Encounters in Meguro, a Japanese monk in 1900s Tibet
One day while roaming around Meguro, we spotted a temple festival at one of our neighbourhood temples.
Local youth pounding mochi (rice cake) at the festival.
We decided to explore another nearby temple - the Tenonzan Gohyaku Rakanji Temple (the 500 Arhats temple as it has many statues, each with unique expression). There is a small museum attached to the temple dedicated to a Japanese monk and traveler. As I was browsing the photos I remembered that I had read about this monk before.
It was around 20 years ago when I was myself exploring Western China. I had just discovered the writings of Peter Hopkirk. And it was in a book called “Trespassers on the Roof of the World” in which Hopkirk described Ekai Kawaguchi’s stay in Tibet.
Those days Tibet did not easily allow foreigners in. Yet, there was race on to make sense of Tibet between the Europeans and the rising Asian power Japan. Japan had just wrestled Korea and Taiwan from China and they were wary of the Russians who had designs on Tibet and the area now called Xinjiang.
Kawaguchi spent some time in British India learning Tibetan. He then sneaked into Tibet pretending to be a Chinese physician. He spend around two years in Tibet learning about the cuture and building a name for himself as an effective doctor.
Sometimes an official forms asks me to fill my religion. But they do not have Animism as an option. While interesting that a recent research on my ancestral belief is from a Japanese researcher.
Panjurli (boar spirit deity) headpiece used by dancers. (Image from Wikimedia)
Generally, Bhūta rituals are treated derogatorily by intellectuals and outsiders. However, local people worship ghosts, the dead, ancestors, heroes, animal deities, forest deities, mountain deities, earth deities, and tribal guardian deities. They are important and intimate objects of worship for the locals. In some situations, Devas, the god worshipped by higher class, are mixed or coexist with the lower rank deities called Daivas or spirits called Bhūtas. During rituals, pāddana narratives on the origin myth or historical story of the Bhūtas and Daivas, are chanted before the main rituals, most of which are filled with tragic atmosphere. Often the emotions of envy and grudge are also chanted about, depicting complicated historical background.
When people long for the days of the early web, the glorious idiosyncrasies of personal sites and forums, they are really longing for a time and a space where people were free to communicate their own values. Now that space is owned and rented to the highest bidder. A site like LinkedIn wraps you up into a tiny, uniform package, sets you in an enormous data warehouse next to millions of other tiny people just like you, and sells the lot of you.
Forced Social Isolation Causes Neural Craving Similar to Hunger - Scientific American Blog Network
The need for connection– to form and maintain at least a minimal number of positive, stable, intimate relationships– is a fundamental need that affects our whole being, permeating our entire suite of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. While voluntary solitude can be great fodder for creativity, and being alone doesn’t necessarily indicate loneliness, what happens when people are forced into isolation and are severely deprived of this fundamental human need?
Of getting lost
