The Weather-Beaten Jizō:
Shikoku Pilgrimage Haiku by Shūji Niwano

Introduction

, or “pilgrim road”), is a trip of about 750 miles and

takes up to two months to complete on foot, traditionally clockwise around the island. The temples along the route are all associated with Kūkai (

        What makes these poems particularly compelling is not just that they record everyday aspects of the pilgrimage itself, such as the silence of walking in the rain, or of passing and being passed by others, but that Shūji Niwano may well have taken the pilgrimage, accompanied by his troubled son Jun, as a deliberate last accomplishment in his life. As Sibley explains near the end of his book, “In Buddhist tradition, a pilgrimage can be an act of expiation before death, an attempt to cleanse yourself in the hope of being reborn without all the bad karma of previous lives.” Furthermore, in The Japanese Mind, edited by Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2002), the chapter on Japanese funerals says that “there is the belief among Buddhists that people go on a kind of pilgrimage after death” (205), so perhaps Niwano wished to get a head start on his afterlife pilgrimage.

        Pilgrims to the Shikoku temples traditionally wear a wide-brimmed conical bamboo hat and white shirt or robe. In Japan, white symbolizes death, and it becomes evident in Sibley’s book that Shūji Niwano takes the pilgrimage in anticipation of his own death. That makes all of these poems jisei (辞世), or death haiku. Indeed, the sad story is that Niwano and his son Jun both died in December of 2004, shortly after the

pilgrimage. Sibley’s book provides details. Just a few weeks before, Niwano had sent Sibley a package containing thirty-three haiku from the pilgrimage, written from March 30 to May 11, 2004, with a letter that said “we finished the pilgrimage at last, thanks to the encouragement of the bush warblers, the stone Jizō statues, and the kindness of our companions.” Among these haiku is a poem (number 32) that Shūji’s wife Ikuko had engraved on the gravestone for her husband and their son. This poem, along with several others in the sequence, refers to Jizō, which are statues said to be guardians of troubled souls, especially children, commonly dressed up with red bibs at Japanese temples.
        In his first chapter, Sibley quotes Ian Reader, a British scholar of Japanese religion, as saying that the Shikoku pilgrimage reaffirms each pilgrim’s “social and cultural identity” and is “a way of consolidating the religious outlooks that underpin their existence.” The island of Shikoku has four provinces, and the journey through these provinces symbolizes a path to enlightenment. Temples one to twenty-three represent the idea of awakening (発心 hosshin), twenty-four to thirty-nine represent austerity and discipline (修行 shugyō), forty to sixty-five represent attaining enlightenment (菩提 bodai), and sixty-six to eighty-eight represent entering nirvana (涅槃 nehan). While some pilgrims take the Shikoku trail as tourists, most participants do so for seemingly spiritual or ascetic reasons. While little more is known of Shūji Niwano other than the details Sibley relates in his book, we hope that the following poems capture something of the pilgrimage that Niwano accomplished, tinged with the sadness of their author’s tragic demise.

Shūji Niwano’s Shikoku Pilgrimage Haiku

Translated by Michael Dylan Welch and Emiko Miyashita

1.
山桜山ほんのりと赤らめり
yamazakura yama honnorito akarameri

mountain cherry blossoms
the mountain becomes
faintly red

This poem is dated March 30, 2004. Poem 33 is dated May 11. The season of spring flavors Shūji Niwano’s Shikoku pilgrimage haiku. Spring is the best season for taking the Shikoku pilgrimage, because it is when the weather is neither too hot nor too cold. Because the pilgrimage is taken most often in spring, the word for pilgrimage, henro (遍路), is considered a spring season word in haiku. Robert Sibley remembers: “It was blossoms, blossoms, blossoms all the way as our walking seemed to coincide with the cherry trees coming into bloom as we followed the mountain paths.”


2.
米寿なる遍路婆らの賑やかに
beiju naru henrobāra no nigiyaka ni

eighty-eight-year-old women
on a pilgrimage
such cheerfulness

It used to be significant and rare for either men or women to reach this age in Japan. The age of eighty-eight is called beiju (米寿), incorporating “rice” and “age” in two characters. The first character combines 八 (eight), 十 (ten), and 八 (eight), which produces 米 (rice). In cerebration of such longevity, Japan continues to have a custom of giving an eighty-eight-year-old person something in a golden-brown color, such as clothes or a cushion, and families celebrate by eating a festive dinner together. In addition, the number in this poem brings to mind the eighty-eight temples on the Shikoku pilgrimage. Sibley notes: “I remember encountering two elderly women in the early days of our walk. They were slow and we easily sped past them. But every time we stopped to rest our aching feet, lo and behold, they soon appeared, chatting cheerfully to each other as they trudged along like white-gowned Energizer bunnies. Made us look like pilgrim wimps.”


3.
お大師に早くも逢ひし遍路かな
odaishi ni hayakumo aishi henro kana

meeting Odaishi
so soon
on this pilgrimage

This poem most likely refers to Odaishi-sama (お大師様), an honorific name for the revered Japanese monk Kūkai, later known as Kōbō Daishi, whose spirit is said to accompany each pilgrim. There may be another interpretation of this poem, however. The first line might also be understood more generally to mean “a holy person.” Shikoku pilgrims can be seen as holy people because Kōbō Daishi is walking with them. Given that Robert Sibley was Shūji’s main companion (aside from Jun), readers might wonder if Shūji is referring to Sibley. Sibley notes: “Shūji several times referred to me as Kōbō Daishi. Of course, he meant this in the sense that Kōbō Daishi is the spiritual companion of all pilgrims.”


4.
うつむきし野地蔵をゆく遍路かな
utsumukishi nojizō wo yuku henro kana

passing a Jizō
with cast-down eyes
spring pilgrimage


5.
野地蔵の苔を纏ひて遍路道
nojizō no koke wo matoite henromichi

a moss-worn Jizō
in a field—
pilgrim’s road

Sibley notes: “Jizō statues are everywhere in rural Japan—at roadside shrines, temples, the edge of farm fields, along mountain trails. These last two haiku, 4 and 5, tell me that Shūji, like me, adopted the Jizō as guardian spirit. Or, maybe it was the other way around: the Jizō adopted us.”


6.
お遍路の白き一団焼山寺
ohenro no shiroki ichidan shōzanji

a troop of pilgrims
dressed in white
Shōzan-ji Temple

Pilgrims typically wear a white shirt known as oizuru (白衣). Sibley remembers: “One of the most common sights that always surprised me was seeing white-robed Japanese pilgrims lined up in orderly fashion at the temples. Seen from a distance, and with a bit of poetic imagining, they reminded me of a row of toadstools in their sedge pilgrim hats. I suspect Shūji saw them similarly.” The temple referred to in this poem, Shōzan-ji, the Temple of the Burning Mountain, is temple 12, located in Kamiyama, Tokushima. In a traditional legend, a fiery dragon of this mountain was once causing great damage to life and property in the area. Kōbō Daishi ascended the mountain while flames threatened to engulf him, but he extinguished them by forming the mudra (hand gesture) of turning the wheel of the dharma. He sealed the dragon in a cave, carving two images to guard it. This temple is located up a steep path at an elevation of 2,640 feet (800 meters) above sea level, the second-highest elevation of all temples on the Shikoku pilgrimage—a path so daunting that many pilgrimages end here.


7.
黙黙と歩き遍路や雨の中
mokumoku to aruki henro ya ame no naka

silently
the pilgrims walk—
rainfall

Sibley recalls: “There were days on the trail when it did nothing but rain. Reading this poem I can readily visualize the three of us, Shūji, Jun, and me, trudging single-file along the edge of some highway or path, soaked to the skin. Clearly, Shūji was paying attention even then, as Zen teaches.”


8.
うぐひすの教えてくれし雨上がり
uguisu no oshiete kureshi ameagari

a bush warbler
tells me that the rain
has stopped

“Bush warbler” (uguisu) is a spring season word, and also appears in poems 22 and 26. Shūji Niwano said that he was able to finish the pilgrimage thanks to the encouragement of the bush warblers. Sibley adds: “One of the most haunting and plaintive sounds in the forests of Shikoku was that of bush warblers. As Shūji’s haiku suggests, they seemed to burst into song as soon as it stopped raining. It was a lovely wake-up call to hear.” [Listen to the uguisu song.]


9.
甘茶飲む道連れのゐて津照寺
amacha nomu michizure no ite shinshōji

drinking sweet hydrangea tea
with my traveling companion
Shinshō-ji Temple

At Shinshō-ji, temple 25, a central decorative motif is the ship’s wheel, held by many of the Jizō statues in this area. Legends say that a local lord was saved from a shipwreck when a Jizō took the ship’s helm. In a different vein, Sibley notes the following: “The companion Shūji refers to has to be Harumi Nakatsuji, a nurse from Osaka, who we met at this temple. She walked with us for several days and was very helpful to Shūji in dealing with his son, Jun.”

Shinshō-ji, temple 25, showing the ship’s wheel decoration above the archway.

10.
遍路宿皿鉢料理を振舞はれ
henroyado sawachi ryōri wo furumaware

pilgrim’s inn—
our treat
of sawachi dishes

Sawachi dishes are a special treat served in Tosa, in the southwest part of Shikoku Island, in Kōchi prefecture, where a huge dish is arranged with many kinds of seafood—sashimi, grilled fish, sushi, and shells. Usually three or four people share a single large dish in a communal fashion, so this poem suggests much camaraderie.

11.
阿波の桜土佐の桜と愛でにけり
awa no sakura tosa no sakura to medeni keri

first in Awa
and then in Tosa . . .
admiring cherry blossoms

Awa, near the start of the Shikoku pilgrimage, is some distance north of Tosa, so one would expect the cherry blossoms to appear further south first, rather than here to the north, as described in this poem. However, Awa is closer to the inland sea, Setonaikai, where the weather is milder. Along the Pacific coast, at Tosa, the blossoms come later because of the harsher climate. Note that “Shikoku” literally means “four provinces,” which in ancient times were known as Awa, Tosa, Iyo, and Sanuki, but were reorganized during the Meiji period into the prefectures of Tokushima, Kōchi, Ehime, and Kagawa, as they are known today.


12.
徒なれば抜きつ抜かれつ遍路道
kachi nareba nukitsu nukaretsu henromichi

on foot
we pass and get passed—
pilgrim’s path


13.
穏やかな青年二人遍路宿
odayakana seinen futari henroyado

two young men
at peace
at the pilgrim’s inn


14.
雲水の姿の佳かり遍路笠
unsui no sugata no yokari henrogasa

itinerant monks
in fine style—
bamboo pilgrim hats

Sibley notes: “At one point our pilgrim family acquired two Buddhist monks-in-training, and this poem may refer to them. They walked with us for a couple of days.” Henro pilgrims traditionally wear conical hats known as henrogasa (遍路笠), which resemble Mt. Fuji in appearance—Japan’s most sacred mountain.

These hats are sometimes called ajirogasa (網代笠) if made from bamboo, sugegasa (すげ笠) if made from sedge, and warabooshi (藁帽子) if made from straw. Featured on these hats is the Sanskrit for Kōbō Daishi, whose name is worn at the front of the hat in honor of the Buddhist saint. Also included is the phrase Dōgyō ninin (同行二人), which means “We two pilgrims together,” and a Buddhist sutra consisting of twenty letters in four phrases: 迷故三界城 / 悟故十方空 / 本来無東西 / 何処有南北 (meikosangaijō gokojippōkū honraimutōzai gashounanboku). The meaning of the sutra is that people suffer because they are trapped in desires and remain in the three realms of existence: the realm of desire-driven beings, the realm of beings with form, and the realm of beings without form. The sutra suggests, however, that when one regains the Buddhist mind by seeking satori, one’s obsessions will disappear, replaced by a tranquil view of the world in which one is free of restrictions. In this view, there is no east or west, no north or south, and one can abandon obsessions and live freely. In addition, this sutra was sometimes written on the inside of coffin lids. When a pilgrim died on his or her way, this bamboo hat was placed on the body as a temporary substitute for a coffin. The white clothes worn by henro pilgrims serve as a uniform for the “dead” person on his or her last journey.


15.
黙々となお黙々と遍路道
mokumokuto nao mokumokuto henromichi

in silence
and still in silence
along the way

Sibley observes: “One of the great benefits of the pilgrimage was spending hours each day in silence, ‘listening’ to your own thoughts and memories. I don’t recall Shūji and I ever discussing this aspect of long-distance walking, but this haiku tells me he shared the same pleasure in silence and solitude.”


16.
丸顔の遍路婆らのよく笑ふ
marugao no henrobāra no yoku warau

round-faced,
the old women pilgrims
laughing well


17.
また逢ひし丸顔の婆遍路道
mata aishi marugao no bā henromichi

meeting again
that old lady with a round face—
pilgrimage road


18.
青き目の遍路もゐたり青龍寺
aoki me no henro mo itari seiryūji

a pilgrim, too,
with blue eyes—
Seiryū-ji Temple

In 806, while visiting T’ang-Dynasty China, Kōbō Daishi decided to establish a school of Buddhism in Japan based on what he had learned in China. On the shore of Mingzhou (now Hangzhou), just before he left

China, he took hold of a dokko (or sanko), a ceremonial ornament, pointed at both ends, that is used in esoteric Buddhist rituals. He then threw the dokko toward Japan and wished he might build a temple wherever it landed. When Kōbō Daishi was traveling in the hills of a particular part of Shikoku, he felt the presence of the dokko he had thrown and asked the emperor to build a temple there, and thus Seiryū-ji was built. In this poem Shūji Niwano uses the name Seiryū-ji (青龍寺), which is a variation of Shōryū-ji (青竜寺), for temple 36 (龍 is an informal variant of 竜). In a note with this poem, Niwano says he met a couple and their son from the United Kingdom at this temple. Perhaps this couple flew to this temple from abroad like the dokko.


19.
湯のあれば雨もまたよし遍路宿
yu no areba ame mo matayoshi henroyado

ah, a hot-spring bath,
so rain will be okay—
pilgrim’s inn

Sibley responds: “I fell in love with the Japanese o-furo, or bath. During a hard walk, the thought of a hot bath and cold beer at the end of the day was like a carrot hanging in front of a donkey.”


20.
よき人の道連れとなり遍路宿
yoki hito no michizure to nari henroyado

I become a good person’s
traveling companion—
pilgrim’s inn

Sibley speculates: “I think this haiku refers to the day about halfway along the pilgrimage trail when we met Yukuo Tanaka, a retired Tokyo engineer. His wise presence strongly affected both me and Shūji.” The following photo shows Shuji Niwano, Robert Sibley, and Yukuo Tanaka.       +

21.
土佐を出て三つ葉つつじの伊予に入る
tosa wo dete mitsubatsutsuji no iyo ni iru

leaving Tosa
I enter Iyo
and its azaleas

Tosa is now Kōchi prefecture, and Iyo is now Ehime, so the poet is conscious of crossing a border, similar to moving from one state or province to another in North America. The azaleas seem to welcome him—surely in bloom.


22.
うぐひすの迎へてくれし峠路
uguisu no mukaete kureshi tōgemichi

welcomed by
bush warblers
the mountain pass


23.
遍路して俳句の国に入りにけり
henro shite haiku no kuni ni iri ni keri

on my pilgrimage
I walk into
haiku country

Shūji Niwano has just entered Iyo prefecture, which is home to the city of Matsuyama where such famous haiku poets as Shiki, Kyoshi, and Hekigotō were born—thus, “haiku country.” Sibley adds: “I often noticed Shūji writing in a small notebook, and when I asked him what he was writing about, he shyly referred to himself as an ‘amateur’ practitioner of haiku. With this poem, I can’t help but think that, like Bashō, Shūji found the solitude of long-distance walking to be an inspiration.”


24.
道連れの増えて遍路の賑やかに
michizure no fuete henro no nigiyaka ni

with more companions
to pilgrimage with
we travel merrily

Sibley comments: “One of the pleasures of pilgrimage is the acquisition of a pilgrim family. People attach themselves to you—or vice versa—and while you might walk alone during the day, in the evening you come together as a kind of community to eat, drink, and regale each other. Thanks to Shūji’s adoption of me, I enjoyed this communitarian aspect of the Henro Michi much more than if I’d been a gaijin on my own.”


25.
街並のやさしき伊予路遍路笠
machinami no yasashiki iyoji henrogasa

a laidback townscape
along the road to Iyo—
bamboo pilgrim’s hat


26.
うぐひすやあと一里またあと半里
uguisu ya ato ichiri mata ato hanri

bush warblers—
another league to go
another half league

A “league” is a unit for measuring distance. In Japan, an old unit of measurement was the ri (里), which is nearly four kilometers (2.44 miles). At one time the ri was said to equal the distance that a person could walk in a fixed amount of time, which is similar to definitions of the old Western term “league,” which was said to be the distance one could walk in an hour (about three miles). However they might be measured, distances are understandably on the minds of many Shikoku pilgrims. And of course, it’s the inspiring bush warbler that helps the pilgrim in this poem to turn one league into just half a league.


27.
やはらかき俳句の国の藤の花
yawarakaki haiku no kuni no fuji no hana

so delicate
the wisteria flowers
of haiku country


28.
旅半ば変わりのありや花みずき
tabinakaba kawari no ari ya hanamizuki

journey half done—
have the dogwood blossoms
changed at all?


29.
旅半ば何も見えてこず春の風
tabinakaba nani mo miete kozu haru no kaze

although halfway there,
nothing comes to view—
spring wind


30.
遍路杖心無にして空にして
henrozue kokoro mu ni shite kū ni shite

pilgrim’s staff—
I fill my mind
with emptiness

Sibley notes: “One of the psychological aspects of pilgrimage is how after many days of walking your mind slows down to match the pace of your walking. The result, sometimes, is a kind of emptiness that can awaken you to spiritual concerns.”


31.
ただ登る峠に春の風あれば
tada noboru tōge ni haru no kaze areba

climbing earnestly
to the mountain ridge
spring wind


32.
微笑みし野地蔵のゐて里若葉
hohoemishi nojizō no ite satowakaba

no more smiles
on the weather-beaten Jizō . . .
village in leaf

Ikuko Niwano, Shūji Niwano’s widow, chose this poem to be engraved on her husband’s gravestone, perhaps seeing him as a weather-beaten Jizō—one that could no longer smile, even though it always wanted to, because time and hardship had worn the smile away. This poem appeared in Robert Sibley’s book in our earlier translation: “roadside Jizō / smiling in a field— / village of young leaves.” However, we later thought it more accurate to revise the poem to clarify that the stone Jizō has been worn away and no longer smiles. This aspect of the poem seems to more accurately capture what Shūji Niwano had become—a beaten but determined pilgrim of life. This would be a fine poem to end with, as it is indeed a fitting jisei, or death haiku, but we see one final touch of humanity after this in Niwano’s final poem.

33.
結願のビールのうまし大窪寺
kechigan no biiru no umashi ōkuboji

pilgrimage over—
our beer is tasty
at Ōkubo-ji Temple

Ōkubo-ji is the eighty-eighth and last temple on the Shikoku pilgrimage. Here is where henro pilgrims typically leave their kongō-zue (金剛杖) or walking sticks. These sticks are often inscribed with the chant Namu-daishi-henjō-kongō (南無大師遍照金剛) and Dōgyō ninin (同行二人) or “We two pilgrims together” (which also appears on the conical hats that pilgrims wear). This staff represents the body of Kōbō Daishi and supports each pilgrim along the way, except when crossing bridges when it is traditional to keep the staff lifted so as not to disturb Kōbō Daishi, who once sought rest under a bridge. Sibley comments: “I remember this evening well. We reached Ōkubo-ji after a very strenuous day. After our final prayers, we headed to our hotel, arranging to meet for a celebratory dinner. The beer was delicious.” If the previous poem (32) serves as the climax of this set of haiku, this last poem (33) is a sort of coda or denouement. In Shūji Niwano’s final poem, perhaps beer is a substitute for the walking stick after the pilgrimage is over. Yet perhaps his pilgrimage never ended at all.