Hokkaido Highway Blues

Japanese, a form of “identity origami” that alters itself from one context to another. You change yourself completely to suit the role. Shuhō himself was living a transformer life, first in San Francisco and then, flip-flip- bam, a temple priest upholding an ancient way of life. In Japan, heroes transform themselves. In the West, they have “secret identities” (Superman/Clark Kent, Batman/Bruce Wayne, etc.) and I think this is a key distinction. The Transformer approach to things is very different from hidden greatness and secret identities. A secret identify is a superficial mask. Superman fools people, Batman wears a hood, but the Transformers change completely. They don’t hide their true self, they rearrange it entirely to fit the situation.
    By now I was studying these toys like an anthropologist. Shuhō’s son was bored and had moved on to other things. Shuhō leaned over to me and said, “If you like that toy you can have it.” I was tempted—the dual-identity Transformer was a perfect talisman for anyone traveling in Japan—but I declined the offer. Even I have my limits, and taking toys from children, even incredibly cool toys, was something I usually tried to avoid.
     

20
     
    THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Shuhō took me up the mountain to see a Buddhist chapel. It was built inside a dark, alcovelike cave just behind the main temple. Sticks of incense, glowing like impaled fireflies, w’ere arrayed in pin-cushion arrangements deep in bowls of ash. The smoke uncurled in thin filaments and hung, wavering, in the air. Over time, the smoke had laid down extra layers of darkness inside the cave, a patina of soot and old prayers which made the small gilt statues seem that much more lustrous. The golden statues stood in a half circle around a thick stone column, a spatial mandala with the central stone pillar forming the focus.
    Shuhō and I lit incense, waved away the flame, and bowed deeply. He then turned to me and said, “This cave began as just a small hollow in the rock. My father was convinced that a deeper cave lay within the mountain. He spent years chipping and digging, looking for it. The stone was like a spider’s egg, there were bubbles and gaps in the rock, and the deeper he went the more certain he became that somewhere within this there was a greater cave. A magnificent cave hidden deep inside this mountain. He knew, one day, he would find it.” Shuhō smiled with satisfaction.
    “Did he?”
    “No. He never did. But he never stopped chipping away. And eventually, he ended up making a cave of his own. This cave.”
    We stood for a moment without speaking. Shuhō looked to the back wall of the cave, where the chipping and cutting had finally come to an end. “My father,” he said.
     

21
     
    NAME DROPPING WORKS wonders in Japan, and having a Shingon priest as a reference opened many a door for me while I was on Shōdo Island. I spent several days hitching rides and cadging free meals, most of it on the strength of Shuhō’s good name.
    I used Akihira Kawahara’s book, The Eighty-Eight Pilgrimage Sites on Shōdo Island, as my guide and it was as thorough as Mr. Kawahara himself. The book had overlapping maps and detailed information on the prayers and poems to be recited at each site. Some passages were hard to decipher, but that just added to the appeal. Here, for example, is one of Kōbō Daishi’s creeds, which appears in what can only be a verbatim translation (if you figure it out, let me know):
     
    Since we go astray, the three worlds are castles. Since we are enlightened, all the directions are nonexistent. In fact, there are no norths, nor souths. Where on earth are the east and west?
     
    The song of Shōdo is the hollow tonk-tonk of wooden Buddhist clappers and the low mantra of pilgrims. Where Shikoku’s pilgrimage is epic, Shōdo’s is intimate—and varied. The temples of Shōdo Island are hidden in secluded forests, tucked inside bamboo groves, deep within caves, down narrow footpaths and beside busy streets. There are springs with miraculous curative powers, there are temples for love, temples for marriage, temples for childbirth (to put them in the proper chronological sequence). There is even a temple of wisdom, with a stone ring through which laughing children squeeze in the hopes of becoming wise. One temple has a live dragon trapped inside, behind a stone ceiling that is suitably claw-marked (the dragon had been captured by Kōbō Daishi himself,