Morning. Ueno Station, Tokyo.
It’s the end of May and I’m patiently waiting for the train that will carry me to the Kanagawa prefecture. Looking around I see salarymen and salary women ready for their working day, aligned two to two. The place isn’t quiet, even if they don’t speak to each other: in the air, speaker communications and information from conductors.
The reputation and punctuality of the Japanese public transports are fully deserved; every time I travel by train or metro I find myself surprised about how easy was to get used to it.
A Yamanote Line train arrives: few travelers get off, many others get on. After every stop, the personal space becomes smaller and it couldn’t be different because this circular line connects the main Tokyo districts. My stop is in Shinagawa Station, where I get on a Yokusuka Line train where I spend the next 50 min.
The second part of this travel is very comfortable. There are few travelers on board, maybe because of the rain of the previous night, and looking outside the window I see buildings becoming smaller while nature grows: hills on the right and sea on the left.
Kamakura Station, it’s time to get off and deeply breathe in the air of this place. It carries the scent of a special ground – used for forging magnificent blades – extracted for centuries from these green hills.
“Well, where do I go now?”. I take my smartphone because I can’t orientate myself in the Raising Sun without using GPS, internet services, or basic Japanese language. But this time the fate challenges me (or gives me a chance, your opinion).
I open Google Maps and write down the destination (Kōtoku-in, in this case, to visit the famous Amida Buddhagiant statue). *CLICK*
Street indications. *CLICK*
Choose your position: geolocalization *CLICK*
23 minutes by foot. “Ok, let’s go”.
I have a phone so I totally ignore the “big-yellow-touristic-sign” hung in the station: a big mistake. So it takes me a few hundred meters to notice that something isn’t working as expected: the arrow showing my position is following a random pattern, no matter in which direction I move or I swing the screen. I restart my device one, two, three times… but it’s useless. I give up. For the first time in this Country, the GPS service doesn’t work well.
“Resilience power, come to me!”
The phone is again in my pocket when I reach a wide square. Here, I get up to the tip of my feet to look around because “maybe the head of the big statue is visible from here”. Even at that moment, I don’t realize that I used the wrong station exit (I’ll do it only months later, watching the shots taken during this travel).
“If the Great Buddha of Kamakura wants to see me, then he’ll do” I tell myself while following a group of students “surely directed to an interesting place”. Letting things happen, suddenly I feel happy.
Some corners later, I face a Totoro hardcover. Kamakura isn’t a big city and I am in the major shopping street: Komachi-dori. It’s early and most of the shopkeepers haven’t started their working day yet, but in a couple of hours the street is going to be full with scents, sounds, colors and many different human shades.
I leave the group and reach the foot of a hill wondering what direction to take. Looking around I search for a “sign” and I decide to have found it in a western guy dressed as a tourists do. Best of all, he walks like who knows where he’s going.
I follow him by a distance. We go over a little wood with a red torii at the entrance (referring to the Shinto believes, a torii is an access portal to sanctuary – jinja – or a sacred area). The sun is rising and so do the temperature and I realize that my tea bottle is over. “Where are we going? Where is HE going? Where are the vending machines when I need them? But I can’t stop to buy a drink or I lost him…”
Some steps later I find a tiny spanish restaurant. “Here? What?! Someone is felt in love with this place” I think while I notice that you can see the sea from here. “They’re right…”
And then the western guy turns to his right. There are touristic buses parked on a large square in front of a temple. A group composed of few monks is moving solid over the wooden doors. “We’ve arrived. I don’t know where. But here we are.”
I was at the Kencho-ji without knowing it: the most important and probably the older zen temple of the Japanese Rinzai Buddhist cult. Its opening is dated 1253 AC. Some expert believes that there is another zen temple 50 years older than this: the Jufuku-ji, also ubicated in Kamakura.
I can only appreciate the aesthetic and superficial aspect of this place because I know so little about zen philosophy. I hear the sound of nature mixed with the rhythm of scissors that some monks use into the older zen garden of the entire Japan.
The place is not crowded so I try to sit in the space dedicated to meditation but I can’t relax because I am not comfortable if people walk near me (even if they don’t see me). So I keep on visiting, praying and thanking everywhere is possible, especially in front of the statue of Buddha Jizo, trespassed and travelers protector.
Schoolchildren eat their breakfast under the bonsho: the big bell typical of Buddhist temples, this one is ancient like the temple itself and it is a national treasure.
I leave the main area of Kencho-ji following the pathway along the hill and I daydream about living in one of those wooden houses surrounded by hydrangeas.
A group of little students with a pink hat overtakes me. One of them waves me and greets me at the western way: “Hallo!” she says. “Hi!” I tell her back. The children look to each other and laugh. One of them runs ahead and shouts out loud “Rezu go!” (let’s go). It’s my time to laugh because their vitality is contagious and makes me feel welcomed.
My eyes follow the pathway. In front of me: a stone torii, sharped ladders directed towards the highest point of the hill and a hawk painting circular routes high in the sky.
Climbing that stairs is exhausting but well rewarded. I am amazed when I enter the ritual purification space, surrounded by Tengu statues (Tengu are creatures of the traditional iconography). The statues are depicted as men “disguised as bird”: looking their back you can see a well carved structure supporting fake wings and a knot that holds a beak mask on the mouth.
The hawk is still twirling in the air.
Few meters to climb still: the landscape is worth it. From this high you have a wonderful sight of the whole Sagami bay and the Fuji-san (this one only in the limper days)! Not surprising, even here you can find a vending machine And I sip the best royal milk tea ever tried (until today) sitting on a bench and observing the boats sailing in that cobalt blue sea.
I have mixed my energy with the energy of this sacred place and now it’s time to face the most important thing: there is a special place I have to see, the true reason of my presence here in Kamakura.
I walk along the same path, but in opposite direction. Few hours ago the Komachi-dori was sleepy and now it’s full of life, as expected: I reach the last alley on the right and here I find the Masamune Sword and Blade Workshop.
Two showcases allow to see the internal space that is decorated in a traditional way. A limited number of blades are in exposure and between them, on an expositor, a katana and a wakizashi. For a moment I am disappointed from this simple place and I am totally wrong: my western mind waited for a majestic and regal place. But a place like that would be far from the Modesty failing in one of the founding values of the warriors believe: the Umility.
Near to me, a man with white hair bends over to his nephew and talks tenderly to him pointing something inside the armory; the child’s eyes are wide open.
I can’t go away from here, my body feels like stone and even crossing the street is an achievement. That empty room beyond the showcase works like a magnet to me; the Master Tsunahiro Yamamura (Masamune XXIV) is not inside, instead, he’s working on the back. From a half-open door comes the rhythmic sound of the warm metal beaten, the shadow projected from his moving arm is well visible.
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Warm drops fell down my cheeks and I don’t feel ashamed. I stand here, with my Heart and my Soul to honor one of the reality and mastery that I must keep in consideration at the moment. I close my eyes and exhale slowly before moving back; my eyelids open again when I am sure the workshop is behind me and I can’t see it anymore. My Heart is full with Gratitude for the opportunity I had.
I can’t stay more in Kamakura because there is an Italian friend waiting for me in Tokyo. How strange is to meet again someone you miss for a long time in a place so distant like this. I’m amazed by the way human beings are connected through subtle wires as long as the planet itself: if it’s written that someone will come back to you for a good reason then he/she’ll do, no matter the distance or the moment.
I am back in Ueno… and now the GPS works great.
© Photo by Irene Lorenzini
