The Shrine of Four Mountains

Took a walk up to the shrine near my house this morning. I go up there 4 or 5 times a month these days but today, daffodils and other spring flowers at the base had burst into bloom.

I climbed the half-dozen staircases to the top and stopped to wash my hands and mouth in the basin like I always do. It's a physical and symbolic purification ritual. I felt clean and refreshed.

Then I went up the last set of stairs to the temple. It looks like most large Buddhist/Shinto temple buildings; the roofs are thick and almost black, and the corners turn up slightly.

I threw a 5-yen coin into the box, bowed, clapped twice, rang the bell overhead twice, and bowed again. To me, these are kind of the rules to be followed before praying. I don't care about the particular meaning, but I know the ringing is supposed to wake up the deity in the shrine. The bowing is probably to show respect, which I can respect. And the clapping... among the numerous explanations I've heard, the one I like the best is that the first clap spans the length of the universe and the second is the returning echo. Reminds me how vast space is, within and without.

When I pray, I don't think of it as praying to a deity or god, more like praying to my own self and also to the presence that always seems to be listening. The protector deity of Arao supposedly lives up there in that mountain. When I pray, I direct my thoughts to things in the nature of protecting this city.

My prayer often follows something of this sort: "For what you've been able to do so far, thank you so much. Thank you for looking after the kids who live here, making sure they are taken care of as well as possible. Thanks especially for taking care of the people I know." Then I tend to name off people I am thinking about or some kind of thing that happened that I appreciate.

I definitely try to keep the personal stuff to a minimum. If I'm going to pray for myself, I usually have this kind of prayer: "Give me strength to deal with my emotions maturely, especially in such and such situation" or "thank you for the energy to have accomplished such and such."

My prayer today took about one minute. I think that's average for me, but I think it's a little longer than most people I see praying.

After that, I went to take a look at the view of Mt. Unzen across the bay in Nagasaki. It was covered over with haze, but it was still visible. I took a seat on the bench and was listening to the birds when someone called over to me.

"Julie!" It was one of the priests I had met a few months ago.

"How are you, Julie?!"

"I'm enthusiastic, thanks to you!"

"Is that so?! Are you still living down near the doctor's office?"

"Yes, I am."

"They just opened up a new convenience store around there a couple days ago. You should try the bread. It's very tasty, you know."

"Thank you. I will!"

"You take care of yourself, Julie."

"I will."

He went back to his business filling plastic jugs with water near the stands where they keep all the religious paraphernalia, and I headed off down the steps.

On the way down, tears filled my eyes. Flowers, trees, birds. Simplicity, human connection. I had no other thoughts, really, just that it might be nice to write this down for you to read...