He seemed more relaxed than on my previous visits. He had put on weight, which actually flattered him. We talked about cameras and computers, and it was a while before we turned to the Sword of Heaven.
I gave him details about the placings in Iceland, Berlin, and the Baltic Sea. “These placings were easy compared to Florida and the Philippines. However,” I added, “Puerto Rico was difficult for a different reason. Donna and I…”
Kazz waited.
“We broke up,” I said finally.
He looked disappointed. “I’m sorry.”
As the bullet train sped south, Kazz explained that we would spend the next four days in classes and in preparation for the ceremony. He also said that on Friday night I would be the first Westerner to witness the fire ceremony.
“What about Juan?” I asked.
Kazz shook his head.
I hadn’t seen Juan Li for over a year but through letters and an occasional phone call I knew he had found his calling. He was studying Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art, on the East Coast with a famous teacher named Mantak Chia. Juan hoped to become a Tai Chi teacher himself one day.
I asked where Takizawa the teacher was, and how he was doing.
“He’s fine. He’s still in Osaka,” Kazz answered. “He will arrive at the end of the week, in time for the ceremony.”
“In the meantime, who will conduct the classes, who will teach me the Shinto ways?” I asked.
“The other teachers.”
“Others?”
“I told you. Hakuryu Takizawa is just one of several disciples of Tomokiyo, the founder of the monastery.”
I remembered that Takizawa was also keeping the Sword of Heaven project secret from them. Why?
“Actually, he told them about the project a year ago,” Kazz said in response to my question.“He even wrote a book about the project.”
A book? This was the first I had heard of a book.
“He published it himself and printed a few hundred copies. He gave the other teachers copies and they were very upset. They asked him to put the book away and not to sell or give away any more copies.”
“Were they angry?”
“No, but they didn’t like that he had kept it a secret from them. I also don’t think they understood what he is trying to do.”
“But he’s still part of the group? He’s still welcome at the monastery?”
“Oh yes, there is no problem.”
This time I didn’t even try to understand.
We both fell asleep, and woke just before our arrival in Hiroshima, where we were required to change to a local train.
It was my second visit to this tragic city, but I expect that my reaction would have been the same had it been my twentieth: horror at how far humans will go to destroy each other.
Today things look normal. Nearly all of the city has been rebuilt since that August day in 1945 when 90 percent of the town was destroyed by the atomic bomb dubbed “Little Boy.” It was a military action, carefully planned and ostensibly executed to end World War II, but I imagine that to the people on the ground it must have seemed like the apocalypse itself, an instant judgment by a faceless god.
At the epicenter of the blast stands a memorial called Peace City. The original city hall—which was only partially destroyed—is now a museum exhibiting pieces of sidewalk etched with the shadows of people standing there at the time of the blast. The first time I visited, there was also an exhibit of drawings by adults who were children when the blast occurred. The horrific drawings were done as therapy, an attempt to exorcise the terror their creators couldn’t forget. Many contained bodies melting under rays of light; pieces of arms, legs, and heads, floating in rivers red with blood; and blackened eyes looking pleadingly to the sky. The mushroom cloud was ever-present, and in many of the drawings it actually looked beautiful.
I felt a part of Hiroshima lived inside me, not only because I was a citizen of the country that dropped the bomb but because I was part of the bomb’s legacy. My father had worked at a nuclear weapons lab whose aim was to develop bigger and more powerful weapons of mass destruction. The weapons created by the Livermore Lab made the bomb dropped on Hiroshima seem tiny by comparison.
Kazz and I ate lunch at a station noodle shop and then went to a nearby grocery store to buy dried fruit, nuts, cheese, and orange juice for the rest of our journey.
We boarded a local train full of schoolchildren, all healthy and full of laughter. The train stopped frequently on its slow trip along the coast and passed the famous Miyajima shrine that rose gracefully from the sea before reaching the small town of Tabuse. There we hailed a taxi to take us to the monastery at the base of Iwakiyama.
As we drove toward the monastery, Kazz explained that when Tomokiyo founded the monastery, he believed that all the ancient Shinto knowledge should be kept there and that in case of an apocalypse, it would become a sort of fune or ark, that would preserve all knowledge.
I was thinking that his description of the mountain retreat was very much like Shangri-la, the mythical country tucked in the Himalayan mountains, far from the dangers of the world. But then I remembered that we were only a few hours from Hiroshima, and it occurred to me that in the real world there is no safe place.
“Did the blast reach this far?” I asked.
“They heard the explosion,” answered Kazz. “In fact, one of the teachers at Iwakiyama made the mistake of going into Hiroshima two hours after the blast. He has had medical trouble ever since. He never had children.”
The taxi left us at the base of the mountain, in front of a cluster of one- and two-story buildings. Kazz introduced me to the monastery’s administrator and three teachers who happened by. At the office I filled out papers that I could not read with my name and address. Kazz paid for my room and lodging, explaining that Takizawa was my benefactor. I reached for my wallet and protested, but this time Kazz was insistent and because no actual cash changed hands, I felt okay about accepting the generous gift.
After we completed the paperwork, we walked outside, where we were surrounded by deciduous trees in their full fall glory. Behind the office were two large auditoriums filled with tatami mats. This was where we’d sleep and attend classes.
“And up there,” said Kazz as he pointed up the hill to a large building with a high arching ceiling of wood,“is one of the many shrines on the mountain. And beyond it, farther up the mountain, near the summit, is our most important shrine. We call it Yamato-Jinjya, and it represents the center of the spiritual world on this earth. That’s where we will hold the fire ceremony at the end of the week, on Friday.”
As we strolled around the monastery compound, Kazz explained that starting tomorrow, Monday, we’d purify our bodies in preparation for Friday’s fire ceremony. We were required to eat only Kessai food, which meant no chemicals, nothing powdered (including tofu), no eggs, no miso, and no meat, leaving mainly rice and vegetables. There was to be no talking between the students, but Kazz had received special permission to translate the lessons for me.
That night after a last “normal” dinner of tofu, cabbage, green tea, and a nectarine for dessert, I was introduced to the other participants. Some had come from as far away as Hokkaido, the northernmost island. I recognized a few from the ceremonies I attended during my earlier trips to Japan. They were happy to see me. In his enthusiasm, one chubby man from Osaka bashed his bowed head into mine. We patted each other’s hair and laughed.
Before going to bed, I was given a two-piece kimono. One piece was skirtlike and the other like a large shirt. After I put them on, I made the mistake of looking at myself in a mirror. I looked absurdly tall and awkward. I quickly turned away.
I was also given an amulet to wear around my neck. There was one vertical bar with an emblem of the shrine set in relief in the middle. Out from the axis was a single bar running to the left. Farther down was another bar running right. If the two side pieces were slid to meet one another, it would look like a Christian cross.
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“The disjointed side bars are in the process of coming together,” Kazz told me as he hung the medallion over my head.“It’s this process—the act of becoming—that Shinto is primarily concerned with, not so much with being.”
For the next four days, we awoke at dawn to begin the day with a short chanting ceremony at the shrine near the auditoriums. Then we breakfasted on the specially prepared food, which tasted bland but was edible. Classes started promptly after breakfast and lasted until lunch, with one mid-morning break. We had the afternoons free to do what we wanted. In the evenings we prayed and chanted at a nearby shrine.
Although there were hints of the ascetic in our strict diet and vow of silence, Kazz told me that denial is not for a Shintoist. “The teacher says not to bother being a puritanical saint. The kami way is free, easy, rich, and grand. If you weaken your body with too much discipline, you leave it open for bad spirits. If you suffer for enlightenment, you come to love emptiness.”
We certainly didn’t suffer. At night, after a busy day, we sat in Japanese baths, soaking quietly. The hot water relaxed my stiff legs and knees, which were unfamiliar with the long squatting and kneeling. Except for one night when I had a disturbing dream about Donna and a motorcycle accident, I slept well. Students who snored were quickly given a room alone. We certainly were not fasting. I was surrounded by considerate and polite people. It didn’t rain. It wasn’t too cold, and the fall leaves were beautiful.
The classes were different each of the four days. Some of the subjects could have come from the front pages of a supermarket tabloid—soul stabilization, astral travel, extrasensory perception, and spirit possession. Others were simply practical and offered ways to relax and enjoy the world around us.
At first, I participated in the classes with the detachment of a journalist. I dutifully took notes and at the same time withdrew into a familiar space where the content slid by me without sticking. It was the same space I’d frequent when I was with Donna, and it would drive her crazy as she tried to figure out where I’d gone.
After just one day, however, I saw the effect the classes were having on my classmates. At the end of a day of classes and prayer, I saw my fellow students walk with their shoulders thrust proudly back, their hearts easily exposed, radiating self-confidence. I became convinced that these people would return to their jobs as business people, lawyers, and factory workers knowing that their thoughts and actions were important, that they did make a difference in an inherently benevolent world.
I thought of my own culture, where the mind is treated separately from the body, where the observer is always separate from the observed, where God is separate from Nature, and I found something profoundly unsettling about the model I was raised with. The ability to stand back and observe is the essence of science but at what price do we do so? In my own experience disengagement is always followed by sadness and loneliness and a sense of impotency. There was definitely a lesson here to be learned, and I began to open up and really accept what I was hearing.
“Shinto means ‘Way of the Gods’ in Japanese,” Kazz said quietly during one of the first classes.“Other religions explain the way, while Shinto shows the way to power.”
On the second day, after classes were over, I found a small pond with a red torii placed in the middle. The spot was in a secluded ravine, high up the mountain. I stood at the water’s edge, surrounded by trees and brush, staring at the simple shrine. I clapped my hands, just as I had seen Kazz do many times. The clapping called the attention of the gods.
“Sound is the most pure of all matter in the world,” Kazz had told me that morning during a class on Oto-dama, or sound purification. “All beings are moved by the cosmic vibration. Even Amaterasu-Omikami, the Sun Goddess, was lured from her cave by the sound of dancing and laughing. We are all connected by sound vibrations. We become one with the sound.”
The teacher of the class had told us to take fifteen minutes or more each day to sit comfortably and listen closely to a fixed sound of a clock or a metronome, a waterfall or a sea wave, a little stream, or even an insect. “Don’t try and stop your mind, because then it will do the opposite!” he had explained. “Just listen, that’s all.”
I listened as the sound of my clapping echoed back to me. I prayed, just repeating the Sun Goddess’s name over and over, finding pleasure in the sound.
A distorted duplicate of the red shrine was reflected in the water. A burst of wind blew ripples on the surface, rustling the bushes and disturbing a bird which flew into the blue sky and disappeared in a burst of bright light. I felt power, pleasure, and reverence. I couldn’t remember a single church or a cathedral that had evoked such wonder in me as that simple Shinto shrine.
The next afternoon I returned to my secluded spot. I had just attended a morning class on Yusai, spirit possession. Even though in New York I had decided not to get hung up on the question of spirits, an entire morning on the subject had put my rational mind into full gear, and I struggled once again to make sense of it all.
“There are three types of spirit possession of the soul,” Kazz translated while the very serious teacher explained. “Shinkan is considered the highest possession. It comes directly from the highest God to man. It is subtle, and one is never aware of the possession until much later.
“Jikan is possession by one god or another without the use of a medium.
“Takan is possession with a medium. Takan is the most dramatic form of possession. It’s very dangerous. Often mere animal spirits or unenlightened spirits take possession of a person. Sometimes what is thought of as a spirit possession is nothing more than an overactive nervous system.
“Don’t be fooled by these lowly spirits. They are very mischievous. They can lift a sword in the air, or emanate a light, but the clever spirits are just using your energy to do this.”
Kazz had tried to explain. “The relationship between the spirit world and man is like that of a television and a broadcast station. You have to be careful what channel you switch to. A little self-conceit or egotism switches you immediately to a black kami channel. Its shadow then covers the golden light of the white kami.”
I was comfortable with the world of hard objects, the world of things that can be touched and quantified, the world of my father. I became a photojournalist which, like science, observes and reports on events and life. It is considered an ethical lapse when a journalist participates or engages in an event, even though journalists do it all the time.
Kazz and the other students saw beyond the material world to a place full of dynamic and changing forces that dance to a rhythm beyond my comprehension, yet something was driving me toward that world. Something in me wanted very much to accept and embrace that world, bad spirits and all. I wouldn’t have gotten so involved with the Sword of Heaven otherwise. I also saw that my need for a rational explanation was the very thing that was keeping me from getting there. To modify Kazz’s metaphor, I was stuck on the Science channel, and I needed to switch to the Shinto channel.
Suddenly, after several minutes of staring at the beautiful shrine, a small dove dived from a nearby tree and nearly grazed my shoulder. At first I was startled, but then a warm glow started in my stomach and spread throughout my body. I sat down and sobbed.
When I looked up a few minutes later, I saw a leaf blown by a soft wind drop gently onto the water’s surface. First there was one ripple, then another and another moving out from the leaf. I remembered the ripples in Norway when I placed the god with my father.
At that moment I made peace with my father and the world he had passed on to me. I saw myself as an outer ripple in a continuum of ever-expanding circles. As I moved farther from the center, I could now encompass his world as well as the world of Shinto. In this new world, I decided, the spirits are welcome.
Early Wednesday morning I ran into Kazz in the rest room. He had splashed water on his face and looked pale and drawn. I motioned him outside where we could talk without anyone seeing us. I asked
him what was wrong. He paused and then told me he hadn’t slept much. He had had a nightmare.
“A demon with a bird face came after me,” he said. “I tried to get rid of him by using some of the techniques I learned yesterday, but they didn’t work. Then God talked to me directly. The demon heard the voice of God and got scared and broke into many pieces.”
Although Kazz was upset about his inability to use traditional Shinto techniques in his dream, it was clear to me that he had found his own power. I told him so, and I could see by his expression that he hadn’t considered this.
“Perhaps your power is different from what they teach here, because Takizawa is different.”
At the mention of his teacher, Kazz’s face brightened.
“He is very special. There is no one here like him.”
As we walked toward the classroom, Kazz clearly seemed better. My thoughts turned fondly toward Takizawa. His meeting with Jesus Christ had opened his heart to a world beyond his own, and he had combined the idea of the great love for all of mankind with the ancient and powerful spiritual belief of Shinto to come up with the Sword of Heaven. I felt that in that single act he took Shinto from an important, yet narrowly focused belief, into a world-class religion, one that could really make a difference. I was honored to be a small part of it.
The class that morning was on Chinkon-Ho, or soul stabilization. It was explained to us as a method of fixing the soul to the center of the body. Like Oto-dama, I saw in Chinkon-Ho a special way to bring the mind and body together and further open myself to the world.
During a twenty-minute break between morning sessions, I tried Chinkon-Ho at a makeshift desk I had set up near a window to write. I used a special stone that Kazz lent me. It was small and round, and he had found it in a mountain stream. He kept it in a soft fabric bag and washed it frequently. Even though he lent it to me, he said it should never be shown to others.
The Sword of Heaven Page 15
