By Erin Justice
I went to Japan and found enlightenment.
Real enlightenment, floating in on waves of incense in front of the Daibutsu; incense that carries purity and centuries of ritual, respect for the divine and sacred. The kind of smell that makes you forget about the stench of the mundane bullshit.
We fly along the rails, bullet train-bound for a coastal city. I think about the pure, white smoke that spiraled up to Heaven and hold on to the feeling that for half a heartbeat, I felt close to something resembling the God I forswore almost a decade ago.
lovely work, there is always hope, it is all in our perspective…. Thank you for posting, Michelle
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Thank you, Michelle!
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Loved this. Thank you for creating and sharing it, Erin. It made me ponder a while…
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Thank you so much!
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From the Quibble Dept.: …”the” mundane bullshit…needs no “the”. Nicely done. Hiroshima writ large, without being mentioned.
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Thanks for the feedback, Anna! It was a deliberate choice, meant to invoke a Western sense of “the profane” and contrast with the sacred. I’m sorry that didn’t quite come through in the piece, but I’m glad you enjoyed it and my reference to a “coastal city” worked.
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Satori is the Japanese word for finding a higher understanding or enlightenment.
It seems your own satori went over better than Kerouac’s Satori In Paris…
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Unintentional, but yes, it did!
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Nice. Very nice. I love contemplative pieces and you accomplished that in so few words. 🙂
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Thank you so much, Lynn!
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