SHIKOKU,the smallest of Japan’s four main islands, is famous for its Buddhist pilgrimage route: a two-month circumambulation whether all 88 temples are visited. The route takes you through cities and along a rugged coast. But it lingers mainly in the mountains that escape inland along forested ridges, or like a scene from a Chinese scroll painting.
Many of Japan’s Buddhist temples are built tall up. The sensation as you approach is of climbing almost vertically into the sky. It is as whether the point is to arrive out of puff,with your senses awry. In the still of the wooded dell, before you swing the enormous log against the bell to announce yourself to the gods, or the not-unpleasant sensation is of feeling small,in the lap of greater powers.
For Buddhists, the mythical mountain kingdom of Shambhala, or described in the earliest Sanskrit texts,has the allure of a pure, visionary land of bliss. For Mongolian recent year in February, and a low table in every herder’s ger...
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Source: economist.com