Smoky Mountain Peace Pagoda

Thank goodness for the Buddhists.

Seriously, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to tolerate this trip without their presence. I love Jun-san, despite questioning her judgment at times – and Gilberto I just want to take home with me so I can have his smile and hugs available at all times.

We were recently able to spend three nights at the Smoky Mountain Peace Pagoda, a temple of the Nipponzan Myohoji order that Jun-san belongs to.
Run by Itsume Shonen and Denise Anju-san, it was the haven for us after several days of strife and struggle both in the greater world of the camp, and our little intimate family.

I’m not gonna go into so much of that here; just don’t want to go there at the moment.



Anyway, this place was set way, way on top of a mountain with the Smoky’s in the background. It was Buddhist-serene in every way – quiet, clean, neat and lovely.
When we arrived there we could hear the sound of about 20 drums banging out na mu myo ho ren ge kyo. It was cool. The most we normally get to hear is about 6 or 8 at a time. So to hear that reverbing off of the wood walls and down into the canyon was immediately comforting to me.

We found ourselves a little campsite off in the woods and began helping prepare lunch with some of the local temple volunteers. I found out that a woman named Beth had recently hiked the Camino, the Spanish trail I will be taking on in a couple of months here. She gave me some good pointers about the trip while we chopped carrots.



Found out that my friend Lisa from back in Portland knows Itsume and Denise from Peace Walks she has done down in Georgia – so that was a nice little connect that I was able to pass on.

I was able to attend a couple of prayer services, which were most comforting and hear some readings from their order’s founder…who…I will get the name wrong I know it, so let’s just call him the Temple founder for now – I think a name used for him is Guriji Fuji – but that’s not his full name, kind of a fond nickname – anyway – we got to hear from his book. I heard a passage that struck me, as it seemed it could’ve been written about this damn walk. The next morning I asked Sister Denise if I could borrow a copy of the book to quote the passage and she said,
“Oh, we were going to give you a copy of this book.”

Cool.

I wasn’t expecting that at all – it’s a wonderful gift; I’ll have to show you a picture of the calligraphy Itsume did for me as an inscription a little later.



It was a terrific respite and it was all I could do not to just flee the walk and stay there indefinitely. But I hope to be back at some point and am considering doing the SOA walk in November if my money holds out.