7 years ago I did a pilgrimage in Japan. It took me a month to walk the island of Shikoku; days of ceaseless walking, contemplating and living in the moment. I encountered innumerable kind and genuine strangers while I walked that island and I also came across people that, whilst not so kind and genuine, did teach me a valuable lesson in human nature. It was the third week of my walk when one such encounter springs to mind. I was sitting down to dinner with a table of strangers. The dinner was hosted by a kind person who would take pilgrims into his home and give them shelter for the night. The generous human spirit was common in this island of Japan where pilgrims had walked the same trail for over a thousand years. It was a polite dinner, as is often the case when a group of strangers sit down together. I conversed in my broken Japanese to those around me and it was clear I was a foreigner to the country. It took me a while before I felt the tension in the air. I could see the man at the other end of the table getting more and more agitated. As the table went quiet, I realised this old man who was in the midst of an angry tirade, was directing his anger at me. He took umbrage to the foreigners entering Japan. I, as the only foreigner on the table, became his target. The dinner was an uncomfortable affair whilst this man stood on his soap box holding forth his diatribe; as though the louder he spoke, the greater the truth. The host and others tried to intervene but the innate politeness of the Japanese meant there were no overt confrontations. I sat quietly throughout the dinner and let his baseless words roll off me.
That night I thought about this old man and how I could avoid him the next morning. Alas, the pilgrim’s trail is a well trodden path and later that morning, whilst I was alone on the trail with only trees and nature around me, I saw the old man sitting on a rock up ahead. I kept walking as there was no other way but forward and as I passed the old man, I looked him in the eye and nodded a greeting at him. He looked slightly taken aback but instinctively nodded back. And with that, I continued on my path.
That pilgrimage felt like a tiny microcosm of all the ups and downs in life, squeezed into a month. 7 years later, I can still draw on the experiences I had on my pilgrimage to guide me in the present day.
This is what that experience has taught me: it doesn’t matter how loudly someone proclaims their truth; it is still only their version coloured by their experiences and perspective in life. There are those who will take at face value what they hear. Then there are those who will listen and hopefully seek the truth. I could have held onto my anger at the injustice of this old man’s words but instead I chose to acknowledge it and continue on my path. I did not let that one bad encounter ruin all the good I experienced during the pilgrimage.
