple.
On the climb,
they fall in with a party of Japanese henro
walking the entire trail.
This is one of the most meaningful times
in any pilgrimage,
when people from different cultures,
speaking different languages,
often worshipping different gods,
find camaraderie.
There's a kinship of the traveler,
as pilgrims create their own wandering congregations.
For centuries,
pilgrims have been placing carved stones,
notes of encouragement to fellow travelers
and poems along the trail.
LINDA HAMILTON: I love these signs that are on the way.
They always keep you on track.
You always know where you're going.
You never feel lost.
DRESSER: Kobo and all of the statues along the way,
they're all my friends and all the bodhisattvas.
It's like seeing old friends;
it's like going to visit an old friend.
This one is very peaceful and serene.
This is Jizo.
Protector of children?
Right, and travelers.
So one of the bodhisattvas.
So they can live thousands of years?
They take a vow that they'll help
other living beings.
And not go on to the afterworld?
Even though they could.
Right, okay.
(breathing heavily)
FEILER: While people have walked in Kobo Daishi's footsteps
for more than a millennium,
the pilgrimage assumed its current form by the 1600s.
A number of independent Buddhist temples
and Shinto shrines joined together
to create a single route.
The first guidebook was written in 1687.
Travel has always been difficult.
Thousands have died en route over the years.
This is a 200-year-old henro grave.
I'm sure he's been prayed for many, many times
as the henro go by, so his soul is free.
And what a beautiful place to be.
FEILER: Now that the group has been hiking for several days,
a change is occurring.
They talk less about the physical challenges
of their journey
and more about their inner beliefs.
HAMILTON: I'm not a Buddhist, but I admire the principles.
It's a way of life,
a way of thinking, a way of speaking, a way of being.
INGRID LOH: The pilgrimage really allows you to be who you are
and think about everything that makes up who you are
and how you want to use it in the big scheme of things.
(applause)
(laughing and cheering)
(bell gongs)
(chanting)
FEILER: It's the eighth day on the road
for medical students Jenn Tsai and Alex Fu.
They've walked almost 100 miles,
just over ten percent of the entire route.
TSAI: It feels like we've been traveling forever.
Starting to get used to really, the grind.
Right, right, we're getting used to the fact
that we're walking 20 kilometers a day.
At the end of the day my feet always hurt.
It feels like 100 boxers had... (laughs) pummeled my feet.
I don't think it hurts that much less now,
I've just gotten used to it.
We just sort of expect that it's going to happen.
It's just going to happen.
Right.
TSAI: I think for me it's definitely a spiritual journey.
I don't practice any religion actively,
but I' always had spiritual beliefs.
(bell gongs)
I think you don't necessarily have to believe
in a certain religion
or believe in every aspect of a religion literally
in order to take on some of the feeling and meaning.
(chanting)
I can't say I'm a practicing Shingon Buddhist.
I don't know necessarily that I would literally believe
everything that we say or do at the temples,
but I think the spirit of that is what counts
and going through those actions.
And especially seeing also how important they are
to other people,
I can take on some of that meaning for myself.
FEILER: Pilgrimage may be a spiritual act,
but the body needs nourishment, too.
In the middle of nowhere
there will be vending machines.
Yes.
So I feel like you never have to worry
about getting dehydrated in Japan.
FEILER: Food can be bought at convenience stores
in every small town.
But there's a wonderful tradition
of giving sustenance to the pilgrims,
called osettai.
Local residents used to do this only for monks,
but now they show this respect to all pilgrims,
offering food, drink, sometimes even money.
It's a way for islanders to give and receive blessings
from the pilgrimage.
TSAI: There are times when we start wondering,
why are we even doing this?
Is it worth it?
And then there's been so many instances
where people are really kind to us.
They give us things,
they give us the encouragement,
the advice that we need
and then it feels worth it again.
So what do you think we're going to do
about lodging for the night?
It's getting kind of cold.
So actually if we can find a spot near the beach
to set up camp.
Where?
It looks like there's some toilets around here.
FU: It's kind of interesting.
You know, we come into this trip,
one of our main goals is to make this
kind of a spiritual journey, self-reflection,
and a lot of our time so far has been really trying
to get used to the practical aspects,
find places to stay,
find food, shelter,
rather than the sort of ascetic solitude
that you think about when you think of Buddhism.
We're going to be facing that way, right?
I wanted to face this way.
You want to face this way, okay.
TSAI: We're getting along really well.
We've been together for about three years.
FU: We don't see each other 24 hours a day
because we're doing two different specialties,
so during the daytime
we usually don't see each other.
I think it's a good test.
If we get along all the time,
seeing each other straight for 40 days.
Don't put any more tension on it.
Okay.
TSAI: So far, so good.
We have our differences of opinion.
(laughing): We do.
But I think two minds
are better than one sometimes.
Don't undo that.
FU: It's a good time to realize how much we're able
to compromise with each other.
So far we're not ending the trip
so I think that's success right there.
And I definitely do think that this trip
can only really deepen the connection.
It's really that sort of trip.
TSAI: This is a really nice view.
Go to sleep with the sound of the waves.
You don't get to do that every day.
FEILER: I have to say I was not exactly prepared
for the scope of this thing.
It is massive.
One thing is to see it laid out on a map,
but when you're walking,
it can take three or four days
to get between some temples.
Or you get to where the temple is on the map,
and you got to climb five hours to get to the top.
We're actually driving,
but it takes us a very long time,
sometimes three or four hours
just to get from one place to the next.
If you are walking on this pilgrimage,
you earn those stamps in those books.
Countless legends surround Kobo Daishi,
but there are places where it's possible
to catch a glimpse of Kukai, the man,
rather than Kobo Daishi, the legend.
Along the southern coast is a cave
where many pilgrims stop to pay homage.
Sometime around 796, when Kukai was in his early 20s,
it's believed he lived here for a while.
In this remote, forbidding place
he first found enlightenment
and dedicated his life to serving others.
In many religious stories, maybe all religious stories,
there's a moment where the hero
leaves the civilized world and goes into isolation.
That happened with Moses in the Sinai,
with Jesus in the desert,
with Muhammad, with the Buddha
and also with Kobo Daishi.
And then while in that separate state,
the hero has some insight that he brings back
to the civilized world.
Part of the knowledge Kobo Daishi brought back
from China is on display in a temple
high above the cave, atop a nearby mountain.
Many of these temples have stairs
and I struggle with them because I have a leg injury.
But it shows you that no matter how you get here,
you still have to exert.
Suffering is part of this journey
and part of all sacred journeys.
As long as humans have walked,
they've walked to get closer to their gods.
In the early ninth century, after returning from China,
Kobo Daishi was the acknowledged leader
of mystical Buddhism in Japan.
Dividing his time between Shikoku and the mainland,
he trained disciples here at the Vajra Peak Temple.
The chief priest offered to show me
the master's ritual instruments and sutra scrolls.
You're saying he actually used this
for a ceremony?
TRANSLATOR: Everything inside this case was used by Kobo Daishi.
He carried them on his shoulders
and used them for rituals.
So he carried it from place to place
or just within a temple
on his way to perform a ceremony?
There were few proper temples
so he carried the ritual instruments
on his back from place to place.
This is one of the two major sutras
Kobo Daishi himself brought back from China.
FEILER: He was living in China
and he inherited this whole tradition,
so this was the wisdom that he brought back from China?
During his lifetime, his disciples copied it
from the scrolls he brought back to Japan.
The scrolls are in Chinese,
exactly how they were taught to Kobo Daishi.
FEILER: This is one of the most sacred and profound
of all Shingon scriptures,
similar to the Heart Sutra that pilgrims chant
at every temple.
It describes how all things are connected
and change is inevitable.
CHIKU SAKAI (translated): And people still come here
to find and renew their faith.
This temple is a place of knowledge
where Kobo Daishi changed people's lives.
OSAKI: A little bit of advice,
and a small word of warning.
FEILER: The hiking group's objective today is Shosanji,
the Burning Mountain Temple.
It's one of these roller-coaster hikes,
goes up and down, up and down.
So that gives you a cumulative elevation gain
of 3,500 feet up, 1,500 feet down.
The steepest section probably
is the last pitch up to Temple 12,
which is one of the places
they call the Henro Korogashi,
place where the henro falls down.
DRESSER: How's that trail go again?
It goes up, down, up, down and up again?
OSAKI: You got it.
(laughter)
Okay.
Ikimashou.
It's slippery.
OSAKI: So Shikoku's mountains are not as high or rugged
as other places in Japan,
but there's this other element,
great spiritual element of pilgrimage,
which in and of itself
makes hiking in the mountains here special.
Look at that.
The pink cloud of sakura.
Sakura snow.
It's beautiful.
WOMAN: It's all nature.
That's spiritual.
The whole story of this pilgrimage too
is, you know, Kobo Daishi studied in temple
in the national capital,
but eventually decided to spend part of his time
in the mountains meditating,
and that was sort of an important piece
of who he became because he spent half the time here.
We started it was 16 kilometers.
So we walked 20 minutes for .7 kilometers
Oh, that's pretty slow.
That's all right.
We're not on a time schedule, right?
No, absolutely not.
FEILER: Even in spring, it can snow at this altitude.
Bad weather,
along with the other routine hassles of travel,
can force pilgrims to face their own limitations,
confront their discomfort.
And sometimes that discomfort comes from a world away.
Chris and his wife just received word
that his sister suffered a stroke
and is in critical condition.
LOH: We started as just a hiking trip,
and it is some kind of pilgrimage,
we didn't realize it.
On this route we are trying
to wish her good health every turn that we could make.
So it took on a new meaning.
FEILER: The driving rain demands concentration at every step.
But such deep focus on the present
sometimes frees up the mind.
DRESSER: The great thing about hiking,
especially if you get past the first hour or so
when you're just like, "Ow, why am I doing this?"
is you're just moving through space,
it's just your body's sensations.
You have to pay attention,
especially in tough conditions.
It's easy to fall, something could happen.
It really cuts off
all the extraneous noise of the mind,
and I really like it because at some point,
I stop being someone who is walking
and I am just walking.
TOM FLICKINGER: It was a slog, in a monsoon.
That last part was...
I hit the wall.
I'm going to have to take a rest here.
I'm glad I had my Kobo Daishi stick, though,
because without this, I don't know.
There were several places
where I really needed to lean on it
just to get my footing.
DRESSER: All along the way is Kobo Daishi statues
and people's graves.
All along the way are markers.
So you really do feel that Kobo Daishi is there with you.
HAMILTON: I felt like Kobo Daishi was right there with me.
The wind was whipping around,
but I felt like I was very protected,
and I just understand how he loved the beauty of nature.
It's what brings you close to the meaning of life
is this incredible beauty that surrounds you.
Whether it's raining or whether it's sunshine,
it's still as beautiful one or the other.
(bell gongs)
(group chanting)
DRESSER: I'm soaked to the bone.
I'm sore in my hips and my knees and my feet.
I was lashed by the wind and brushed by the rain
and slapped with tree branches,
and I really feel that the natural world
is just interacting with me in a very vigorous way today,
and it's been magnificent.
I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
Itadakimashita.
WILLIAMS: It can get pretty lonesome
if you're walking by yourself.
I try not to think about it,
just think about keeping going.
I think about my family and think about my wife
and know that she's there for me.
Right now I'm having problems with my leg
and walking with the blisters,
walking on the side trying to avoid the blister
and avoid the pain,
but then you are walking awkwardly
and that just creates more problems.
My usual pace is around 22 kilometers,
but I was walking with some Japanese friends,
they wanted to go 27.
I went along with them
and kind of overextended myself.
I tried to keep up with them,
but it was just too much.
FEILER: Outside the gates of Temple 45,
Steve Williams checks into one of the many henro inns
dotted along the trail.
Steve's henro staff is treated with special reverence
as it embodies the essence of Kobo Daishi.
Wash the staff and you are said
to wash the feet of the master.
Steve still has a long way to go
to reach his goal of 300 miles.
He wonders if he's going to make it.
WILLIAMS: You get up at 7:00 in the morning
and start out the door and you keep going
until 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon.
And it can wear you down day by day.
The thoughts come up
that I can just give up and go home,
but then I get another thought,
thinking, no, you've got to keep going.
All day long it's a fight
to keep motivated and keep walking.
FEILER: Jenn and Alex have walked another 80 miles,
but their pace is slowing
and now they must confront a harsh reality.
TSAI: At the beginning of this trip,
we had really been hoping to finish it all in one go.
We had 38 days to do that,
which is a bit short
because the average is about 45 days.
We had this sort of idealistic hope
that, you know, we would sort of get into
and start walking real fast and catch up.
And a couple of days ago
we sat down and thought about this,
and realistically it's just not going to happen.
We had to think about sort of what our priorities were,
whether that was to really just push ahead,
or to accept the fact that we weren't going to finish.
And then we opted for the latter.
FU: Really what was the point of us
doing this journey in the first place, right?
Right, we had picked walking
because it's the whole process
of, you know, really taking the time
to meet all the different people,
and see all the scenery,
you know, one step at a time.
FU: Appreciate the journey
that many people have taken in the past.
And if we'd just rushed on to each temple,
it would just end up being this grueling relay
that we just didn't want
to turn into that kind of thing.
FEILER: No matter the pilgrimage, no matter the faith,
every traveler reaches the same point:
when the inward journey starts to become more important
than the outward one.
(priest chanting)
Jenn and Alex,
who still have several weeks ahead of them,
attend the most potent
of all mystical Buddhist traditions,
a traditional fire ceremony or Goma.
(chanting)
This tradition dates back to ancient India
before the time of the Buddha.
(chanting continues)
The Goma is a spiritual and psychological cleansing
in which participants ask deities
to purge them of negative thoughts and desires.
(chanting continues)
Every wooden stick consumed by the flames
carries a wish or prayer.
(chanting continues)
TSAI: We're really lucky that we're able
to be a part of this ceremony.
Maybe Kobo Daishi's really watching over us
that we were able to be blessed this way.
(chanting continues)
FU: I'm not sure quite how to describe what just happened.
Just watching the flame and listening to the chants
really made me feel a sense of peace, oneness.
(chanting continues)
But it's really hard to explain in words
what that was like.
TSAI: I think this might lighten the load for us
for the rest of the journey,
to be able to unload some of the thoughts
and the feelings and expectations
that we've had so far.
We can go on and really just experience
what comes next.
FU: I really do think that if we come across tough times
during our training in the next few years,
and seeing very sick patients,
what we went through on this trip
will serve as a standard for setting our perspective
on how we should deal with things,
how we can step back, take a look at the bigger picture.
Hopefully that will be very helpful to us
in how we carry ourselves for the rest of our lives.
FEILER: By the time I meet Steve Williams at a guesthouse
about three-quarters of the way around the island,
he's been on the road for more than a month.
So here we are now at a critical moment.
Are you going to keep going or are you going to stop?
WILLIAMS: I'm going to stop now and come back in October.
I'm going to do everything differently.
My whole outlook has changed.
I was goal-oriented and you think about...
Well, you have to get to this temple,
and you have to get there on time,
have to walk so many kilometers.
I'm not going to do that anymore.
I'm just going to go at my pace
and take my time and enjoy it more
than just trying to get through the whole thing.
That's a pretty powerful lesson
to come from a journey like that.
It makes me happier to do it this way.
I was miserable before.
I'd go through the motions, I'd go to the temples,
I'm rushing through it and I didn't take the time
to really experience it and just kind of absorb it in.
And this last few days from 37,
things kind of slowed down for me.
At the beginning I felt bad by taking transportation,
by not walking.
I could see other henros walking and I'd go, "Oh..."
I felt really bad.
But then I met people on the train and the buses
that I would never have met
and it opened up a whole new area
of meeting people.
What a beautiful story.
FEILER: John Osaki and his group
have reached the same point on the trail,
so Steve and I join them for dinner.
(laughs)
And everyone shares stories from the road.
WILLIAMS: Many religions are very secular,
and you're not accepted and things like that.
I find the same thing.
But you just become part of their experience
and they accept you totally.
They're so happy.
Happy.
When you say ganbatte.
I was at a temple and this little old lady
came up to me and she pointed at my shoe.
She said abunai, "dangerous."
My shoe lace was untied and she reached down
and tied my shoelace, like I was her son.
That is so kind.
I was really touched.
When you are walking from temple to temple,
when you're putting one foot in front of the other,
what are you thinking about?
I think about all the centuries before,
of all the people in whose footsteps I'm following,
seeing the places where other henro did not make it.
The idea of a pilgrimage when you set a goal
to get from one temple to the next
becomes a reason to continue
when it may be difficult,
or when the rain is pouring down on you
when you figure you could just bail out
at this point in time, but you keep going.
I started out as a hiking trip, but I also felt,
because my sister got sick
the second day I was here--
my nephew emailed me--
then we start thinking
that maybe this trip do have a meaning to me.
He did sign those cards every day and pray for her.
And she did get better.
My nephew had a second email and said that she is 60% better.
FEILER: Do you feel you played a part in that?
I don't know, I'm a doctor myself,
I'm a scientist, but of course whatever comes.
As a wish come true, of course I'd be very happy.
FEILER: If I might, it seems to me
that your head and your heart are fighting.
Your head wants to say it didn't happen
because of the pilgrimage,
and your heart is saying... maybe.
Don't we always think about religion that way?
Do things happen just by random
or do we come out of some goodness or some plan?
This type of insight that you've all said you get
when you walk on this path in this place,
is that transferable back home when you're not here?
WILLIAMS: You become permanently changed,
because we spend our lives as human doings
and we work for the company all our lives.
And now we take the time out for ourselves,
where in the Western world we don't do that.
And in this way we can take ourselves out of that
and find out what we really believe,
not just what's accepted by our cultures.
Find out what we believe personally
and that's what I found on the trail.
FEILER: After ten days on the trail,
John Osaki's group arrives at a steep mountain path.
It leads to Temple 88,
the final leg of their journey.
For all who reach here,
the sense of completion is palpable.
Temple 88 is known as Kechigan-sho,
"the place of fulfilling your vow."
(speaking Japanese)
FEILER: And that feeling of fulfillment,
of achieving your dream, can be overwhelming.
(chanting)
Everybody really hung together.
I mean they kept right up, it was a tight group.
OSAKI: Especially today, we were very cohesive, I think.
I mean it was a really nice way to finish
because everybody was together.
FEILER: One reason pilgrimages continue to have such appeal
is that they combine spiritual journeys
with physical ones.
The exertion of the travel
enhances and intensifies the emotion
of the religious quest.
(chanting)
DRESSER: I'm really glad that I just tasted
a bit of the pilgrimage,
and I definitely would like to do the whole thing.
It may take me several visits to Japan,
but it kind of gets in your blood.
(speaking Japanese)
OSAKI: A lot of us feel this pull.
Like I want to come back
and I want to do all of them now.
FEILER: The journey, in other words, continues.
It's the perfect metaphor for Shikoku,
where many pilgrims traveling the path
don't stop at Temple 88.
Instead they go back to Temple 1
and make the circle complete.
They say the final visit here is for thanksgiving,
expressing gratitude for arriving safely.
But it's a reminder that the journey ends
where it began.
There is no final point.
And maybe that is the point.
For most pilgrims,
the journey is not the destination,
the destination is some new personal place.
And in Shikoku, that can't happen
until once again you leave Temple 1
and this time, head home.
FEILER: It's been called the birthplace of humanity.
Jerusalem, holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims--
half the world's believers.
This city has been built, sacked, rebuilt
and wept over dozens of times in the last 3,000 years.
It's a city of conflict and coexistence.
Jerusalem, next time
on Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler.
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on Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler
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