Walking the Pilgrimage (2~17, Jan, 2010, Wakayama, Japan)
Environmental ethics enables us to find appropriate ways to articulate ecosystem values, which calls for nonlinear complex thinking beyond traditional scientific methods. Today, while the devastating effects of the anthropogenic climate crisis are clear, rich and diverse means exist for knowing, understanding, valuing the world and taking action. This calls for a powerful coalition of science, ecohumanities and arts with a solid foundation in environmental ethics. Through this course, we wish to learn and also communicate a profound humbleness and appreciation of the Planet Earth: “to underscore our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known (Carl Sagan)".

Jan 10



Koyasan, the headquarter of Shingon Buddhism, is a temple town up on a 900m mountain. The trail leading up to Koya is the Cho-ishi-michi trail, starting at Jison-in Temple where Kukai's mother resided, as women were not allowed in Koya until late 19c. Jison-in is in the town of Kudoyama (lit. 9 times mountain), as it is said Kukai visited his mother 9 times a month. The Cho-ishi is a stone marker that marks the trail every 109m (cho), starting with No. 180 at Jison-in to No. 1 in Koya. So the trail is approx. 20km. Accompanied by Yasu, who works at Koyasan Tourist Information Centre, we all completed the walk up to Tate-ishi-chaya tea house, the 13km point. 5 of us walked the rest of the trail, mostly covered with snow, and the rest took bus to the temple we stayed - Yochi-in Temple. Yochi-in (lit. cherry blossom pond) is one of the higher ranked temples in Koya, which allowed to carry imperial crest, 16 petal chrysanthemum. The Sho-jin Ryori (temple vegetarian meal) was rather a feast contrary to our expectation. The deep sound of temple bell at 9 took us to a quiet sleep into the Koyasan night.

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