Dear sangha friends,

Our hope to send you weekly messages from the pilgrim path (Henro Michi) has not been realized, what with poor Wi-Fi, and not being able to stay awake in the evening. It's very much like sesshin. There are certain components and you just give yourself to each one in turn. Get up between 5:00 and 6:00, sit a bit, stretch a bit, go to breakfast, provided by most lodgings, pack up, set out walking to next temple, or to bus stop or train station. At each temple offer incense, chant Heart Sutra and some mantras, first at Main Hall, then at Kobo Daishi Hall. Walk more, eat, walk, chant, ride bus/train/taxi, greet numerous Bodhisattvas: fellow pilgrims, farmers, taxi drivers,.. ancient cedars and cypresses, elegant black butterflies, very weirdly croaking frogs who live in holes beside forest springs, or are they creatures from some other realm.... Arrive at lodging (yado), warmly greeted and cared for, take bath, eat dinner, try to stay awake until 9:00. Like sesshin, pilgrimage works its way in deeply in ways that are not easy to describe.

It is 8:50 now so we say oyasumnasai, rest well. We send you all blessings from the henro michi, as we near the end of our journey, for the time being, and look forward to practicing with you again soon.

Warm bows from afar.

Myoshin Kate and Shinmon Michael