The Way of the 88 Temples

The Henro Michi is the oldest and most famous pilgrimage route in Japan, and it consists of a circuit of eighty-eight temples around the perimeter of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four main islands. Every henro, or pilgrim, is said to follow in the footsteps of Kobo Daishi, the ninth-century ascetic who founded the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Robert Sibley walked this 1,400-kilometer route (roughly 870 miles) in a little more than two months, visiting the sacred sites and performing the rituals. As he had discovered on his pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, what began as a way to escape the confines of everyday life became a journey of surprising absorption in the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of the pilgrimage. Sibley writes of the panorama of sea, sky, and landscape along the route but also of the intimacy of gardens and courtyards, hot springs and waterfalls, where he spent solitary and quiet interludes. As a gaijin, or foreigner, he never saw another non-Japanese pilgrim on the trail during his entire trek. What is of particular interest in this account of his Shikoku pilgrimage are the Japanese people he met on the way, especially those who became his closest companions and his most ardent teachers of the language and the culture. Their own stories unfold as the author narrates his experiences, and the memories they leave behind have a lasting effect.