for whom the bell tolls in rokudo chinno-ji

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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS IN ROKUDO CHINNO-JI

Ceren Aksoy Sugiyama

Introduction

A place where one can hardly distinguish what is sacred from what is profane, offers a good starting point to deconstruct the value laden binary oppositions which are assumed to be human universals. In addition to the daily life practices taking place in Japanese households, the Obon rituals 1 and Rokudo Mairi 2, the annual visit to the Rokudo Temple 3, gives us a better understanding of how the Japanese perceive their surroundings. These practices also open a different path in front of us by blurring the dichotomies of the Cartesian legacy such as body and spirit by giving us valuable hints of how to cope with the human non-human interface.

It is ironic that in order to penetrate the Japanese mind one has to involve one’s self with their religion – towards which they are ‘indifferent’ as claimed by Tetsuo (2004) – without even noticing the involvement. It is very uncommon for the Japanese to refer either to Buddhism or Shintoism while explaining his/her specific behavior towards or understanding of the universe. Although the rituals this

1 Also known as Bon festival in Japan. Although it usually takes place in August, the starting day of the festival might change from region to region due to the preference of different calendars throughout the Japan.

2 A mairi is a visit to a temple or shrine for the purpose of prayer. Rokudo Mairi is a visit to Rokudo.

3 Rokudo Chinno Ji, a sub temple of Kennin Ji located in Kyoto.

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text considers has much more to do with both religions, a theological analysis of the rituals is beyond the scope of this article, since an anthropological approach is interested in what people say and practice rather than making normative assumptions about religions. The dialogue between supporters and critiques of religious systems is the subject matter of departments of religion; the dialogue of people who describe the dialogue and its widest possible ramifications in social behavior is that of the anthropological approach to religion (Bharati 1971, 231).

To give the essence of this discussion, the term ‘vernacular religion’ might also be a good choice. According to Primiano (1995: 44): “Vernacular religion is, by definition, religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, interpret, and practice it”. But since the Japanese are ‘indifferent’ to religion, and don’t do the things they do or think as they think because it is the religiously right way of acting or thinking, ‘Cosmological world view’ might be a better choice to catch the Japanese perspective, their way of portraying life.

Throughout this chapter, the fore mentioned rituals are considered the embodiment of the cosmological worldview of the Japanese. Some general information regarding the rituals themselves will be given for the readers who are not familiar with Japan and Japanese Ethno-graphy in the related paragraphs. By penetrating into the Japanese mind, through the rituals and daily practices, the blurry boundaries between living and nonliving; between human and non-human will be acknowledged.

Methodology reconsidered: From participant observation to heuristic research

From its inception, this research was an attempt to understand the relationship between the Japanese, their deeds, and their attitudes towards the after life. As Kasulis argued: “Understanding goes beyond knowing; it includes feeling and imagination, the capacity to project ourselves into the place of Japanese, to imagine at least for a fleeting moment what it is like to be Japanese” (Kasulis 1990, 433). The

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For whom the Bell Tolls in Rokudo Chinno-ji

research was concerned with reflecting the ‘lived experience’ of the Japanese. Dilthey emphasized that: “Reality only exists for us in the facts of consciousness given by inner experience” (Dilthey 1976, 161). The key to reflect the experience of Japanese was catching their reality, as it appeared to them in their daily routines and during the annual rituals.

Empathizing with others is all we can do in our personal relationships in order to have a better understanding of the situations taking place in particular cultural settings. In an unfamiliar place, we are more or less left with the same strategy, whether we are just an outsider or an anthropologist. To act properly in such a setting, one needs to have a deeper understanding of the sensibilities of others. If that particular person happens to be a researcher, besides acting properly, she will be desperately seeking to translate those sensibilities to the readers by describing every detail caught by her eye – and not lose it in translation. At the same time, for the sake of validity, the researcher is bound to manifest her position in that particular setting. She has to state the reason she is in that particular setting. She has to define her personal connections and ties to the persons she has been spending time with as that can define the tone of their relationships.

All of the performances mentioned in the article have the potential to be read as embodiments of different experiences, each presenting their own reality. This was the main epistemological assumption that shaped this study, and the reason behind it being based on participant observation. There was a deliberate attempt to develop empathy with the participants of the rituals by sharing the same space and environment with them. This included sleeping on a futon with a hard and small pillow throughout the fieldwork. Nevertheless, too much projecting of myself into the place of others led to a change in the design of the research. Methodologically speaking, the heuristic process took priority over the participant observation. Moustakas defined the heuristic research process as follows:

“… a process of internal search through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investigation and analysis. The self of the researcher is present throughout the process and, while understanding the phenomenon with

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increasing depth, the researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self-knowledge… The process of discovery leads investigators to new images and meanings regarding human phenomena, but also realizations relevant to their own experiences and lives.” (Matsoukas 1990, 9)

While heuristic research hasn’t been on the forefront, ‘self reflexivity’ became a much more popular term within the ethnographic literature (Scholte, 1974; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Geertz, 1988; Okely & Callaway: 1992; Salzman, 2002) and has attracted tremendous attention since the 1960’s. “As a field-based practice, self-reflexivity occurs when ethnographers become methodologically self-conscious regarding the relationship between what they do in the field and what they come to know about themselves and the others they encounter in their research” (Supriya, 2001: 226). What ‘they’ have lived through gradually turns into what ‘I’ have lived through. The ethnographic intention loses its importance in leaving its place to an autoethnography. According to Ellis (2004), autoethnography seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience. It is left to the reader to decide whether the subsequent text has truth and validity, whether the writer is true to herself or disingenuous about the way she experienced a social setting. Pratt (1986: 26-31) has already demonstrated what ethnography as a writing practice has inherited from other genres such as travel writing and autobiography, and she highlights the importance and ‘memorability’ of the personal narratives within an ethnography. Autoethnography should at least be given a chance to demonstrate its strength in the ethnographic literature.

How it all started: The view of a big kanji

The research I undertook was in fact grounded in continuous and profound reconsideration of ‘my being in Japan’. I found myself there in a particular moment because I married Japanese. It was not because my main area of research interest was Japan, but Japan was where my husband was born and raised and where his parents live. In order to

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be included in his circle of intimacy, a term that will be elaborated later, I have had and in fact still have a motivation to understand how he and his family perceives the world. My experience of Obon and Rokudo Mairi was important in its own right because of my different background: I am Turkish, raised in a country with a Sunni Muslim majority, and I have spent all my life in Turkey, excluding an exchange year in the US. Upon my arrival from Turkey, the modifications that I had to make to key terms triggered an interrogation of my own social science perspective. This consists of the challenging process of discarding all the value-laden dichotomies and ‘bracketing’ the whole experience. This phenomenological reduction requires a continuous interrogation of the self.

During my first visit to Japan, I was on the terrace of Midori’s 4 apartment when I first recognized the big kanji “¶” carved on one of the mountains surrounding Kyoto with a length of approximately 68 meters. I was told that the huge kanji was the hidari Daimonji 5-one of the five bonfires 6 set a light only on the 16th of august during Gozan no Okurubi 7. Later on, my questions regarding the significance of the bonfires in Kyoto came one after another. This was the first time I heard about the event Rokudo Mairi, one of the oldest rituals of Kyoto that takes place in August. This ritual involves a visit paid to a specific temple in Kyoto to call the spirits of the dead relatives. All I could think was whether or not they actually believed that their relatives would come and visit them upon their ringing the bell

4 My husband Tsuyoshi’s sister.5 Hidari means ‘left’ in Japanese. Daimonji is written with a kanji ± and

read as ‘dai’: ‘large’ in Japanese.6 The names of the 5 bonfires according to the order of their lightning during

Gozan no Okurubi: Daimonji, ‘Myo’ and ‘Hou’ (The kanji character “Myo” is set alight on Mount Mantoro and the kanji character “Hou” is set alight on Mount Daikokuten, but this pair is counted as one), Funa-gata (The Funa-gata is a bonfire in the shape of a boat. The bow of this boat, also known as the “Spirit Ship”, is said to point toward the Buddhist Western Paradise of the Pure Land. The ringing of a bell at Saiho-ji Temple is the signal to light this bonfire), and lastly, Torii-gata (which is in the image of a torii, or a shinto shrine gate).

7 Gozan no Okurubi means “sending-off fire [Okurubi] of five mountains [Gozan]”

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of the Temple. At one point, I realized that I might have been asking the wrong questions to grasp their cosmological point of view. Something made me uncomfortable and I felt an urge to dig deeper on this subject. The questions I kept asking were already loaded with prejudices based on my own personal history. I deemed it necessary to revise my questions. As I started to review the literature on Japanese Studies, Miyazaki Hayao’s anime movie ‘Spirited Away”, helped recontextualize my attitude towards the Japanese cosmology. It not only inspired a new perspective but also added deeper meaning to Tetsuo’s (2004: xxxi) suggestion, that “ If the monotheistic Judeo-Christian traditions may be called religions of faith, perhaps it may be said that Japanese tradition has formed a religion of feeling or apprehension of the sacred”.

The change in ‘my understanding’ of their relationship to their dead relatives and how my understanding of ‘other world’ transformed, was crucial at this point. It was manifested and became more apparent by my outward expression on the way to the main Buddhist temple in Eiheiji during Obon. The reception by my Japanese relatives to my reactions in the burial grounds and temple also inspired me to reposition myself. At that particular moment, this study began to take a heuristic direction. I started to credit my own experiences and express my own understanding of the ritual, leaving aside what kind of a relation others have with the dead and what they experience during the ritual for a later, more detailed study.

One has to confess every prejudice – which is exactly what an autobiography enables one to do – in order to capture the reality of oneself and others, so as to eventually bring enlightenment. It is important to highlight the fact that one doesn’t experience inner reality only verbally. Experience is an embodied activity. It came to us with five senses: what we see (dark green landscapes, rounded mountains), what we hear (song, music, prayer, and the squeaks of the wooden floors), what we touch (the rope of a temple bell, warm wooden floors), what we smell (incense, the scent of tatami). As a bodily being, what we go through improves our experience and interacts with our way of handling it. Although my point of departure was to gain more insight about their feelings regarding the rituals, I was bound with what I could observe and derive from the participant’s

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performance and behavior during the festival. Soon, it was revealed to me that the primary reality there to be discovered and manifested was my own inner experience. For this reason, my study became more and more about the observer’s (my) self-reflexive understanding of the local’s self-reflexive understanding, rather than a simple observation of ‘them’. During the fieldwork, it was my way of thinking that was changing. Many of the ethic or analytic categories waiting to be used at the beginning of the research disappeared as I became more familiar and more intimate with the surrounding.

Being in Japan: My experience of Obon and Rokudo Mairi

In the initial plan, the sole focus of the fieldwork was to be on the Rokudo Mairi. However at some point, it seemed no longer possible to extract only the Rokudo Mairi experience while leaving out the Obon Festival and the many details that are embedded in the daily practices of the Japanese. And so this chapter attempts to give specific examples from different spaces with regard to similar phenomena, as they are all thought to share a common essence and be part of a similar world-view. Respective examples are given of practices witnessed and experiences lived in a village named Hiranta 8, in the Sugiyama household in Hiranta, and in Rokudo Chinno- Ji. Throughout the article, I avoid using the term ‘ancestor worship’ to define the Japanese way of communicating with the dead. As Plath (1964: 306) has argued: “Twentieth century writers have protested against the application of the term in general against its application to the Japanese in particular”.

During my first visit to the Sugiyama Household, my husband Tsuyoshi put a pack of cigarettes – a specific brand he had just bought at the grocery store – on a shelf in the bedroom of his parents. He placed the box of cigarette near a framed picture of his older brother, who had passed away some 20 years ago. I was told that it was a ‘gift’

8 Located in San’yo Onoda-shi, Yamaguchi Prefecture.

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for his brother who smoked that specific brand of cigarette. During my second visit, I first realized that my husband’s father, Hiroyoshi, would serve a small amount of rice just cooked for breakfast in a brassy cup and place it in the corner of the room where we slept to give his blessings to the Butsudan 9. It was much more surprising to notice the box of Turkish Dessert we had brought with us in front of the butsudan too. Soon after it became a habit for me to keep track of the things Hiroyoshi would offer to the Butsudan.

In Hiranta on the 6th of august just before the Obon period, some of the families in the village including my husband’s family, attended the bamboo burning ceremony in front of the local altar, ‘hokora’ 10. The family graves resting under the bamboo trees were cleaned. Not only during the Obon festival do the spirits of dead come back to this world. Ancestral spirits are often thought to live with the family or at least visit the household once in a while. It is thought that the spirits are out there in the forests and on the mountains, keeping watch and protecting the household. As with living people, they have emotions, feelings, and appetites. They must be treated well, taken care of for their help and guardianship. Diligent care can be practiced in the daily routine as well as during a ritual. Each moment can be perceived as a means of paying tribute, or a means of keeping intimacy with the dead intact. “As a corporation, Japanese household includes both living and dead members, and both are essential to its existence” (Plath 1964, 307). It is very common for the living to take any occasion to prepare dishes or gather flowers that the departed prefers.

There are also other festivals that share identical qualities with Obon, such as the equinox festival also known as ‘Higan’. It is also a festival in which people welcome their ancestors returning to the village (Caille, 1998). In the traditional calendar, the beginning of the year corresponds to the beginning of spring, and so the Obon festival was supposed to be celebrated at the beginning of autumn.

9 A wooden cabinet found in Buddhist households. The cabinet has doors, and inside an object of devotion and respect is placed. The doors are usually opened at sunrise, and closed at sunset.

10 A “hokora” or “hokura” is a miniature Shinto shrine that can be found on the precincts of a larger shrine.

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But nowadays in some parts of Japan, Obon is celebrated during July 11. As with the Obon, most of the festivals taking place in Japan are related to gods and spirits. The arrivals and departures of the gods and spirits are repetitive. As Caillet emphasizes: “Description of most of the annual rites reveals how nearly all the ceremonies posses multiple meanings. It seems that a ritual has no finite meaning, but is fundamentally a moment in the course of the time which is considered sacred and on which is conferred a wide spectrum of possible meanings” (Caillet 1998, 19). It can be argued that even the categorization of such festivals as sacred days can also be at odds because the ordinary days themselves are periods between two festivals. So every time segment between any two rituals is characterized and defined by the rituals which start and end it. Each period evokes a different smell, a different type of food and a different flower. And the Japanese mind can find a sacredness even in a fleeting moment of an ordinary day.

In a similar vein, when compared to a person brought up in geography under islamic influence, ‘death’ and ‘being dead’ have different meanings for the Japanese. In Turkey, going to the graveyard is a moment when the longing for the dead reaches a climax. And it is very common for people leaning over a grave to burst into tears. With these scenes in my mind, in the burial ground of the Yatas 12, I felt as if, at the very least, I should look blue if not start crying, while thinking about the old grandma whom I had never met. But everyone else seemed pleased while sweeping the weeds and bushes on the grave in a relaxed atmosphere. That day, however, I could hold my tears.

For some Japanese families, part of the Obon is also visiting the main temple of the Buddhist sect to which they belong. On route to Eihei-ji, one of the two main temples of soto sect of Zen Buddhism,

11 Actually there are 3 different dates for Obon througout Japan. According to the Chinese calender, Obon is celebrated on the 15th day of 7th month; when this is converted to the Gregorian calender, the date changes each year. And in some regions Obon is celebrated according to the solar calender and the date is July 15th. However, the most common date is based on the lunar calendar and falls on August 15th: this date is also perceived as the beginning of autumn by most of the people in Japan.

12 Yata is the family name of Tsuyoshi’s maternal lineage.

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where my husband’s older brother’s hyoid bone is placed- my mother in law, sister in law and husband were trying to decide where to eat. I was really upset, for I incorrectly thought that everyone was trying to repress his or her sorrow. I was trying to imagine how my own mother would have felt on our way to a place where one of my brother’s bones was placed. With these ideas in my mind, I eventually burst into tears. Everybody was puzzled in the car and trying to understand what was going on. They thought maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go to Eihei-ji after all. But it was really the temple of eternal peace with its clean 13 wooden floors on which one is supposed to walk barefoot. Though, it was a crowded day with people coming from distant locations to pay visit to their relatives and ask for prayers from the Priests for them, the place was refreshing with its adorable scenery. And I didn’t feel the tension of being in the ‘main’ temple of a sect at all. I was eased from the stress I had put myself through on the way. At the end of the day, I come up with the feeling that it was worth taking a 4 hours ride by car.

Rokudo Chinno-ji is a sub temple of Kennin-ji and is as well known as Rokudo-san. Around here, people send off the deceased to a burial mound known as Toribeno 14, also known as Rokudo-no-Tsuji 15, which was believed to be the border between this world and the other. Rokudo 16 refers to the six Buddhist realms to which every living thing is supposed to be sent, each according to its deeds in this world. They consist of Jigoku-do (hell), Gaki-do (hungry spirits), Chikusho-do (animals), Shura-do (asuras), Ningen-do (humans), and Tenjo-do (heavenly beings). Legend has it that Takamuro Ono, who served the Emperor during the day and Enma 17 at night, went to the other world through the well behind the main hall. For four days, from August 7th to 10th of every year, Rokuodo Mairi is conducted. During this time, many people visit the temple to strike the ‘Mukae

13 Although, Tsuyoshi’s mother, Saeko, complained about the dirtyness of the temple in that time of the year because of the crowd, I barely noticed dirt and dust on the floors.

14 The hilly area located in the Southeast15 The Corner of Rokudo16 While “Roku” means “six”, “do” means “way”.17 Known also as Yama, the ruler of the other world in Buddhist mythology.

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Gane”, the welcoming bell, to invite the spirits of the ancestors back to this world. In ancient times this temple was thought to be the entrance to a famous burial ground, and the crossroads in front of the temple were considered to be a border between worlds. As Obon approaches, people come here between 6: 00 and 23: 00 to summon their ancestors’ spirits by striking the temple bell. Near the entrance, stands selling food and flowers are lined with customers, and many locals also buy a branch called koya-maki, believing their ancestors’ spirits can take hold of it and use it as a means for returning to this world. Rokudo Mairi is the encapsulation of the experiences of the people living in Kyoto. Its different construction by each person makes the ritual flexible and a timeless experience for each generation that takes part in the visit. On the 9th of august, a very hot and humid day in Kyoto, it was 19:30 by the time we arrived at Yasaka dori, a street by the temple. While we waited in the queue, the women right in front of us talked about how it used to be even more crowded. Old people, middle-aged people, children, and also a few tourists such as myself tried to observe other people and understand what was going on. People were carrying thin wooden pre-bought cards in their hands so as to ask the monks to write the Buddhist name 18 of a deceased person on it. I tried to imitate their behavior during the ritual, their bodily posture, so that I might embody their experiences as a bodily being. It was like trying to eat what they eat how they eat it, or trying to cross the street just like they do. So I waited in the queue for nearly one hour. When my time came, I was handed the rope of the Mukae Gane by the Monk and like every other resident of Kyoto, I rang it twice.

18 The deceased receive a new Buddhist name (D¡, kaimyô; lit. “precept name”) written in Kanji. This name supposedly prevents the return of the deceased if his name is called.

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Conclusion

A performance taking place during Obon or Rokudo Mairi can be understood as a moment where human and divine worlds come into contact, it is such a moment that the significance or meaning of which can not be clarified or verbalized easily even by the Japanese themselves. Both Obon and Rokudo Mairi shapes ones experience of the other world and the death of their beloved ones. The performances are revealed as a climax of intense relations between human and non-human. Whether one defines them as dead or non-human, one can be sure of that they are always present among the Japanese. But there are also moments such as Rokudo Mairi, when it feels as if they feel like coming closer, or the Japanese feel like dropping by at the end of a tiresome day. Their performance of placation is a way of expressing their reverence. Since living or dead or non-living doesn’t differ, each deserves reverence in itself. And intimacy could be thought of as the feeling felt at the end of each performance. Not only during yearly rituals, but also, on a humble day this intimacy may be sought many times – at a stone, a tree, a temple on the way to work, or a butsudan at home.

I now believe Kyoto keeps the spirits in its mountains, rivers, and trees. With the case of Rokudo Mairi, Kyoto is the embodiment of a oneness with nature/with living and nonliving things/with the kamis 19 of the city. Japanese, have no separate spaces for the dead and the living, nor do they discriminate between living and non-living. The boundaries between this world and other aren’t strictly drawn. Even words have a spirit just as a stone has a spirit of its own. As westerners emphasize their independence, their infinite capabilities, Japanese accentuate their dependence on nature. They are aware of their limits and capabilities yet they cherish the harmony, appreciate cooperation and they praise that cooperation by giving their blessing whenever and where ever they can, with an urge to try to do their

19 Which can be a god, e.g. Hujin god of the wind is a kami, but Mount Fuji is also considered kami. A special sword, emperor, or a great warrior after death can all be considered kami. Kasulis (1990) translates kami as ‘sacred presence’.

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best to assure their continuity. In return, they end up with feelings of security, comfort and tranquility.

Kasulis (1990) uses ‘intimacy’ as a key word in order to understand Japanese values and worldview. This term might also be useful to better understand the relationships between the living and the dead; between living and nonliving things, between kami and human or between the emperor and the humble Japanese. Kasulis demonstrates that Japanese morality has placed a primary emphasis on preserving and enhancing intimacy. Intimacy cannot be understood as a distinctively Japanese experience, most people establish intimate relationships within their social circles. In a phenomenological sense, this intimacy might also be compared with romantic love, with how one expresses romantic love as a feeling of oneness with the lover. Sometime it is argued that this kind of love happens only once in a life time, but in Japan one can perceive all sorts of loves and that feeling of oneness with people, with kami, with nature, and even with non-living things. Kasulis suggests that: “To the Japanese way of thinking, we are most human when we form bonds of belonging with nature, with each other, with our nation. We are most ourselves not when we know the world, but when we feel at home in it” (Kasulis 1990, 447).

During the ritual performance, feelings of oneness and reverence reaches a climax that creates an intimate communication with the non-human, with the fellow Japanese, with all sorts of living and non-living entities embodied by Japan. In this particular moment, in which kami is present, the ‘person’ of the visiting spirit hasn’t any significance. The quality of sharing the moment is priceless. To a Japanese, there are many opportunities during the year, during each month and even in a typical day to recreate the intimacy, to share a very brief moment, and offer gratitude. This can be practiced easily with a clap of hands on the way to work while passing by a temple, on the way to the rice fields passing by the hokoro, offering newly cooked food to the butsudan at home.

But still, no ritual would entail exactly the same experience; each person might have a slightly different expectation. These differences can be further elaborated in a more detailed study. Yet it is sensible to assume that the ritual might be a different experience for an old lady visiting Eihei-ji and a child coming to the Rokudo Chinno-Ji

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with a hope of meeting her mother who has just passed away. I can still recall the little girl’s worried voice asking her father if her mother would be still waiting for them since they had been late. And these rituals held a different experience for me both as an anthropologist and as a new comer, blurring the blacks and whites into a multitude of shaded of grays. Prior to my being in Japan, in Rokudo Chinno-ji, in Eihei-ji, in many shrines, temples, landscape gardens, and in Japanese villages, the idea of this kind of intimacy, reverence and oneness was unfamiliar to me. In Rokudosan, I rang the bell just as the others before me, and at the end of the day I asked myself if the spirits actually enjoyed being back.

for whom the bell tolls in rokudo chinno-ji

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