Passage to Fudaraku

Where to begin with this story.. I believe that the passage of Fudaraku highlights very well what it means to blindly follow ones traditions and cultures just because they are what we are raised in. The main character Konko is a priest of 61 years of age who has been raised at a monastery that partakes in a certain tradition. This tradition however requires oneself to be cast aside into the ocean so that the ocean can guide them to the island of Fudaraku, a mythical island that is said to be pure where one would be able to find the holy diety Kannon at. However this voyage requires the person to be case of with barely any food or supplies, if anything the point of the trip is to die and be reborn again when they arrive at Fudaraku. Now originally these trips as Konko describes it were supposed to be made by monks who are truly devout in their beliefs and have unwavering faith, since you are literally throwing your life away.. With it being the ultimate form of faith one would think that only certain people will undergo this ritual. But the thing is over the recent years before Konko's voyage it seems to have become more of a tradition despite the "spirtual" or level of "faith" a monk may have, at 61 they were expected to go out to sea and throw their lives away from Kannon. If anything I believe that the main theme of this story is being able to see PAST traditions and being able to see how flawed people handle traditions in general. A once sacred ritual that was only made by those who were completely ready in faith had become more of a way to escape from life. I believe the recent monks who took part of the voyage had stopped partaking in the ritual for the original reason and yet poor Konko who was fighting for dear life to be genuine to the ritual wasn't able to become fully faithful to it simply because of all the prior bad examples. His fear of death I believe was caused simply because the original meaning was no longer the real reason for the voyage. Its no wonder why Konko could not come to terms with this ritual through out the entire story.

Discussion Questions: Even though the ritual was considered to be sacred and holy why do you think the monks continued to view it as such even though the people who took part of it were no longer doing it for the sake of "kannon"? Wouldn't that completely go against the point of the ritual? If you were raised as a monk in the monastery wouldn't this kind of behavior be frowned upon?