Jizo’s Most Intimate

Jizo asked Hogen, “Where are you going, senior monk?”
Hogen said, “I am on pilgrimage, following the wind.”
Jizo said, “What are you on pilgrimage for?”
Hogen said, “I don’t know.”
Jizo said, “Non knowing is most intimate.”
Hogen suddenly attained great enlightenment

web: Shoyoroku Koan, Number 20

Why do I want to go on the pilgrimage? I don’t know.

What am I looking for? I don’t know.

Who will I meet? I don’t know.

Apparently most people go because they want to change something. I’ll buy that. Not sure what or how but it just feels right. Sometimes you’ve gotta go with what feels right and remember that it’s not about the destination but it’s all about the journey.

What does the above koan mean? I don’t know.

No, only joking, that’s getting a bit boring. Well, I really don’t know but I’ll have a go at guessing even though you shouldn’t logically try to answer a koan. All I can think of is that the only person you can take on a journey with you is you, so it should be an intimate experience in that there’s a danger that you might get to know yourself better. You could also say that the only person you’re going to meet is you because everyone you meet and everything you see and everything that you do is shaped and experienced through the unique entity that is you.

“The greatest difficulty of travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.”

~ Alain de Botton

If you and I went to exactly the same place, at the same time and did the same thing it would be a very different experience because we would be there in a different way. Or would it? Perhaps if we can shed the unique set of psychological, idiosyncratic, baggage that we all cart round with us all of the time then we could be able to perceive, see and understand the very same, ultimate reality. We would be part of and all of the same reality. Now that would be a very intimate experience and a good reason for going on a pilgrimage.

I suppose you could argue that logically you don’t really need to go anywhere to find yourself as you were there all along which is why zen people spend so much time sitting still looking for themselves. I would argue though that the shock of the new can help you to reacquaint yourself with the shock of the old.

The following quote and great collection of photos about the Shikoku pilgrimage were posted on youtube by  jgabriel000:

“… the traditional walk … stretches 1,600km through mountains, forests, valleys and villages into one of the “remotest” parts of Japan. The route allows for some imagination and deviation; temples associated with deities part of the Shikoku journey flank the route, and there is the repeating option of avoiding roads to move through the pine-forested mountains … The “pilgrimage” does not demand that the pilgrim is Buddhist at all … The receipt of alms is what makes the solo journey emotionally possible. The greatest experience is walking a sacred path walked for over 1,000 years … Signs appear occasionally insisting that “life is a pilgrimage”. This was too cryptic; the pilgrimage for me was about people – Shikoku’s residents and the occasional walking pilgrim …”