In September 2022, a friend and I decided to visit Amagoi-no-Taki, a spectacular string of waterfalls in the Kamiyama area of Tokushima, not too far from where I live. As the name suggests ("Amagoi" means "rainmaking") the falls were once a venerated holy site. Nowadays, they are a popular tourist destination for travelers in the area. For once, I too was just a sightseer; my friend and I had no particular plan aside from lunch at a local cafe and walking the paved path up to the falls.
The names of each of the series of falls was a reference to some Buddha or another, so inevitably I stopped to admire the atmosphere and whisper a few mantras before each one. The lighting at Fudō-no-Taki was absolutely stunning, but I couldn't quite get the photo I wanted from the trail. I started picking my way down the short slope toward the waterfall. My friend called out "Be careful, it's dangerous!" behind me, but I waved him off and continued down.
Seconds later I gasped as my feet slipped out from under me on the damp cedar needles carpeting the hill. My right arm was hooked around a slender tree to stabilize myself, but it was no use; my lower body slid hard and fast, and I heard a sickening crunch as my right shoulder dislocated from its socket and my shoulder bone snapped from the sudden jolt.
Every doctor I saw over the next days and weeks told me in no uncertain terms that I could not go to the mountains for a while, that I needed to stay as still as possible for a few months to avoid turning the fracture into one that would need surgery.
As at that point my weekend climbs of sacred mountains and walks along the Shikoku Henro were the main part of my practice, I was posed with a question which inevitably confronts us all at some point in our practice: How should I adapt my practice in the face of change?
Even En no Gyōja, the founder of Shugendō, had to face this issue. Legends say that the ascetic had made quite a name for himself as a magical healer during his stops in villages in between stretches of practice in the Ōmine mountain range in present-day Nara. Over his years of practice, he had developed relationships with a vast array of Enlightened Beings, particularly with Zaō Gongen, a manifestation of the mountains themselves whose fearsome form was perfectly suited to instruct the people of his time. He had also taken on disciples and begun to train them, and had built a house for his mother in what is now the village of Dorogawa, the basecamp of the Ōmine range, so that she could be closeby while he practiced.
Whether because of concern over his following, fear of his skill in magic, or some other unrecorded reason, he drew the ire of the Imperial Court, who issued a warrant for his arrest. Beloved by the people of the remote mountain villages he frequented, he was able to avoid capture for a while...until the court kidnapped his mother. A defeated En turned himself in, and was banished to the volcanic island of Izu Ōshima, far from the capital, far from his family and friends, and far from the mountains that had become his dōjō, his place of practice. He was, no doubt, filled with uncertainty and anxiety.
What was the legendary ascetic's response to this undeniable crisis? Making his home in a wave-battered cave on the island, the Gyōja did the only thing he knew to do; he used his experience to befriend another mountain. Ōshima's highest peak, Mt. Mihara, was a dangerously active volcano in those days, so the mountain closest to home was out of the question. However, Ōshima lies in the middle of Tōkyō bay, flanked on its western side by the Izu Peninsula, home to Mt. Fuji. One can imagine him standing on a rocky beach, looking out across the bay at the sleeping snow-capped giant looming across the bay. The legends say that by night, En would use his magical powers to fly to Mt. Fuji and perform rituals in cooperation with the mountain. He is held to be the first person to have ever made it to the summit of the mountain, now revered as one of Japan's most iconic and sacred peaks.
Whether we hold this account to be a series of literal flights or visionary journeys, the lesson is the same; when hell breaks loose and the reality of Impermanence rears its head in our lives, our job is to allow our practice to take the shape of the vessel of our new circumstances and overflow to benefit others.
My broken shoulder meant that mornings were often occupied by doctor's visits and physical therapy for a few months, and weekends needed to be as restful and immobile as possible. I spent a while very depressed, feeling as though the heart of my practice had been ripped out. But gradually, I got used to a new routine of prayer and study at home, one which laid a strong foundation for my ongoing training as a Shingon priest.
After my arm had healed, I told my Shugen teacher in Chichibu about this process of flowing from one approach to practice to another. He nodded his head knowingly and said, "Visiting the physical mountains is practice for living in the mountains of the heart."
The point of any prayer, pilgrimage, or sacred climb is to come face to face with the Buddhas, and allow our encounters with them to change us for the better. Though the externalities of our practice can seem vitally important, accepting that we must inevitably adapt to life's changes encourages us to practice with our eye on the Buddhas within ourselves. Orienting our practice in this way fosters the flexibility we need to adapt our practice to necessity and be of benefit to others while we do so.
南無神変大菩薩
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