Brotons, Arnaud
Practice and Representations of Pilgrimage during the Middle Ages in Japan
- 2022.
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While the practice of dhyāna seems to resolve all differences in the Ultimate One, the esotericism schools, from Tibet to Japan, reversed this logic and developed a universe based on a network of symbols capable of manifesting the world of awakening. This led to a geography of sacred places in Japan, whose secret nature was recorded in “documents”, kiroku. One of these, Ozasa’s Secret Notes, Ozasa hiyōroku (1465), reveals the true meaning of the pilgrimage to Kumano, an important place of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism, as a practice of Buddhist awakening. Two paradigms of the practice seem to emerge. The first, expressed by the doctrine of original awakening, hongaku, invites one to go beyond any duality between the pilgrim and the venerated god. The second, formulated by the metaphor of the entry into the womb and the growth of the embryo, insists on the transformation and the journey.